Who can forget the heartfelt tribute to Whitney by Mr. Randy Watson? He played Joe the Policeman in the "What's Goin' Down" episode of "That's My Mama."
Sexual Chocolate! - YouTube
Who can forget the heartfelt tribute to Whitney by Mr. Randy Watson? He played Joe the Policeman in the "What's Goin' Down" episode of "That's My Mama."
Sexual Chocolate! - YouTube
Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!
Well if that's the criteria we're using, Freddie Mercury is a greater pop singer than Elvis, Sinatra or Crosby. And Minnie Riperton is the greatest female singer.
Vocal ability is only one facet of being a great pop singer. See Louis Armstrong, Johnny Cash, Van Morrison, James Brown, or Otis Redding.
Robert Plant has great vocal ability, is he a greater singer than Marvin Gaye? Of course not.
An important thing is what you sound like within your range, not just what that range is.
Not using anyone else as an example, I have a range of a couple octaves, but the top note is middle C. I can occasionally hit a D, but it sounds strained and not really that natural. There's not a whole lot of music out there written near the bottom of my range, so even though I can hit those notes, what's the point? There's about an octave and a half where I'm pretty comfortable and that I can actually use frequently, but very little music out there requires a vocalist to use much more than that unless a singer just decides to go there because he/she can. I just focus on having good pitch within my given range and sounding as good as I can.
Sure, Whitney was talented vocally and I enjoyed hearing her voice, but there are other artists I enjoy listening to more who might not have the range or vocal talent she had. There is a lot of subjectivity to music and for a lot of people what makes us connect to a song is often more than just the skill of the performer. So who is more talented, Whitney or Aretha? Take your pick. I happen to prefer Aretha over Whitney. I enjoy her music more, and isn't that the whole point of it anyway?
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Robert Plant or Marvin Gaye?
Robert Plant is one of the great voices of rock- I mean, Led Zeppelin is a religious experience. I get the point you are making, I don't think Plant belongs in any type of comparison like that.
That's like making someone pick between Twix and Snickers.
Zeppelin is right there with the greatest ever...Ugh, ugh, ugh, Robert Plant is not the lesser of any equation lol....
This is the truth.Sure, Whitney was talented vocally and I enjoyed hearing her voice, but there are other artists I enjoy listening to more who might not have the range or vocal talent she had. There is a lot of subjectivity to music and for a lot of people what makes us connect to a song is often more than just the skill of the performer. So who is more talented, Whitney or Aretha? Take your pick. I happen to prefer Aretha over Whitney. I enjoy her music more, and isn't that the whole point of it anyway?
I can recognize Mozart is better than Billy Joel, but I would rather listen to the latter, to be honest.
I don't know how you separate the best of the best singers. They're all so great but my comparison to Whitney would be Judy Garland and it seems that they also fought similar demons including Rx drugs, alcohol and bad marriages. Those demons likely led to their early demise in their 40s. Lots of parallels to be drawn.
Give me that much talent and money and I'll live a very happy life...
I think Whitney in her prime was really one of the greatest ever. But she is also the Sandy Koufax of singing with a brilliant but short prime. Personal demons saw to that.
But she really had it all. The voice, the range, the phrasing, being able to emote, plus she was a great on stage and made it all look so effortless. That was the part that got me. She made it look so easy but listening to her was just jaw-dropping great. Plus she was gorgeous and so fresh.
She used to wake me up with coffee ever morning
Honestly, I was never a fan of Whitney's music. I recognize her great vocal talent, but I just don't like the style she promoted of loud diva notes and turning single syllable words into multi-note runs just to show of her range. While she could pull it off, so many that attempt to follow in her footsteps just end up making a 3 minute song last 6 or more from all the vocal gymnastics. I see the Whitney wannabes on American Idol every year and watch the judges fawn all over them, only to have them fade back into obscurity once the season's over.
As a non-Whitney example of this, I would compare the song "Superstar" as sung by The Carpenters and then by Luther Vandross. The Carpenters' version is a very bittersweet, heartfelt rendition, a beautiful song really, without a lot of vocal gymnastics. Luther Vandross' version is just Luther singing loud and dropping in a bunch of vocal runs, causing the song to lose all the emotional impact of the original.
For the record, I think it's the same with bands that feel that, when they play live, every song has to have a guitar solo, a drum solo, a keyboard solo, a horn solo, ad nauseum. I get it, you're talented musicians. No need to show it every song. In fact, I think sometimes singers and musicians do that kind of stuff to hide the fact that the song itself isn't all that great.
Wear gaudy colors, or avoid display. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. The fittest shall survive, yet the unfit may live. Be like your ancestors or be different. We must repeat!
I really dislike that style of singing too, Yachtzee. It ruins a lot of otherwise great songs and masks a lot of really good voices when they try to sing that way. My wife and I always call it "wailing" instead of singing. But I don't remember Whitney ever singing that way much. She was always more of a pure singer I thought. I think Mariah might be more to blame than Whitney for that trend. That was her MO for sure.
Grape works as a soda. Sort of as a gum. I wonder why it doesn't work as a pie. Grape pie? There's no grape pie. - Larry David
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