[Aman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MdRex /img/forum/go_quote.gif Aman: You have presented a false dilema, that great vocal abilities cannot go with mainstream appeal. You're saying how if a vocalist (or artist) is sign to a major label, doesn't present him/herself with the starving artist schtick or mix around in the indie scene (too-cool-for-major-audience-recognition), it would mean that he/she is not talented. I don't think many of us hear follow your logic too well.

Wrong. Absolutely wrong.

What I said was that Kelly Clarkson has a novice level of vocal ability, coupled with a very flexible and plainness personality complex which is quite suitable for manipulation and "molding of the self". The logic here is that you will not be SUCCESSFUL unless you are "manipulatable". You can be both manipulatable and talented, and while that is much more rare, it still is not the case in Kelly Clarkson's case. If you call the vocal performances on American Idol "great" then you don't know what a true vocalist is.

Quote:

whoops I think you took it the wrong way... What you said above was exactly what I meant lol. I was thinking why you are so demanding, but then thats your career- if you backed some half-assed production or gave into whatever mediocre listening habits you'd totally fall apart personally and professionally. cheers..

I really appreciate this implementation of understanding, and your excellent point of view. For almost two decades now, mainstream artists have thrown away lost artistic opportunities, and their artistic souls, in order to make a buck. Such is the case with whomever produced Kelly Clarkson. Kelly Clarkson herself is just a physical figurehead for the firm she's backed by, and a symbolic figurehead for the generic thematics she asserts in her music. At the same time, however, whoever did in fact produce her is damn good, because as far as "milking the demographics" go, he's about as successful at that as they get. She's one of the few performers today that reach both the young and old - male and female - audiences.

However, to say that this is Kelly Clarkson's doing is dead false. Simply put, recording engineers, mastering engineers, promoters, producers, publicists, and lawyers have a lot more to do with her success than she herself ever did. As already mentioned, by herself she would probably not stand out much. Calling anything performed on American Idol stand-out is absolutely untrue, considering that the show is trying to sell advertisement space, and not promote musicians. Nothing new, inventive, original, or exciting about her performance abilities; she's simply able to fill a huge void in the missing musical demographics due to her performance/persona characteristics.

 

[LFC_SL]

This thread was a lot simpler last I posted on page one

Just go with the flow

If you don't like her, fine. What happened to leaving it at that though? Honestly, like we're not aware of the existence of manufactured, stage managed music careers

If you're above that, I'm happy for you. M-u-s-i-c

We should all indulge in pop sometime!

That goes for rap-bashers as well

 

[MdRex]

Quote:

If you call the vocal performances on American Idol "great" then you don't know what a true vocalist is.

Ah, I forgot that your idea of a "great" vocalist is someone like mike patton, doing his avant-garde stuff

. She's a pop vocalist and she is very good in what she does.

You are losing me, first you said that she sounded like she is because of studio tricks, when people start pointing out that she sung live and was darn good at that, you discredited her performance as being at "novice" level. As a vocalist (perhaps not a very good one) I must say that to achieve pop vocals at that level is definitely NOT novice. Aman, you may have attended music production school (you never (I mean NEVER) fail to point that out to prove your superiority in musical taste) but how well do you think you can sing? It does matter how well you sing, we can't have William Hung telling us that Kelly Clarkson can't sing and expect us to buy that.

For one, how well you can sing tells us how much you understand about singing.

 

[Aman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MdRex /img/forum/go_quote.gif Ah, I forgot that your idea of a "great" vocalist is someone like mike patton, doing his avant-garde stuff . She's a pop vocalist and she is very good in what she does. You are losing me, first you said that she sounded like she is because of studio tricks, when people start pointing out that she sung live and was darn good at that, you discredited her performance as being at "novice" level. As a vocalist (perhaps not a very good one) I must say that to achieve pop vocals at that level is definitely NOT novice. Aman, you may have attended music production school (you never (I mean NEVER) fail to point that out to prove your superiority in musical taste) but how well do you think you can sing? It does matter how well you sing, we can't have William Hung telling us that Kelly Clarkson can't sing and expect us to buy that. For one, how well you can sing tells us how much you understand about singing.

I can't sing well. I could if I wanted to, I suppose, since I have excellent pitch. But vocals are not something I ever wanted to pursue as a musician.

Then again, I never tried to make a career and living off of being a vocalist. I know exactly what I want to do as my life's work and I'm good enough at it. I work with vocalists nearly every day, and I know what constitutes a sufficient vocalist.

Mike Patton is an EXTREMELY talented vocalist, and though I enjoy the work he does solo and with Zorn, he is not at all limited to that. Have you ever heard him sing Italian Opera? Perhaps a beautiful rendition of a folk song written by film scorer Ennio Morricone? The reason why I like him so much is because of his versatility. Kind of like Tom Waits. He can use his voice as more than a pretty communicator of lyrics, but as an actual instrument.

But that's beyond the point. Neither of them are "pop" vocalists in my book. Especially Patton. My position hasn't changed throughout this entire conversation. I still assert that Kelly Clarkson is not a good singer. I know this because they used pitch correction on her takes, and cleaned up her tone to sound more appealing. Good vocalists don't need studio correction. Good vocalists know their own sound enough to be able to write their own music constituting their strengths, or at least interpret somebody else's work without resulting to production trickery such as vocal layering which Clarkson is so well-known for today. In fact, "Behind these Hazel Eyes" was a demonstration used at NYU for the purpose of showing the ways that production tricks make listeners FEEL like they're listening to only one voice in a track, when really it's multiple layered voices with studio repairs and backup singers quite abound.

A "novice" singer, in an ideal world, has no right becoming a millionaire pop star. I don't use the term "novice" as a compliment.

It's becoming very tiring to continuously explain myself to you guys. I perhaps should only limit my responses to people who have the slightest clue as to what they are talking about.

 

[Rempert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif Good vocalists know their own sound enough to be able to write their own music constituting their strengths, or at least interpret somebody else's work without resulting to production trickery such as vocal layering which Clarkson is so well-known for today. In fact, "Behind these Hazel Eyes" was a demonstration used at NYU for the purpose of showing the ways that production tricks make listeners FEEL like they're listening to only one voice in a track, when really it's multiple layered voices with studio repairs and backup singers quite abound.

If this is the type of thing they are teaching you in school, you should ask for your money back. First of all, there are no backup singers (other than Kelly Clarkson herself) on "Behind these Hazel Eyes". In fact, Kelly Clarkson is specifically credited with "all vocals" on every track on Breakaway. Secondly, the tracks are layered in harmony. How exactly is it supposed to fool listeners into thinking there is only one vocal track when you are singing in harmonies and countermelodies throughout the entire song? This is not a crutch to cover up a mediocre singer. It's actually quite the opposite, an attempt to highlight the vocalist and offer her the maximum artistic flexibility a la Mariah Carey. Would you say that Prince has no talent because he overdubs multiple tracks of himself playing various instruments to create songs? Is he trying to trick people into believing he can actually play all those instruments at the same time? Of course not.

Now honestly, have you ever heard a live Kelly Clarkson performance? Have you even heard the live tracks from her albums, or just the singles?

 

[MdRex]

Aman:

You chose to ignore the fact that there was zero pitch correction for Kelly Clarkson on AI and if she needed to get pitch correction desperately, then she would have been off AI very soon. I am not saying that she is pitch perfect on every AI performance but it is to say that she hits her note accurate enough live. If you have every sung live, then you will realise that it is not always possible to be on pitch, on time and emoting appropriately at the same time is definitely NOT easy. I suggest that you start experimenting on your vocals before slamming other vocalist. Having "excellent pitch" isn't everything to be a good vocalist.

And what's wrong to layer vocal harmonies over each other on a record?

Aman, stop discrediting others opinions because you have been to music production school and all other who disagrees with you have no clue what they are talking about.

 

[Jahn]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's becoming very tiring to continuously explain myself to you guys. I perhaps should only limit my responses to people who have the slightest clue as to what they are talking about.

You know this does kinda come off as off-putting. Let's play nice folks, or we can all take our toys and go home

And for the record, William Hung sings worse than me, but he's had more of a pop career than I ever will. Ain't no shame in playing the game! Personally I love chilling to some ABBA some days, which I know was crazy overproduced and comes from the School of Schmaltz, but hey, they earned every penny in giving me a guilty pleasure. So some folks who listen to Kelly are a little less guilty in feeling good when grooving to that Hazel Eyes song - no need to diss them for it

 

[gloco]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's becoming very tiring to continuously explain myself to you guys. I perhaps should only limit my responses to people who have the slightest clue as to what they are talking about.

lmao. I think this is sig worthy...oh yes, it is!

 

[LFC_SL]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif It's becoming very tiring to continuously explain myself to you guys. I perhaps should only limit my responses to people who have the slightest clue as to what they are talking about.

Its still "each to their own" here! I've sorta blanked out most of what you wrote...why? Like the other 90%+ of music buyers, we buy music that sounds good to us (not that I've ever bough a K.Clarkson CD before

). I'm OK that you don't like her. But you should understand that not everyone judges music on a technical and analytical level. Because that can take one away from the m-u-s-i-c

 

[pezzy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by trose49 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Say what you want about Pop music and I am not a huge fan but it has it;s place. C Aguilera has a voice that can give you Goose bumps. She did an acapella of Beautiful on SNL one night and WOW!!! http://uncutvideo.aol.com/videos/2a6...f1c89dc3225c55 Go to 2:50

Awesome clip, i always enjoy watching Christina singing live. Linda Perry needs to write more songs for her.

Someone mentioned Christina is on the same level as Mariah Carey. Imo, Christina is in a totally different league. I don't get the chills down my spine when i hear Mariah sing live as i do with Christina.

 

[Rempert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by pezzy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Someone mentioned Christina is on the same level as Mariah Carey. Imo, Christina is in a totally different league. I don't get the chills down my spine when i hear Mariah sing live as i do with Christina.

It's kind of a funny comparison, looking at the live aspect. Mariah is 10 years older and has been making albums 10 years longer. But they each had their first television performance around 1990, and I'd venture to guess that Christina has done a lot more live shows than Mariah since then...

 

[Ahriman4891]

Does she have better songs than the one in the linked youtube vid?

(This is the first time I heard a Kelly Clarkson song--or at least the first time I was aware it's her.)

 

[cantsleep]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aman /img/forum/go_quote.gif I can't sing well. I could if I wanted to, I suppose, since I have excellent pitch. But vocals are not something I ever wanted to pursue as a musician.

me, too

 

[Rempert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ahriman4891 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Does she have better songs than the one in the linked youtube vid? (This is the first time I heard a Kelly Clarkson song--or at least the first time I was aware it's her.)

I'd say she's done better, but that depends on what kind of songs you like.

For these pop rock types, I prefer Behind These Hazel Eyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MKf6aPZymc

For something a bit slower, I like Because of You:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XgGXdYChLw

Just for kicks here are a couple of her American Idol performances...

Stuff Like That There: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PFjvvNBTFI
Natural Woman: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee6DgXrFQMw

 

[rsaavedra]

Hey guys btw, have you heard the first Latin American Idol Mayra Martinez? (She is from Venezuela

)