MadamGoodnight said:

RKJCNE said:

A well written pop song can be sung by anyone.

Some people are tone deaf and have no business singing at all.

Anyone with a recording contract has an understanding of tone, rhythm, tempo, etc.

Come on now!

jayARDAHB said:

MadamGoodnight said:

Some people are tone deaf and have no business singing at all.

Anyone with a recording contract has an understanding of tone, rhythm, tempo, etc.

Come on now!

Exactly.

smoothcriminal12 said:

duccichucka said:

Timmy's got my point: you cannot point to a particular time in pop music

and state it was universally accepted as "good."

If you believe that music is bad today only; or, that music yesterday was better

than music today, then yes, I stand by my assertion that you lack perspective

and don't know nothing about music history.

Universal acclaim does not equal being awful.

Criminal,

Where, in the post you responded to, do I assert universal acclaim not being

equal to awful? That doesn't even make any sense. I think maybe you meant

to say "Universal acclaim does not equal being good" which makes more sense.

(That's not what I was saying, however).

And my rebuttal to that would be: yes, of course - to believe that is to believe in

a fallacious argument. What I'm saying is that, in the context of the radio, i.e.,

pop formats, there has never been a time when music was consistently good or

bad. So bemoaning how awful music is today is to lack a historical perspective:

pop radio has always been where shitty music and great music and so-so music

have co-existed. Timmy said it perfectly and better than I did: shit music just

didn't fall out the sky - it's always been popular on the radio. About five years

ago I posted a big ass essay here about good music/bad music and listed all the

Billboard Hot 100 tunes. Guess what? There was as much shite music as was

good music charting.

What is debatable obviously is what constitutes "shite music."

...You're trying to pick an argument with me and it's unnecessary!

rialb said:

HAPPYPERSON said:

Top 40/Pop radio was once a battleground for some of the industry’s best singers. Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey and Celine Dion were lauded for their massive vocal ranges and incredible skill whereas those acts who were unable to compete with a plethora of grandiloquent high notes were mocked. In fact, if artists such as Madonna and Janet Jackson didn’t compensate for their lack of vocal ability with shocking visuals and dance-heavy performances then they would have had no chance of scoring a hit single.

Absolute bullshit. The reason that Madonna and Janet were successful is because their songs were very catchy.

More bullshit. The author certainly seems to have an awfully high opinion of themself.

It's interesting that he only looks back at the last 25 years of the pop charts and doesn't look at the bigger picture, because historically a female singer with exceptionally outstanding musical vocals becoming a uber-pop superstar is a rarity. Most of the biggest female pop stars in rock history have had average to just decent vocals but became famous because they had well written, catchy songs written for them and/or had the ability to entertain via other means like dancing or sex appeal, like Madonna, Tina Turner, or Janet Jackson, or was a skilled musician or songwriter, like Carole King, Carly Simon, or Alicia Keys. For all the talk about Diana Ross being one of the first true divas, she didn't have exceptionally good vocal chops; in fact some pople think Mary Wilson was a better singer in her time with the Supremes than Ms. Ross, but Diana Ross had stage presence. Donna Summer had excellent vocal chops due to her background in theater, but she initially came onto the disco scene as a sex kitten. Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn had thin voices but sang within their range for their country songs, while Natalie Cole and Minnie Ripperton had great vocies but were only big in the R&B niche, and in Minnie Ripperton's case, she died before people could discover her full potential.

Even Olivia Newton-John, arguably one of the most popular female pop singers prior to the MTV era, had a pretty thin voice. She's mostly celebrated for her turn in the movie Grease and her catchy song "Physical" which blew up just at the start of the early 80's fitness craze.

The whole Whitney/Mariah/Celine/Xtina quadumvrate was as much a testament to the record companies marketing of these ladies as much as their strong vocals. In each of these cases, they had strong record company backing, and they were immediately geared towards a pop sound and audience, even if it meant they had to whitewash Whitney's true personality and subvert Mariah's desire to sing straight R&B. And in Christina's case, she was part of the whole late 90's teen pop wave, even if she chafed at being included in that group.

In conclusion, good singers fail on Pop radio today because they overwhelm lazy listeners with their vocal talents.

Good singers who expect me to care to their vocal talents are even more boring than Rihanna tiny vocal and stylistic range. I don’t care how well Mary J., Xtina, Mariah Carey, or Celine Dion can sing, because they’re all relying on their vocal skill and not doing anything interesting. If vocalists want to come back, they need to start partnering with better songwriters and producers. But right now most of them are about as interesting as Dionne Warwick was in the 1990s.

And for the record, Whitney doesn’t sing well. That voice is shot.

I understand the sentiment behind the author's words.

Yes, bad music always existed, but good music was accessible too. And it was within your reach in radio, TV or magazine, you didn't have to find it featured in some podcast in somebody's blog, or in the back of a records pile somewhere in some moms & pops record store.

Nowadays, everything NEW that doesn't sound like noise and actually have music, with decent singing voices, I found out by accident.

Of course it is a matter of opinion but the late '50s/early '60s was arguably quite a dire time for pop music. Many of the early rock and roll stars were fading and the teen idols, with their extremely bland music, were taking over. Certainly there was still great music being made but pre British Invasion the mainstream pop music scene was arguably at a nadir.

rialb said:

Of course it is a matter of opinion but the late '50s/early '60s was arguably quite a dire time for pop music. Many of the early rock and roll stars were fading and the teen idols, with their extremely bland music, were taking over. Certainly there was still great music being made but pre British Invasion the mainstream pop music scene was arguably at a nadir.

And don't forget the crazy swings the '70s had... good music, great music, bad music, horrible music. The trend continues even more so now than in other decades but it continues. Always will until we clock out of this world.

hindsight is 20/20

Good singers don't fail on pop radio.

Boring singers do with their boring songs.

Just because a song is sung well doesn't make it worth listening to.

[Edited 1/7/12 7:59am]