Good vocalists, bad material

G

Gina_star

New member
Pretty self explanatory. People with great voices that you never listen to because, for the most part, their songs aren't all that great.


Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star); Sometimes Always and Ha Lah are exquisite. Her voice is wonderful on the Mazzy Star stuff I've heard, but the material just drags on and on...

Otis Redding; Pain In My Heart, These Arms Of Mine, etc...great vocalizing, dreadful lyrics. Keepers? Security, Look At The Girl, I Can't Turn You Loose.

Michael Stipe (REM); Like Mazzy Star, I'd like to love REM, but I just can't. Their songs plod on and don't really say much. Eponymous does have some great tracks (Gardening At Night, Fall On Me, Talk About The Passion, maybe the original Radio Free Europe).

Elizabeth Frazer (Cocteau Twins); Candleland (the Ian McCullough song)? Wonderful. Pandora and Lorelei? Perfect. Other CT tracks? Eh.
 
His earlier solo material is really great, his first few albums were still in the prog style, and it probably helped a lot that Robert Fripp and Tony Levin where on those albums, he started going pop in the 80s. And though I do like some of his pop material, I downloaded So and found it to be pretty boring.

Really loved that song he did for Wall-E though.

I also confess to liking Collins era Genesis.



Well I can forgive you for that, when you have such appallingly bad taste I guess there's nothing you can do about it.
 
I agree with you 100% about REM - a few great songs, but they're one of those banRAB I simply can't see myself getting into, for the same reasons you stated more or less.

Bono's a fantastic singer, but I don't really like U2 (I still love the Joshua Tree and a lot of Achtung Baby though).

Chester Bennington is a talented vocalist but I hate Linkin Park with a passion.

I'm sure there are others, but that's all I can think of at the moment.
 
The first few albums were good, but they deteriorated thereafter rather quickly. The last hip-hop collaborations that he did fucking BLEW. Basically, I feel that by the time Peter Gabriel lost its touch Genesis had as well (which coincided with the loss of Steve Hackett).
 
A lot of his 80s pop is pretty unremarkable, but I haven't found it to be horrible either.

Anyway.

Steve Perry.

/Close thread.
 
Peter Gabriel (post-Genesis material): I find it ironic that Peter Gabriel earned most of his fame AFTER he left Genesis with derivative pop singles. There's just not enough good material to go around. It's rather obvious that he and Phil Collins always needed Steve Hackett to succeed.

Art Garfunkel (solo): Absolutely stunning vocalist, but a poor songwriter.

James Brown: Everyone's going to hate me for this, but I think he was an atrocious songwriter (did he write songs?). Obviously there's Live at the Apollo, but just because he could hold an audience's attention doesn't mean he's worth listening to. I give him credit; what James Brown did influenced generations of soul artists to come. I just don't think he's got anything worth hearing.
 
There's one I missed out. Great singer, as you say, not such a huge fan of his work though.



One Tree Hill is pure bliss - one of the best songs I've ever heard. It's pretty much a flawless album to be honest (in my opinion of course).
 
Audioslaves first self titled album was pretty strong in my opinion. Cornell and Morrello did a great job together there, and TM's guitar playing is very psycadelic the entire album.
 
You know Eponymous is just a "best of" collection of their IRS years right? If you've never heard the actual albums those songs are taken from they're really worth a listen. REM's earlier albums are far superior to their later albums IMHO.
 
Agreed. I love early R.E.M. Completely different to what they have been doing since hitting it bigger with the Green album.
 
I like Home By the Sea. :shycouch:



Despite being a big fan of S&G, I've not heard much of Garfunkel's solo career - sounRAB like that's a good thing...
 
Dusty Springfield was a great vocalist but most of her producers had absolutely no idea what to do with her extraordinary talents. Many of her albums were overproduced and the middle-of-the-road cover songs chosen by her producers were trite and derivative. The brillance of Dusty Springfield was that she managed to transcend the even the most cliched material and deliver heartfelt vocals.

The closest she came to a perfect album was Dusty in Memphis because co-producers Jerry Wexler and Tom Dowd were brilliant producers and had the expertise at showcasing uniquely talented R&B singers.
 
Good call there. I do like Try Me (a song that's pretty unrepresenative of his style), but I can live without the rest of his stuff.




Yes, I've heard the original albums, but for me, REM is one of those banRAB that's best represented by a decent comp. I only mentioned it because it's the only REM album I own and listen to on any sort of semi-regular basis.




To be honest, I've never really understood what the fuss was about Springfield's voice. She sounRAB like another generic 60's pop singer to me.
 
No. I have stated before that I like U2. Some of their stuff is awful but 'The Unforgettable Fire', 'Atchung Baby' and 'The Joshua Tree' (minus the first three tracks) are very good albums.
 
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