[Zack06]

Originally Posted by Tiki - Taka

Exactly... Alexandra and Leona are singers, not artists.
The point I was making... No one is denying the two of them have talent... But they have yet to show any significant artistry.

Leona wrote on 8 out of 13 tracks on Echo. Clive Davis actually blamed her as the reason why the album didn't do as well as she took so much artistic control.

[Tiki - Taka]

Originally Posted by Zack06

Leona wrote on 8 out of 13 tracks on Echo. Clive Davis actually blamed her as the reason why the album didn't do as well as she took so much artistic control.

Ohhh fair enough... I guess she just isn't a great songwriter then... She'll just have to take what songs she's given if she wants better success. She doesn't seem to have a real idea about where she's going with her career, or what image she's trying to give off.

Not trying to start an argument by the way...
Maybe it's just the way the OP worded the original question that annoyed me

"Let down" just seems like the wrong choice of words for me.

[Zack06]

Originally Posted by Tiki - Taka

Ohhh fair enough... I guess she just isn't a great songwriter then... She'll just have to take what songs she's given if she wants better success. She doesn't seem to have a real idea about where she's going with her career, or what image she's trying to give off.

Not trying to start an argument by the way...
Maybe it's just the way the OP worded the original question that annoyed me

"Let down" just seems like the wrong choice of words for me.

That's a fair comment, though I do agree that if singers aren't writing their own material then there should be far more emphasis on picking the right songs....Rihanna has a great team in this respect.

[Tiki - Taka]

Originally Posted by Zack06

That's a fair comment, though I do agree that if singers aren't writing their own material then there should be far more emphasis on picking the right songs....Rihanna has a great team in this respect.

Yeah... At the moment Rihanna's at a place where she can get ANY song she wants... Literally her competition are singing the songs she rejected.

The biggest moment in her career will be when she takes a break (and she'll have to at some point).
How quickly will people (inside the industry and in the public) move on? This is why writing your own stuff (provided it's actually good) gives you that boost. What if after a one or two year break someone else has overtaken? Will she still be first in line for songs?

But knowing how clever Rihanna's whole team are she'd find some other way to create interest.

[marcusgv]

Originally Posted by Zack06

Leona wrote on 8 out of 13 tracks on Echo. Clive Davis actually blamed her as the reason why the album didn't do as well as she took so much artistic control.

And in quoting this you just go to prove my point. As with Alexandra, Leona has very little artistic talent, she's just a good singer. Artistic sensibilities are important because the great artists actually have them. Michael J, Madonna, Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Van the Man, ABBA...etc.

The point is if you are to be taken seriously as an artist then you are responsible for your own material. If you can't write your own or chose your own then you ain't a great artist. And as we can hear from this conveyor belt of talent shows there are plenty of good singers but very few artists.

[Makson]

Alexis Jordan

[lovelife7292]

Kate Nash - her last album wasn't very good but she is very talented
Keri Hilson - very talented but her songs are quite boring
Chris Brown - just copying all the same dance stuff and its pretty poor
Pixie Lott - has huge potential to be the hottest international popstar, but Kiss The Stars practically ruined all that
Ellie Goulding - i like her and some of her songs (Guns & Horses, Lights) but her album is really hard to listen to cos all the songs sound similar and not as good as the ones i prefer

[soundstory]

Originally Posted by PJ1893

Maybe Pixie Lott?

Maybe not !!

[Diceroll_81]

Jennifer Hudson is one IMO. Her first album had a few good songs but was a bit all over the place for me. Her second album was more cohesive but the songs were boring. Neither album was terrible but she has such a rich soulful voice that it still feels like she is wasting her talent.

I agree about Alexandra as well, she keeps doing songs that don't suit her voice and it's a shame. She has a great album in her somewhere.

[Moireen]

Another vote for Jennifer Hudson. Great singer, horribly generic and bland material.

[spaceygal]

Adam Lambert - incredible voice, great talent but I'm really not keen on a lot of his songs. I find many quite bland and don't show off his amazing vocal range like they should! I can't wait to see him with Queen next month as he'll be singing their wonderful songs and his voice is sure to really shine!

[scrilla]

Originally Posted by Tiki - Taka

No one can complain about being let down by their material if they aren't even skilled enough to write anything better.

They could. You don't need to be a songwriter to appraise the work of others. You don't need to be a bricklayer to tell when someone has done a poor job on your patio and you don't have to be a singer or player to make a living from reviewing recordings.

Originally Posted by Tiki - Taka

Exactly... Alexandra and Leona are singers, not artists.
The point I was making... No one is denying the two of them have talent... But they have yet to show any significant artistry.

Since when did a singer have to be a songwriter to be considered an artist? Some of the finest singers of the C.20th were not known for songwriting. (And no, I'm not comparing the likes of Alex Burke to them).

A wonderful singer who records great songs written for them has more chance of making a classic record than a lesser singer who writes their own material.

[scrilla]

I was expecting Alexandra Burke to be mentioned on this thread. I don't follow her career but I do think she has a good voice.

I don't care for what I've heard of her music but I detest the output of Rihanna, Beyoncé, Katy Perry etc. etc. so I'm not sure that Alex's is comparatively poor, or not.

Did she choose to steer her career in this pop/dance direction or was it her management?

I'm sure that if she was coming with a neo-soul/R&B vibe like Angie Stone, Jill Scott, Sunshine Anderson, Adriana Evans or UK artists such as Hil St.Soul, Terri Walker or Teish O'Day I'd pay more attention to her.

[iseloid]

Originally Posted by scrilla

I was expecting Alexandra Burke to be mentioned on this thread. I don't follow her career but I do think she has a good voice.

I don't care for what I've heard of her music but I detest the output of Rihanna, Beyoncé, Katy Perry etc. etc. so I'm not sure that Alex's is comparatively poor, or not.

Did she choose to steer her career in this pop/dance direction or was it her management?

I'm sure that if she was coming with a neo-soul/R&B vibe like Angie Stone, Jill Scott, Sunshine Anderson, Adriana Evans or UK artists such as Hil St.Soul, Terri Walker or Teish O'Day I'd pay more attention to her.

It's not certain (and you dislike Rih and Beyonce's output ) what happened. She was doing r&b stuff with producer Rico Love and that was in 2011 when the album was half done. I think her label move has shortened her budget massively and she had to create a whole new album. Heartbreak on hold did not take a year and a half to put together. AT ALL. Something has changed, she's very polite and hush hush so she works with what she has. She also said she'd written a lot on this album, and then recently said she had worked with talented songwriters etc. I think RCA kept delaying it because they thought it wouldn't sell in the previous form, how bloody wrong they were.

When she does covers, they are amazing, so soulful and rich, and tend to be r&b based (Janet Jackson, Frank Ocean) or soul based (who's loving you - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aED1GTZvLA and Saving all my love for you - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDJqqNHctr0)
People ought to remember, when Alex and Leona won, they were huge, vocally and potential wise. CASH COWS. Now you want what they did on the show to come through their debuts, which it did. Personal songwriting can't come into that, you go for a tried and tested formula. These are big businesses (labels) with a lot of money, and often writing is like saying to your boss I want to go on holiday tomorrow and I'm not coming into work. They'd look at you like you're mad. Singers generally don't write their own stuff, it's only a recent thing for people to expect it. They want something that will sell, and often using a generic formula works (Spirit, Overcome, and sometimes it backfires massively HOH).

However, when you hear the songs Leona and Alex have written, they are actually beautiful. IMO it's about long term management and planning, setting up a global attack, which we all know syco don't do, hence Alex leaving suddenly. Oh and also it's extremely difficult to write those big iconic hits, I write and it's so hard. It's a case of luck.

[MiresiaVerteta]

Agree with Kate Nash....aside from the two singles released + "Paris" the album was an abortion.

Pixie - again curse of the second album. "Kiss the stars" sounded too much like a dance mat game for the Wii! She should have stuck with the direction at the start of the career. "Broken Arrow" shows her voice off, and the more soulful pop as opposed to the generic dance pop.

Beyonce - Give her big ballads with emotion and soulful tunes then she'd show her voice. Not crud like "1+1! and "Love on Top".

[marcusgv]

Originally Posted by scrilla

Since when did a singer have to be a songwriter to be considered an artist? Some of the finest singers of the C.20th were not known for songwriting. (And no, I'm not comparing the likes of Alex Burke to them).

A wonderful singer who records great songs written for them has more chance of making a classic record than a lesser singer who writes their own material.

Don't jump to the greatest singers of the 20th century stuff, because that misses the point again. This is about pop music not the music of the 20th Century, different category.
If you want to talk Presley or Sinatra ok, they had a major influence over the music they produced and was produced for them.

Things changed with Dylan and The Beatles and the 60s generally. Pop artists and British pop artists in particular have set the standards on writing/singing their own stuff. And that lasted right up to the 90s at least. It's with this conveyor belt, 'talent show' era that you get this glut of singers who have very little to sing about.

In fact so many of the threads here are about who's outsold who and very little else. I was worried until Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and Adele turned up that this generation of predominantly female singers wasn't going to have any artists but we have.

These singers who write and influence the material they perform, have something to say through the songs, make a ppopular connection and sell a few records at the same time. They are the whole deal, many of the others just don't matter. If they have crap material, it's because they ain't that good.

[granted08]

Amy lee, very talented one of the prettiest girls ever, is a singer song writer, but even though she writes all her own stuff with her band imo her music's gone a little downhill, only because the first album of her band was fantastic, but she's done extremely well.

[scrilla]

Thanks for that reply, iseloid.

i suppose it's disappointing that Alex Burke's career has been poorly managed but I guess that I tend to judge people more on what they have released rather than their talent if I don't happen to enjoy the music in question. I'd like to see her do well, especially compared to some of the highly mediocre singers who are thriving at the moment.

[scrilla]

Originally Posted by marcusgv

Don't jump to the greatest singers of the 20th century stuff, because that misses the point again. This is about pop music not the music of the 20th Century, different category.

The 20th century isn't long gone, it's music was influential on everything we have now and we're still talking about popular music. My post didn't miss the point at all, it addressed the foolish notion that a singer can't be an artist unless they are also a song writer.

Bob Dylan and The Beatles may have written all of their own material but many post-60's performers didn't. The Rolling Stones were mostly a covers band when they were first releasing records. We assume that people who come to light on TV talent shows won't go on to write their own material but only time can tell (if they don't get dropped by their labels within a year or two). Even if they don't go on to write (which is also perfectly likely), why should it matter, if they are good singers and manage to release something worth listening to?

Plenty of currently popular artists are neither good singers nor particularly significant songwriters. When their name is always one of about four or five on the list in the writing credits we can assume they don't contribute much.

This generation has produced plenty of female artists who compose and/or play and instrument, beyond the overrated likes of Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and Adele, it's just that many people don't take any notice of artists who aren't constantly under their noses.

[iseloid]

Originally Posted by scrilla

Thanks for that reply, iseloid.

i suppose it's disappointing that Alex Burke's career has been poorly managed but I guess that I tend to judge people more on what they have released rather than their talent if I don't happen to enjoy the music in question. I'd like to see her do well, especially compared to some of the highly mediocre singers who are thriving at the moment.

Thanks
The public is the same. We love her voice, but not everyone likes the material. It is a shame. Her, leona and rebecca and many others should be huge in the world now, but they aren't.

[iseloid]

Also, everyone remember this. They are all recording artists. That is why they are called artists for short. NOT because they create art. It is the official term of their profession than singer because they record songs and release them.

[marcusgv]

Originally Posted by iseloid

Also, everyone remember this. They are all recording artists. That is why they are called artists for short. NOT because they create art. It is the official term of their profession than singer because they record songs and release them.

Funnily enough and it may have bypassed you but music is an art form and that is why they are recording artists, they record music. And it is this inability to see that making music is making art many seem to miss.

[marcusgv]

Originally Posted by scrilla

The 20th century isn't long gone, it's music was influential on everything we have now and we're still talking about popular music. My post didn't miss the point at all, it addressed the foolish notion that a singer can't be an artist unless they are also a song writer.

I mentioned the 20th Century thing because I don't think a broad discussion of all 20th Century music would be relevant here.

Bob Dylan and The Beatles may have written all of their own material but many post-60's performers didn't. The Rolling Stones were mostly a covers band when they were first releasing records.

The Stones started as a covers band, many bands do just to learn how to play. But for over 15 years after that they produced some great pop and rock music. Also artistic sensibilities isn't just for those who write their own stuff. All singing or music making is artistic in some way.

We assume that people who come to light on TV talent shows won't go on to write their own material but only time can tell (if they don't get dropped by their labels within a year or two). Even if they don't go on to write (which is also perfectly likely), why should it matter, if they are good singers and manage to release something worth listening to?

My point is that because most of the contestants on these talent shows are little more than very good karaoke singers, they are not about artistic endeavour, they have nothing much to write about. They are just wannabes for the most part. And if they had a bit of artistic sensibility they probably, and I only say probably, wouldn't do such a show anyway.
They are simply fodder for a music industry that is just about making money for the most part.

Plenty of currently popular artists are neither good singers nor particularly significant songwriters. When their name is always one of about four or five on the list in the writing credits we can assume they don't contribute much.

Not quite sure about this point. I would suggest that you don't have to be a great singer to be a great artist, e.g. Dylan, Lou Reed, Ian Curtis..It helps if you are, e.g. Stevie Wonder, Springsteen or MJ. But you do have to have a fair number of good songs.

To be fair it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that one of these talent show artists will produce some decent music. Leona Lewis's 'Bleeding Love' is a good song and a good performance. Nicky Roberts did write and produce a good album..but generally these are exceptions.

This generation has produced plenty of female artists who compose and/or play and instrument, beyond the overrated likes of Amy Winehouse, Lady Gaga and Adele, it's just that many people don't take any notice of artists who aren't constantly under their noses.

That may or may not be so but the three I mentioned have not been let down by their material because they write or help write much of it and they have something to say that is worth saying.

[iseloid]

Originally Posted by marcusgv

Funnily enough and it may have bypassed you but music is an art form and that is why they are recording artists, they record music. And it is this inability to see that making music is making art many seem to miss.

Oh I do, but it depends. Cheryl may just sing songs written by others and composed by them, whereas Adele writes and composes her own (same for Taylor Swift). Making music is an art form though.