|
||||||||
Jon McClure slams Leona!! |
![]() |
|
|
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
|
|
#126 |
|
Inactive Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,260
|
Quote:
However, her album certainly has that overly produced, aimed-at-everyone sound to it. She may not come into her own until she can break away from her current management team.
|
|
|
|
|
Please sign in or register to remove this advertisement.
|
|
|
#127 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 65,806
|
Quote:
Here's another of Leona's songs just come up on youtube.
She cowrote some tracks with Saleem Remi as did Amy Winehouse http://youtube.com/watch?v=V2srkkzX2UI ![]() Thanks for the link. Personally I think that music's much better than the previous Leona stuff I've heard. But, it doesn't change my opinion with the points that I've put across. The music I'm hearing is Saleem Remi. That song reminded me so much of Amy Winehouse stuff that I'm even less convinced of Leona's input than I was before. You say 'co-wrote', but what actually did she write? Co-written can mean anything from most of the song, to just a little vocal trill here and there, or even just one line. I remember the same conflict of points of view here a few years ago with Alex Parks from Fame Academy. Exactly the same credentials were used to defend her creative talent 'She writes her own material you know'. But as soon as she separated from her record company, she's gone, vanished, nowhere to be seen. Mark Ronson also appears to be a current flavour of the month. He is credited for the last Amy Winehouse album 'Back to Black', but I'm wondering if Saleem Remi has been severely overlooked in favour of Mark Ronson and is very underrated. Yet Saleem Remi was supposed to have shared equal production credits with Mark Ronson on the album 'Back to Black'. Because I couldn't help feeling that bits of that Leona song you've linked to reminded me of sections of the song 'Back to Black'. Thanks for the link though. Not a bad song at all. Much better than previous songs I've heard Leona sing to. ![]() But to me, that song sounds very much to me to be a Saleen Remi song, rather than written by Leona Lewis. Co-written? What was her actual input? It's like Simon Cowell has noticed that Amy Winehouse is getting more attention and seen as a 'credible artist' due to her last album which was ALSO A HIT, then gotten hold of Saleem Remi and asked him to do a record that sounds sort of a bit like 'Back to Black' ![]() That was my instant thought as soon as I heard the first few bars. Simon just looks as though he wants to try and cash in on the Amy Winehouse thing at the moment and do a 'Back to Black' type clone. Or at least capture some of the ingredients there that did well for Amy Winehouse.
|
|
|
|
|
|
#128 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,325
|
Quote:
You say that you still like 'Bleeding Love'. That's fine, I don't intend to try to stop you liking it. It has a tune, it's sung well, it's a conventional pop song with nothing unusual about it, it's functional and does it's job.
If you enjoy it than carry on enjoying it, I'm not going to even try to stop you doing that. Like you said in your first post though, many backing singers are often excellent, some even better than the act they support. So to me Leona is just another technician. I say 'just' but I don't want to undermine that because it's still a skill and an ability, but she's just another musical instrument, just used like a producer might want to use any other particular instrument like a violin or a guitar. Leona is just like a musical instrument which can be an option from a palette of other musical options available to the producer. She's just there to be played (in more than one sense of the word) like a session guitarist may come into the studio to pick up a guitar and play it. you'll have noticed that I didn't 'buy in' to the Cowell interpretation of Leona - I listened to her performances and thought that she had performed well. I didn't buy the 'secretary' story - so what? was my reaction. I just liked her and Ben Mills as two ends of the smoothness spectrum. Strangely, having been most interested in those two acts that series, it turned out that Leona was a friend of a friend and that I'd probably seen Ben Mills when he did a low-profile gig low down on a festival bill soon after he had started out. I have never argued on the basis of what Simon said, but rather on what I observed - that Leona is a technically good singer and that I liked her performances. I've also qualified by saying that in my opinion Beverley Knight is a better performer, even though I can't recall BK attempting some of the vocal acrobatics that Leona can - with BK, it is her tone of voice, phrasing and, having subsequently seen her live, her sheer stage presence. some performers just have that something (the XF!) that makes people take notice of them - Steve Harley is like that - his biggest hit was 20+ years ago, yet on stage - he demands attention - yet his voice is not particularly good technically. Hugh Cornwell (of the Stranglers) or Ian Dury - both acts I have seen more than once, Hazel O'Connor, Eddi Reader, Chris Difford, Glen Tilbrook and Jools Holland (Squeeze) - they all have one thing in common - they all have an innate stage presence, which engages the audience so that whether they sing the most complex vocals or not, the crowd are engaged. Freddie Mercury was exceptional - to my mind, he was the epitome of what a rock star could achieve in that aspect of performance - not only did he have amazing stage presence, he also had good technical ability - but how would he get on in something like XF? no chance. I don't know if Leona has that or not - when she won, I suggested that putting her on tour on a bill with some really good audience-worker would teach her how to develop that skill. I thought BK would be around the right level of maturity (she had Louise Setara as one of her support acts on the tour I saw). I think programmes like XF are devalued as competition and as entertainment by the emphasis on voting for 'favourites' - it hardly depends on a particular week's performance and there is far too much back-story to the acts. as a result, I decided just to try to enjoy the performances and not get so worked up about the injustices some performers suffer. I have noticed that singers from either a rock or soul background never seem to get as far as they deserve and I put that down to the demographic of the voting audience. when I listen to a fantastic album, I often think that the act would have got nowhere on the likes of XF. I was listening to CDs on a journey - Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart - none would have done OK. the only CD I listened to where the singer might have stood a chance was Cher and she'd have been kicked off for being over 25. I think Leona needs to learn from the right kind of performers and not be mis-packaged. |
|
|
|
|
|
#129 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 65,806
|
The Spoon,....yes we do agree on a lot.
![]() I just want to make it clear that everything in my post wasn't directed on how I think you think. Things I mentioned like buying into X Factor marketing and promotion was just speaking generally. You mention some good examples of acts who aren't necessarily known as great singers, but do have a lot about them creatively and in style that works. As a previous poster said, they'd probably have absolutely no chance of getting through on the X Factor. This is what I see as the fundamental problem with the X Factor, and the current manifesto of the music industry. It's all about fast tracking people through the system who they think they can use to earn a fast buck, and they simply don't want to let things develop naturally and see what rises to the surface. They appear to want to keep those acts down so that there is only room for their chosen favourites to prosper. I'm aware that it's always been the case that record companies have been like that. But not the extent they are now, where NOTHING has much of a chance of breaking through unless they say so. In previous decades there was so much diversity in music. Yes, the more commercially 'pop' orientated acts were there, but now with the overwhelming power of the media nothing else has a cat in hell's chance of being seen, let alone break through. The power of big business and marketing is so powerful now that they can pretty much overwhelm the market with the most commercially sounding 'pop' and ensure that nothing else can get a look in. Such is the power over the market in the media now. Now the media present us with pseudo-credible, they attach the 'image' of credible to an act in order to make the most diluted pop music appear as though it's genuine talent that just happens to have been discovered off the street. Yes, it's happened a lot before too, but now it's too much. Now they're using that form of spin on us in order to promote 'pop' acts who are very much selected to represent 'credible', the truly original or interesting music has an almost impossible task of breaking through. A lot of music seems bland right now probably because the underground flavours and influences which used to influence the pop mainstream a few years later down the road have been all but cut off for a few years now. It always used to be the case that commercial pop would often borrow a lot from underground musical influences from a few years previous that were shown to be popular with a section of people. Pop would come along and borrow and steal to make those sounds popular to MANY people. Cut the underground off and not give it a chance to have a bit of success in it's own right, then a few years down the line pop music will suffer because it there won't be anything there to pilfer and steal from. Nothing wrong with pop in itself, there are often good pop songs that have mass appeal, but I think that you need to have a good balance between mainstream pop and the other interesting diverse sounds that come from less commercially mainstream music. I think that there should be a healthier balance between mainstream pop music, and the underground sounds which used to be still allowed a degree of success. I think the balance right now is well off. |
|
|
|
|
|
#130 |
|
Inactive Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,260
|
Quote:
It's like Simon Cowell has noticed that Amy Winehouse is getting more attention and seen as a 'credible artist' due to her last album which was ALSO A HIT, then gotten hold of Saleem Remi and asked him to do a record that sounds sort of a bit like 'Back to Black'
![]() |
|
|
|
|
|
#131 |
|
Inactive Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,260
|
Quote:
This is what I see as the fundamental problem with the X Factor, and the current manifesto of the music industry. It's all about fast tracking people through the system who they think they can use to earn a fast buck, and they simply don't want to let things develop naturally and see what rises to the surface. They appear to want to keep those acts down so that there is only room for their chosen favourites to prosper.
I'm aware that it's always been the case that record companies have been like that. But not the extent they are now, where NOTHING has much of a chance of breaking through unless they say so. In previous decades there was so much diversity in music. Yes, the more commercially 'pop' orientated acts were there, but now with the overwhelming power of the media nothing else has a cat in hell's chance of being seen, let alone break through. The power of big business and marketing is so powerful now that they can pretty much overwhelm the market with the most commercially sounding 'pop' and ensure that nothing else can get a look in. Such is the power over the market in the media now. Now the media present us with pseudo-credible, they attach the 'image' of credible to an act in order to make the most diluted pop music appear as though it's genuine talent that just happens to have been discovered off the street. Yes, it's happened a lot before too, but now it's too much. To me there's as much diffirentiation in the charts now as there ever has been. If not more. In many ways the digitisation of music has made it truly democratic at last and fans can't be dictated to, and can't have their access to music restricted as they could in the pre-digital age where record companies could effectively dictate what the large stores stocked and the TV shows and radio played. The X-Factor is a tiny % of the overall music market and shouldn't be assumed to have much importance in the grand scheme of things because it doesn't. |
|
|
|
|
|
#132 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,325
|
Quote:
The X-Factor is a tiny % of the overall music market and shouldn't be assumed to have much importance in the grand scheme of things because it doesn't. except that the Christmas no.1 was never predictable before... |
|
|
|
|
|
#133 |
|
Inactive Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,260
|
Quote:
except that the Christmas no.1 was never predictable before...
The Christmas number 1 has been entirely predictable for donkeys years and there's only been 2 or 3 credible Xmas number 1s since 1980. Basing your view of the state on the British Record Industry on what the Christmas Number 1 is given the appalling records that have held the spot isn't the best of ideas. |
|
|
|
|
|
#134 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 3,931
|
I love Amy Winehouse - and I love that Leona song B side or whatever - love it!
I'm a bit disappointed in a way though - as I'm wondering how much of Back to Black is actually Amy's work, and how much is Saleem Remi??? I downloaded back to black and haven't seen the writing credits - does anyone know what they say? Sorry to hijack the thread - I do like You Bring Me Down though:lol: |
|
|
|
|
|
#135 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Hampshire
Posts: 20,806
|
Quote:
I love Amy Winehouse - and I love that Leona song B side or whatever - love it!
I'm a bit disappointed in a way though - as I'm wondering how much of Back to Black is actually Amy's work, and how much is Saleem Remi??? I downloaded back to black and haven't seen the writing credits - does anyone know what they say? Sorry to hijack the thread - I do like You Bring Me Down though:lol: The studio is where the Saleem sound is applied, you can tell immediately with the piano intro and bassline. They would have recorded dozens of tracks. Although this a great track, in the end, they would have worked on an overall album sound and use tracks which fit together. This tracks sound doesn't match the album sound they decided on. |
|
|
|
|
|
#136 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 9,533
|
Quote:
LOL...when I started that song I immediately thought of Amy Winehouse when I heard that piano and the chords
![]() Thanks for the link. Personally I think that music's much better than the previous Leona stuff I've heard. But, it doesn't change my opinion with the points that I've put across. The music I'm hearing is Saleem Remi. That song reminded me so much of Amy Winehouse stuff that I'm even less convinced of Leona's input than I was before. You say 'co-wrote', but what actually did she write? Co-written can mean anything from most of the song, to just a little vocal trill here and there, or even just one line. I remember the same conflict of points of view here a few years ago with Alex Parks from Fame Academy. Exactly the same credentials were used to defend her creative talent 'She writes her own material you know'. But as soon as she separated from her record company, she's gone, vanished, nowhere to be seen. Mark Ronson also appears to be a current flavour of the month. He is credited for the last Amy Winehouse album 'Back to Black', but I'm wondering if Saleem Remi has been severely overlooked in favour of Mark Ronson and is very underrated. Yet Saleem Remi was supposed to have shared equal production credits with Mark Ronson on the album 'Back to Black'. Because I couldn't help feeling that bits of that Leona song you've linked to reminded me of sections of the song 'Back to Black'. Thanks for the link though. Not a bad song at all. Much better than previous songs I've heard Leona sing to. ![]() But to me, that song sounds very much to me to be a Saleen Remi song, rather than written by Leona Lewis. Co-written? What was her actual input? It's like Simon Cowell has noticed that Amy Winehouse is getting more attention and seen as a 'credible artist' due to her last album which was ALSO A HIT, then gotten hold of Saleem Remi and asked him to do a record that sounds sort of a bit like 'Back to Black' ![]() That was my instant thought as soon as I heard the first few bars. Simon just looks as though he wants to try and cash in on the Amy Winehouse thing at the moment and do a 'Back to Black' type clone. Or at least capture some of the ingredients there that did well for Amy Winehouse. ![]() Saleen Remi is a hot producer so obviously if they use him its going to have his sound, and i dont actualy think this sounds that much like anything on wine houses album, its more modern sounding than anything on hers. And cant you say that about amywinehouse, her album is saleen remis sound not hers since he produced basically her whole album? |
|
|
|
|
|
#137 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 9,533
|
Quote:
Isn't this more a case of "the grass was greener in my day". All generations have claimed the same.
To me there's as much diffirentiation in the charts now as there ever has been. If not more. In many ways the digitisation of music has made it truly democratic at last and fans can't be dictated to, and can't have their access to music restricted as they could in the pre-digital age where record companies could effectively dictate what the large stores stocked and the TV shows and radio played. The X-Factor is a tiny % of the overall music market and shouldn't be assumed to have much importance in the grand scheme of things because it doesn't. |
|
|
|
|
|
#138 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 26,376
|
Quote:
A few things dont make sense in your argument, if simon wanted to cash in on the amy winehouse sound then why on earth did he leave it off the album- it could of been a single but yet its a b-side.
Saleen Remi is a hot producer so obviously if they use him its going to have his sound, and i dont actualy think this sounds that much like anything on wine houses album, its more modern sounding than anything on hers. And cant you say that about amywinehouse, her album is saleen remis sound not hers since he produced basically her whole album? |
|
|
|
|
|
#139 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2002
Posts: 65,806
|
Quote:
I love Amy Winehouse - and I love that Leona song B side or whatever - love it!
I'm a bit disappointed in a way though - as I'm wondering how much of Back to Black is actually Amy's work, and how much is Saleem Remi??? I downloaded back to black and haven't seen the writing credits - does anyone know what they say? Sorry to hijack the thread - I do like You Bring Me Down though:lol: ![]() I too would feel a bit disappointed too, I even feel guilty for wondering, because I feel slightly misled by things and was led to believe that Amy actually did pretty much write her own songs. I knew that Salaam Remi and Mark Ronson produced her songs, but I didn't think that they wrote ALL the music for her. That would be a crushing let-down for me. |
|
|
|
|
|
#140 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 9,533
|
Quote:
I would have thought it's a collaboration between the artist and the producer. And I can't hear any similarity between Leona and Amy even with the same producer. You may as well say that Quincy Jones produced albums are all going to sound like Michael Jackson. A lot of it depends on how much input the artist has. I'd take a guess that Leona was more malleable than Amy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
#141 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 9,533
|
Quote:
It's okay, no problem. I could tell that it was just accidental.
![]() Thanks for this honest and fair post that I'm responding to as well. We probably agree on lots of things. It's just that with this Leona Lewis thing we simply differ in taste. I think you can probably tell that it's not Leona herself that I'm having a go at, and that the weight of most of my criticism is aimed more towards the machine behind her. Personally I would like to see what she would do if she was allowed to create her own material and perform her own material. At the moment that's not really possible, although I believed that she asked Simon Cowell if she could put some input into her album. How much input she was allowed is questionable. I'd guess not that much. Personally I think that Leona is a very good singer. It's just that when words like 'talented' and 'artist' are applied to her, it often appears to be said in relation to her actual material as though it's her music and her songs. Maybe this is a reason why she didn't win a Brit Award, and other acts possibly won some due to creating their own material, whether that material is any good or not. (Not that the Brits mean much anyway). Maybe that's why Rihanna also missed out too. ![]() |
|
|
|
|
|
#142 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Sep 2007
Posts: 9,533
|
Quote:
I would have thought it's a collaboration between the artist and the producer. And I can't hear any similarity between Leona and Amy even with the same producer. You may as well say that Quincy Jones produced albums are all going to sound like Michael Jackson. A lot of it depends on how much input the artist has. I'd take a guess that Leona was more malleable than Amy.
|
|
|
|
|
|
#143 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,325
|
tonight I listened to "Lady Sings the blues" a double CD compilation going back to Billy Holliday including Sarah Vaughan, Julie London, Erma Franklin, Ella Fitzgerald etc and ending up with Norah Jones - I followed up with Christina Aguilera's "Stripped".
quality artists who have been mentioned in this thread. Quincy Jones - did "the Italian Job" theme - amazing insight to write the Self-Preservation Society - top producer. Can we agree that Jon McClure is a relative nobody who has got recognition for jumping on a critical bandwagon? maybe Leona won't rise to the heights of Ella or Julie, but she looks like doing better than Mr Jealous. He might as well record Peter Green's "Green Manalishi (with the a two pronged crown)" - his version would doubtless be shit compared to Fleetwood Mac's, but at least he'd get his jealousy out in the open. come to think of it - "jealous guy" hasn't been a hot for a while... |
|
|
|
|
|
#144 |
|
Inactive Member
Join Date: Aug 2007
Posts: 2,260
|
Quote:
I would have thought it's a collaboration between the artist and the producer. And I can't hear any similarity between Leona and Amy even with the same producer. You may as well say that Quincy Jones produced albums are all going to sound like Michael Jackson. A lot of it depends on how much input the artist has. I'd take a guess that Leona was more malleable than Amy.
![]() It's a murky world deciding who did what in the recording industry .... |
|
|
|
|
|
#145 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jan 2005
Posts: 26,376
|
Quote:
Or Amy was more malleable than Leona
![]() It's a murky world deciding who did what in the recording industry .... Also, I don't find the songs sound similar at all so I'm not sure where this idea that Salaam Remi has a sound that supercedes the artists input, has come from. |
|
|
|
|
|
#146 |
|
Banned User
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 381
|
Quote:
In YOUR opinion, ofcourse.
|
|
|
|
|
|
#147 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,325
|
isn't this thread tired an due to be put to sleep?
|
|
|
|
|
|
#148 |
|
Banned User
Join Date: Aug 2005
Posts: 381
|
Maybe, but I've been banned for 2 weeks and haven't had a chance to post.
|
|
|
|
|
|
#149 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 400
|
Quote:
He is talking rubbish.. She is a talented singer.
|
|
|
|
|
|
#150 |
|
Forum Member
Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 90,792
|
Quote:
Heavyweight Champion on the world was one of the few songs to keep growing and growing in the charts last year. So Alot of people will disagree with you.
I'd rather listen to THE worst music in the world if it was written by that artist than some bland MOR rubbish performed by someone with the right look and voice ![]() Re that and other posts, I don't "get" why people think it's so important that artists perform their own material. Virtually no one thinks that what actors do is worthless unless they've also written and directed the thing, so why is it so different when we move from film or theatre to music? And not even to all music. Classical musicians often aren't performing their own material, yet that's not thought to fatally discredit them. Sinatra didn't write his own songs, yet it's at least uncommon to hear anyone say that makes him worse than anyone who did. Or if a band is performing one of their own songs, often it will have been written by only one or two members. That the others aren't performing their own material doesn't make what they do rubbish, does it? ![]() I can understand the objection to formulaic and MOR music, but then the problem is that the music is formulaic or MOR, regardless of who wrote it. Surely formulaic music doesn't suddenly become good when someone's performing their own! Quote:
last time i listened, his band were getting pretty endlessy repeated on commercial radio. the term manufactured isnt getting used properly anymore, and while not a fan i do know that she has been doing this a while, this has just given her break and she's got the talent to carry it off.
|
|
|
|
![]() |
|
All times are GMT. The time now is 15:34.







