DrBenway
Headphoneus Supremus
- Joined
- Jan 30, 2007
- Posts
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- 15
Quote:
I agree that Ms. Lewis is a significant talent, and that her talents are wasted on the awful material and production to which she is subjected. Chalk up another one for the Simon Cowell crap machine, which turns this stuff out like sausage.
There are so many other talented artists who have been reduced to mere cogs in the promotion machines for their own careers. Jennifer Hudson has a magnificent voice, but I don't expect great things from her any time soon. When Kelly Clarkson attempted to escape from her handlers, and make her own album, they nearly destroyed her career. She is right back where she started. Clive Davis doesn't brook any BS from his employees. They stay in line, or else.
And consider the case of Eva Cassidy. A stunningly gifted singer, she was looked at and passed on by just about every major label, and never had a recording contract in the course of her short life. Why is this? Because she was a pretty female vocalist who insisted on choosing her own material and musicians, and also insisted on writing her own arrangements. We can't have that, now can we?
And yet, since her death, several million of her albums have been sold with zero promotion from the industry machine. Her readings of "Fields of Gold" and "Over the Rainbow" have come to be regarded as definitive. The waste of her talent is so very sad.
Ultimately, I think the prototype for this rigid system of manufactured fluff is Whitney Houson. I think it's safe to say that she has one of the greatest voices of the last several decades, and an occasional single here and there has lived up to her potential. But her albums are mostly safe, mediocre, and far, far below what she is capable of. The idea is to produce easily marketed, inoffensive product and then jam it down the public's throat. Again, what a waste.
Most disheartening to me is the huge popularity of American Idol, Britain's Got Talent, and all of the rest of these talent competitions that churn out homogenized mediocrity. The public gets what it deserves, unfortunately.
The good news is that the current boatload of garbage on the airwaves is essentially the death rattle of an industry that has been poisoned by its own fatuity. The corporate recording industry cannot disappear fast enough to suit me.
| Originally Posted by jiamenguk /img/forum/go_quote.gif Another thing about music like today, is that people like Leona Lewis, who is a very good singer (I hope most people would agree), have albums where their songs are just soooo crap! I just wish that she'd have an album solely for all the songs she's actually good at. But neeeeoooooooouuuu, they have to give her terrible, terrible songs to sing, producing a crappy, compressed, commercial album. Her entire second albums sounds like the same song repeated for 10+ times (I swear to the almighty-omnipotent-god-who'll-guide-us-with-providence that the sounds of the drum are the same in every song, and every other song Ryan Tedder has produced). It's just sad to see someone with talent being so overwhelmed and controlled by the corporate system. I know the singers have to make a living and complying to the orders of the overminds, but please! can the overminds give people like us a divine gift and bless us with good music? 
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I agree that Ms. Lewis is a significant talent, and that her talents are wasted on the awful material and production to which she is subjected. Chalk up another one for the Simon Cowell crap machine, which turns this stuff out like sausage.
There are so many other talented artists who have been reduced to mere cogs in the promotion machines for their own careers. Jennifer Hudson has a magnificent voice, but I don't expect great things from her any time soon. When Kelly Clarkson attempted to escape from her handlers, and make her own album, they nearly destroyed her career. She is right back where she started. Clive Davis doesn't brook any BS from his employees. They stay in line, or else.
And consider the case of Eva Cassidy. A stunningly gifted singer, she was looked at and passed on by just about every major label, and never had a recording contract in the course of her short life. Why is this? Because she was a pretty female vocalist who insisted on choosing her own material and musicians, and also insisted on writing her own arrangements. We can't have that, now can we?
And yet, since her death, several million of her albums have been sold with zero promotion from the industry machine. Her readings of "Fields of Gold" and "Over the Rainbow" have come to be regarded as definitive. The waste of her talent is so very sad.
Ultimately, I think the prototype for this rigid system of manufactured fluff is Whitney Houson. I think it's safe to say that she has one of the greatest voices of the last several decades, and an occasional single here and there has lived up to her potential. But her albums are mostly safe, mediocre, and far, far below what she is capable of. The idea is to produce easily marketed, inoffensive product and then jam it down the public's throat. Again, what a waste.
Most disheartening to me is the huge popularity of American Idol, Britain's Got Talent, and all of the rest of these talent competitions that churn out homogenized mediocrity. The public gets what it deserves, unfortunately.
The good news is that the current boatload of garbage on the airwaves is essentially the death rattle of an industry that has been poisoned by its own fatuity. The corporate recording industry cannot disappear fast enough to suit me.
