SantanaMaitreya said:

PatrickS77 said:

It wasn't me, who brought him in.

As for the topic. I would say. Yes and no. Obviously he is one of the biggest stars and did many things first and broke records, so he's not overrated. But then again, what he did, looking at it with the knowledge of today, wasn't all that spectacular. So, yes, he is overrated. That said, I do love many of the songs Elvis sung. Especially some of his 70s songs. Suspicious minds is my favourite Elvis song. And probably one of my favourite songs ever. I got some great live CDs from the early 70s of his shows in Vegas. And some years ago, I visited Graceland, which was pretty amazing.

[Edited 10/7/21 14:35pm]

That's the thing: you shouldn't look at Elvis with today's knowledge: back then there was nothing like him. Rock and roll was founded by people like him. He inspired so many arrists that it's almost impossible to overrate him.

That's why I say. Yes and no. Depending on how you look at it.

Free2BMe said:

EmmaMcG said:

And I wonder why people can't read all of another person's posts on a subject before jumping to conclusions about "disrespect". Read Reply #20 in this thread to get a better idea of what I'm getting at by comparing the two artists IN RELATION TO THE QUESTION OF "IS ELVIS OVERRATED". [Edited 10/8/21 2:46am]

I read your entire post and was commenting on the comparison between Michael and Elvis as songwriters. Michael was actually a songwriter, Elvis was NOT, and that’s the bottomline. Maybe the word “disrespect” was not the correct word. “Misinformed” maybe a better word. People really are misinformed about Michael as a songwriter. They actually don’t know that he was the SOLE writer, NOT Co-writer of some of his biggest hits. Of course, he had co-writers and ALWAYS gave them credit. It just bothers me that some fans and especially non-fans don’t give MJ the credit that he deserves as a songwriter-lyricist and composer. That is the main reason for my comment in this thread. If Michael’s name had not been brought up in comparison to Elvis’ songwriting skills, I would have never commented. This is the type of mis-information that needs to be stopped in its track, and I hope every MJ fan stops this type of misinformation.

Amen.

MickyDolenz said:

Free2BMe said:

Of course, he had co-writers and ALWAYS gave them credit.

Mike did take Greg Phillinganes name off of Don't Stop. Greg talked about it in interviews

I think you should rephrase that. Michael gave him credit, though the contribution was miniscule and didn't really add much to the song. Then someone thought differently and had it changed.

[Edited 10/8/21 12:07pm]

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

She was being much more extremely successful than they were to the point that if influenced others to do it. Funk still dominated when they did it and the adult contemporary artists were the minority. When she came along, more and more adult contemporary R&B came out of the woodwork to the point that they took over and put funk in the minority. Hell, so many of them came out that they eventually started new stations for the genre and called it Urban Adult Contemporary. Those stations didn't exist before because there wasn't enough of it being made to start stations with the format.

But hip hop has way more influence on modern R&B & Top 40 pop than Whitney's music. New Jack Swing was R&B singing with hip hop beats. Rap breaks replaced the guitar & sax solos in popular R&B music. There's even hip hop sounds in current mainstream country music. The "adult R&B" of Whitney, Freddie Jackson, Anita Baker, René & Angela, Luther Vandross, etc. was counter-programming for the middle aged black audience who did not dig rap which was on the rise in the 1980s with teens & young adults. Really, it was Smokey Robinson that started that, not Whitney. He released the Quiet Storm single in the mid-1970s and then a radio show and later format was created around it. Quiet Storm was the origins of the "adult R&B" format and also the popularity of smooth jazz (George Benson, Al Jarreau, Kenny G., Najee) in the 1970s & 1980s.

Oh, wait a minute, I didn't see this part while ago because I was too busy addressing the shit hop. People seem to think that I hate slow music which couldn't be further from the truth. I love slow music but I don't want to live in a world where everything is slow which is what R&B radio eventually became. I mean, damn, switch up some things from time to time. When funk was still dominating, I would break into about two or three slow jams and then bring back then funk for about another hour or so.

.

And at the end of the night, when I'm all funked out, I break into nothing but Quiet Storm myself and when I bring strangers home at three in the morning, I also break out the Quiet Storm. But there's a big difference in what I consider Quiet Storm and Adult Contemporary. I love back to back slow jams from people like Heatwave, Switch, Terry Huff and Special Delivery, Earth, Wind, and Fire, Norman Conners, Delegation, The Floaters, Blue Magic, The Sylistics, Cameo, Rick James, Prince, The Barkays, Lakeside, Midnight Star, Player, GQ, and many many more. Slow jams from groups like that have a sexy "bring a stranger home at 3 a.m." feel to them. Slow mess from adult contemporary people like Shitney Houston, Anita Faker, Deadie Jackson, Regina Helle, Mikki Howard, etc. have a boring parent friendly family feel to them like a husband and wife "sitting around watching the kids roll around and play in the yard on a Sunday afternoon after church and Sunday dinner."..... Hell, I'm a whore I can't relate to shit like that.

PatrickS77 said:

I’m sorry that my point was above your head, so I will explain it very simply and slowly for you to understand:

Elvis Presley was a SINGER, it is ridiculous to fault him for not being a SONGWRITER. He had SONGS that HE SANG- even if they were written by OTHER PEOPLE.

My point, which I thought almost anyone with half a brain would be able to grasp, is that it is idiotic to fault people for not doing something that they never claimed to or set out to do in the FIRST PLACE....

Now even YOU can get it.... or maybe not

PatrickS77 said:

And they have every right to their opinions... even if they have no idea or understanding of the subject

jjhunsecker said:

PatrickS77 said:

You're a bit thick, are you?? A singer needs songs, but a guitarist doesn't need dance, a soul/rnb singer doesn't need opera. So your earlier comparison is total bullshit and irrelevant.

I’m sorry that my point was above your head, so I will explain it very simply and slowly for you to understand: Elvis Presley was a SINGER, it is ridiculous to fault him for not being a SONGWRITER. He had SONGS that HE SANG- even if they were written by OTHER PEOPLE. My point, which I thought almost anyone with half a brain would be able to grasp, is that it is idiotic to fault people for not doing something that they never claimed to or set out to do in the FIRST PLACE.... Now even YOU can get it.... or maybe not

No. It's not idiotic. Your comparison was idiotic. There are singers, who can't do anything than sing other people's stuff and would have nothng to sing on, if they wouldn't do that. Then there are singers, who create their own stuff to sing. And since we are talking about being overrated, we are talking about the whole package. He was a great singer, yes, but he was just that. While other people, like Prince or Michael Jackson or whoever, didn't just sing other people's stuff. No, they came up with their own stuff to sing. So that rates higher, than someone, who's called the king, but all he did was sing other people's stuff and never came up with a song of his own to sing on. That all harkens back to the title of the topic of whether he was overrated.

[Edited 10/8/21 14:05pm]

vainandy said:

Slow mess from adult contemporary people like Shitney Houston, Anita Faker, Deadie Jackson, Regina Helle, Mikki Howard, etc. have a boring parent friendly family feel to them like a husband and wife "sitting around watching the kids roll around and play in the yard on a Sunday afternoon after church and Sunday dinner.".

That is no different from 1970s songs that got R&B radio airplay like:

Billy Preston & Syreeta ~ With You I'm Born Again

Commodores ~ Three Times A Lady / Still

Peaches & Herb ~ Reunited

The O'Jays ~ Feelings (remake of the Morris Albert hit)

Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. ~ You Don't Have To Be A Star

Also some of those light rock bands & singers got R&B airplay like Player, Pablo Cruise, Ambrosia, Little River Band, Steve Miller Band, Rupert Holmes, Eagles, etc. Even Lady by Kenny Rogers.

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

Slow mess from adult contemporary people like Shitney Houston, Anita Faker, Deadie Jackson, Regina Helle, Mikki Howard, etc. have a boring parent friendly family feel to them like a husband and wife "sitting around watching the kids roll around and play in the yard on a Sunday afternoon after church and Sunday dinner.".

That is no different from 1970s songs that got R&B radio airplay like:

Billy Preston & Syreeta ~ With You I'm Born Again

Commodores ~ Three Times A Lady / Still

Peaches & Herb ~ Reunited

The O'Jays ~ Feelings (remake of the Morris Albert hit)

Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. ~ You Don't Have To Be A Star

Also some of those light rock bands & singers got R&B airplay like Player, Pablo Cruise, Ambrosia, Little River Band, Steve Miller Band, Rupert Holmes, Eagles, etc. Even Lady by Kenny Rogers.

I don't hear anything similar in those songs to the adult contemporary of the late 1980s. Not only do they not have the same type of feel, but the instruments in the late 80s songs are extremely bland.

Hamad said:

I hear ya, accept nothing suddenly “became” political. Everything in the US has always been political. And whether it’s taking anything away from the music or not, Elvis benefited from said politics when he was alive, that’s just the reality of things.

PatrickS77 said:

And THAT is my whole FUCKING POINT: that he was a GREAT SINGER..,, nothing more and nothing less....
Why is writing songs even an issue here, since nobody ever expected him to BE a great songwriter? Which was the basis of my comparison that you were obviously unable to grasp.... Elvis never pretended to be Dylan, much less Lieber and Stoller or Pomus and Shuman or Otis Blackwell

uPtoWnNY said:

You’ll see that I actually agreed with him , though I generally try to separate art from both politics and personal behavior

Are we do dispute the greatness of Sinatra or Billie Holiday because THEY didn’t write any of their songs? How about Ella Fitzgerald- she wrote nothing that anyone would remember?

Even Aretha Franklin - who I and many others consider the greatest singer America has produced/ wrote almost none of the songs that she is most known for

vainandy said:

I don't hear anything similar in those songs to the adult contemporary of the late 1980s. Not only do they not have the same type of feel, but the instruments in the late 80s songs are extremely bland.

You can take You Light Up My Life, remove Debby Boone's vocals and use the same exact track with Whitney in the 1980s or Celine Dion in the 1990s and it would sound contemporary. As a matter of fact, Whitney's version of The Greatest Love Of All don't sound that much different from George Benson's original from 1977. The vocal arrangements are identical on both and both have string sections. George's version has acoustic piano instead of synths and is a little slower.

jjhunsecker said:

Elvis was a big inspiration for Bob Dylan, he wanted to be a rock and roll singer before he even thought of writing songs. This says enough about The King's influence: without Elvis, no Dylan. Anyway, I agree: the idea that a singer who writes songs is a better singer than one who doesn't is silly.
[Edited 10/8/21 15:54pm]
[Edited 10/8/21 15:57pm]

SantanaMaitreya said:

I agree: the idea that a singer who writes songs is a better singer than one who doesn't is silly.

Good thing that I haven't said that.

jjhunsecker said:

PatrickS77 said:

No. It's not idiotic. Your comparison was idiotic. There are singers, who can't do anything than sing other people's stuff and would have nothng to sing on, if they wouldn't do that. Then there are singers, who create their own stuff to sing. And since we are talking about being overrated, we are talking about the whole package. He was a great singer, yes, but he was just that. While other people, like Prince or Michael Jackson or whoever, didn't just sing other people's stuff. No, they came up with their own stuff to sing. So that rates higher, than someone, who's called the king, but all he did was sing other people's stuff and never came up with a song of his own to sing on. That all harkens back to the title of the topic of whether he was overrated.

[Edited 10/8/21 14:05pm]

And THAT is my whole FUCKING POINT: that he was a GREAT SINGER..,, nothing more and nothing less.... Why is writing songs even an issue here, since nobody ever expected him to BE a great songwriter? Which was the basis of my comparison that you were obviously unable to grasp.... Elvis never pretended to be Dylan, much less Lieber and Stoller or Pomus and Shuman or Otis Blackwell

No. The whole fucking point is that your comparisions are idiotic. The whole fucking point of this thread is not, is Elvis overrated as a singer, but is Elvis overrated? Period. Pointing out that he was just a singer and not much else and while he is called King of Rock N Roll, he didn't create any Rock n Roll music and took and had to rely on what others created for him and sang on it. And in that sense, yes, he is overrated. In a different sense, no, he's not overrated. So that's why I go with yes and no.

jjhunsecker said:

Are we do dispute the greatness of Sinatra or Billie Holiday because THEY didn’t write any of their songs? How about Ella Fitzgerald- she wrote nothing that anyone would remember? Even Aretha Franklin - who I and many others consider the greatest singer America has produced/ wrote almost none of the songs that she is most known for

If you talk about their ability and worth as a singer, obviously not. If you talk about their worth as a overall artist, as the complete package, then of course.

SantanaMaitreya said:

Of the early rockers, only Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly consistently wrote their own material. Little Richard, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Rick Nelson, The Everly Brothers all recorded material from outside writers. Are we to dismiss all of them as “overrated “?

PatrickS77 said:

But Elvis WAS a singer . So he has to be judged as a singer.

Your posts indicate that you know very little about music history and culture... that’s OK. Maybe one day you will. But that’s not my job. But I doubt very highly that you’ve heard the original versions of the songs that Elvis recorded, so you could compare and hear what Elvis brought to his interpretations of the music.
[Edited 10/8/21 20:31pm]

MickyDolenz said:

vainandy said:

I don't hear anything similar in those songs to the adult contemporary of the late 1980s. Not only do they not have the same type of feel, but the instruments in the late 80s songs are extremely bland.

You can take You Light Up My Life, remove Debby Boone's vocals and use the same exact track with Whitney in the 1980s or Celine Dion in the 1990s and it would sound contemporary. As a matter of fact, Whitney's version of The Greatest Love Of All don't sound that much different from George Benson's original from 1977. The vocal arrangements are identical on both and both have string sections. George's version has acoustic piano instead of synths and is a little slower.

Lorrrrrd.... I just checked in while I'm drinking and I usually don't post when I'm drinking because I can be brutal but this one, I can't resist. First of all, who the hell ever said that I like every single song from the 1970s? Yeah, there are plenty of songs that I can't stand from the 1970s, the 1980s, and every other decade also. But look how many I can't stand before Shitney compared to the ones I can't stand after her. I'm glad this time that you actually picked one that I can't stand before her. And not only that, you picked the very one, "You Light Up My Life", that we laughed like hell about, not only laughing at the song itself, but also at the people that liked the song. It was the absolute definition of "uncool". Whether Shitney's version was similar or not is irrelevant because the song itself was, like I said before, the definition of "uncool".

.

I had no idea she had remade the song and now finding this out, I see she was even more tired and boring than I originally imagined her and as for somebody like Celine Dion, hell, that's another problem. Somebody as boring as her would have been kicked to the curb prior to Shitney. As for Miss Debbie Boone though, as I recall, that song came out in like 1978? If I remember correctly, disco was ruling the airwaves back then, am I correct? And as big a hit as that boring ass song became, did a lot of people similar to Debbie Boone come on the scene and drive disco out of style? No, it went on strong until a bunch of racist, homophobic rednecks had their Disco Demolition in mid 1979 but it had nothing to do with Debbie's success. Shitney's later success did major damage in the 1980s, Debbie's success didn't even put a dent in the 1970s as far as driving good music out of style. It's not a matter of who was the first, it's a matter of who did damage.

.

.

[Edited 10/8/21 22:38pm]

fun fact: Debby Boones’ 1977 song “You Light Up My Life” is actually the biggest-selling single of the entire 70s decade

SoulAlive said:

fun fact: Debby Boones’ 1977 song “You Light Up My Life” is actually the biggest-selling single of the entire 70s decade

I believe it. You couldn't get away from that fucking song. It was 10 weeks at #1. That says a lot that other songs in a whole decade didn't have that sort of run. And that a song in 1977 dominated the previous 7 years and the ensuing 2 or 3 years.

TrivialPursuit said:

SoulAlive said:

fun fact: Debby Boones’ 1977 song “You Light Up My Life” is actually the biggest-selling single of the entire 70s decade

I believe it. You couldn't get away from that fucking song. It was 10 weeks at #1. That says a lot that other songs in a whole decade didn't have that sort of run. And that a song in 1977 dominated the previous 7 years and the ensuing 2 or 3 years.

yes,that song was HUGE back then.Even my mother had the 45 single

jjhunsecker said:

But that is not what the original post/question is about.

As for the rest, whatever. I don't care what you think. He was just a singer, who sang other people's songs and didn't create one song himself.

If you subscribe to the logic that Elvis is overrated because he didn't write his own songs then you must also believe that Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Elton John, Marvin Gaye and a whole bunch of other music legends are also overrated.

Elvis, as an overall entertainer, is one of the best there ever was. His job was to sing and perform and put on a show. And he did those things better than 99.9% of any other performers. So if you think he's overrated then you are either delusional or you have no idea what you're talking about.

EmmaMcG said:

If you subscribe to the logic that Elvis is overrated because he didn't write his own songs then you must also believe that Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross, Elton John, Marvin Gaye and a whole bunch of other music legends are also overrated. Elvis, as an overall entertainer, is one of the best there ever was. His job was to sing and perform and put on a show. And he did those things better than 99.9% of any other performers. So if you think he's overrated then you are either delusional or you have no idea what you're talking about.

Yawn. This is getting boring. I never said that Yes, he was overrated. I said, it's yes and no, depending on how you look at it. I'm shocked that you all are too stupid to get that. And Frank Sinatra, Diana Ross and all the others you mentioned, never got the importance put on them, like they do with Elvis. Also this thread is not about them, it's about Elvis. So really, simmer down with those idiotic comparisons.

vainandy said:

But look how many I can't stand before Shitney compared to the ones I can't stand after her.

But that "adult contemporary R&B" you're talking about was primarily popular in the early to mid-1980s. As soon as New Jack Swing hit, particularly with the debut albums of Keith Sweat & Al B. Sure! and especially the huge crossover success of Bobby Brown, most of those "adult R&B" artists popularity began to wane. Many of the veteran R&B singers and bands released NJS albums or singles including Whitney. Even Boy George released a New Jack album and the Rolling Stones had Teddy Riley remix one of their singles from that period. I remember the Teddy Riley remix of Jane Child's Don't Wanna Fall In Love got way more airplay on local R&B and pop stations than the original mix. New Jack Swing killed the popularity of R&B bands. Other than maybe Tony! Toni! Toné!, the R&B band was almost non-existant on R&B radio after NJS. Even they had hip hop & New Jack Swing on their records. Hip hop changed R&B, not Whitney. Whitney was an influence on Mariah Carey, but Mariah added more hip hop to her music than Whitney did. TLC albums sold more than any other girls group. Aaliyah & Brandy also had hip hop elements in their music. Whitney might be the influence on contestants on American Idol. But how many of them had a successful music career? Very few.

vainandy said:

I had no idea she had remade the song and now finding this out, I see she was even more tired and boring than I originally imagined her and as for somebody like Celine Dion, hell, that's another problem.

Adult contemporary (previously called "easy listening" or "crooner pop") has been popular in most eras, no matter what the trend sound was. The music magazines like Rolling Stone makes it sound like the 1960s was all British Invasion, Motown, folk rock, psycedelic rock, & hippies. During the popularity of The Beatles, Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong reached #1. Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass, Johnny Mathis, & Percy Faith had hit albums during the 1960s. The Lawrence Welk Show was in production for 27 years. The Andy Williams Show was on for several years too. One of the biggest selling albums of the 1960s was the soundtrack for The Sound Of Music.

PatrickS77 said:

If I was addressing you directly I would have quoted one of your posts. But it's very telling that you assumed I was referring to you...

PatrickS77 said:

Idiotic comparisons? May I remind you that the first post you made on this thread was not about Elvis, but about Michael Jackson. As soon as folks say something about Jacko the all the Jacko fans come in and go all