O SOLO ME-O

Can't anybody sing any more?

From the birth of the song as a work of art and a product, it has always been about THE SONG itself, and the person presenting it. Same goes for all types of art -- whether it's a song, a book, a painting, or a film, it's about the work itself , and the person presenting it. Until....

Well, I'm not sure exactly when it changed. I'd say it was probably in the mid-60's, when music really became huge business, and songs as products became more important than songs as works of art. Americans buy personalities -- hence much of what's wrong with America, from our elected officials to modern music, film, and TV. Since SO much money (and power) is made and lost in what were formerly "artistic" fields, the stakes are higher now than they have ever been. Therefore, the powers that be are going to make decisions based ONLY on what they think will make them the most money, and in the shortest period of time.

Don't worry, I'll get to the part about how singers suck nowadays in a second. Just bear with me... Up until the mid-80's, there was a thing called an "A & R Man" (A & R stands for "Artist & Repertoire"). This was a guy, working for a record label, that traveled around the country looking for talented acts, who they also thought could make the record label some dough. Now (thanks, again, Nashville!), the A & R Man no longer exists. Here's why: Up until about 10-20 years ago, Americans thought people were talented, and therefore cool -- if they were cool outside of that, then that was icing on the cake. And it sold them some extra records. Now, they have realized that personality sells WAY more records than talent, and, since the dollar stakes are so high now, they always go with the sure thing: cool sells records. Period. The A & R Man is dead because you can tell if a person is "cool", "hip", or whatever, just by a photo, a 3-song demo, and an interview. The market research does the rest -- "Young? Check. Pretty? Check. Non-threatening? Check. Willing to do, act, say, dress, and record whatever we tell them to? Check." Congratulations! You've just witnessed the birth of every Nashville county act in the last 15 years. Sadly, the "Texas Music" thing is exactly the same, except with our own flavor -- "College-age? Check. Loves Robert Earl? Check. Knows Pat Green? Check. Brand new cowboy hat that they spent all day bending up real cool? Check. All songs have at least 1 reference to Lone Star, beer, weed, ass, trains, or Robert Earl? Check." Congratulations! You can do a rodeo commercial now, too.

See anything in the market-research checklists about talent? Vocal ability? Songwriting ability? Longevity? Nope, nope, nope, and nope. Is that Nashville's fault? Nope again. It's our fault. We, the great American consumer, are the ones buying millions and millions of those god-awful records, watching "Joe Millionaire", and going to see "Dumb and Dumber II". Don't get me wrong -- I'm a red-blooded 'Mer’can just like everybody else. I loves my Pizza Hut, and I worship the glowing orb (the great and powerful TV), and I see the occasional dumb flick for something fun to do on a date night. But I try to restrain myself from being a total American marketing sucker, ya know? I seek out good music. I go to local restaurants (fast food & otherwise) with much better food and character. You have to realize that we are marketed to based on what will sell the most product, not at all on what is the best quality. And those who can sell things to us the best are the ones that have the most money to start with. It's a chicken & the egg thing: Do they sell it so well because it's a desirable product, or do we desire the product because they sell it so well?

In the record business, it used to be the former. But since the early 1990's, it's been the latter. Sure, salesmanship has always been about presentation. That's why people can make money selling inferior products, from medicine show tonics of a hundred years ago to crappy used cars and modern country music today. And, just like a cure-all tonic, some people take it home and go, "This is junk! It does nothing for me! I just got shucked...", or they take it home and go, "This is great! It works just like that nifty fella said it would! I'm strong as an ox!" In both cases, the tonic is just water and spices and other nonsense -- it's crap. But it works for the second guy because he thought the salesman was cool, and he bought the act hook, line, and sinker.

OK, what does this have to do with today's singers? Oh yeah, that was the original point, wasn't it? Sorry 'bout that.. Actually, without even talking specifically about singing at all, I think you probably see my point. Who are the guys selling the most records nowadays? Toby "Beelzebubba" Keith, Kenny Chesney, that long-haired dude that won come CMA's? Or, around here, Robert Earl Keen, Pat Green, Kevin Fowler, Cory Morrow? I'm not saying anything about their music itself right now; that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about vocals specifically. And these people are not good singers. In fact, Robert Earl will tell you that very thing himself -- I've heard him say straight-out that he "can't sing", and that's not what he's about anyway. He's a songwriter first and foremost, and a good one at that. And that's totally fine -- the point, ultimately, is to get the song across as well as possible, achieving the desired emotion and effect in yourself and the audience. "Good singing" is separate from that, really -- hence guys like Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson. They can't carry a tune in their back pocket, but they are genius songwriters and can get the point of their songs across perfectly the way they sing them, ugly though it may be. But now, with modern recording technology, most importantly a thing called "pitch correcting", a good producer can (and will) make literally ANYBODY sound listenable and "not-unpleasing to the ear". OK, here's this: Sound waves are actual physical movements of the air. When a person sings off-pitch (or plays an instrument out of tune), it causes "dissonance", which causes the little sound waves, when they hit your ear, to clash against each other, causing an unpleasant feeling in the listener. With "pitch correction" used in recording modern singers, that natural (mostly subconscious) "unpleasant feeling" is eliminated. They can take the out-of-tune sound waves, and make them nice & even and non-clashing in your ear. BUT, you just can't hide suckiness. You can't change a person's tone, or give them a natural, controlled vibrato, or give their voice texture and depth, or change their phrasing, or make them sound like they have facial expression when they're dead-pan.

So there's the thing -- the guys selling the most records today either don't write songs at all, or they write juvenile party anthems, and they can't sing! You know who not only never used, but never needed any modern magic to make them sound like great singers? George Jones. Waylon Jennings. Merle Haggard. Ray Price. Johnny Bush. Faron Young. Elvis Presley. Frank Sinatra. Jackie Wilson. Aretha Franklin. Ella Fitzgerald. Billie Holiday. B.B. King. Little Willie John. Johnny Adams. Need I go on? And in modern times, though all records use modern techniques and all that junk, Dwight Yoakum, The Dixie Chicks (yeah, I said it), Raul Malo (of the Mavericks), Tony Villanueva (of the Derailers), and Justin Trevino (who uses very little modern junk anyway) ALL are great singers regardless of modern recording techniques. Of course, Willie is the great debate, the gray area: no, he never had a "strong" voice, or a huge octave range, or lots of different tones and styles. I've heard knowledgeable people, fans of his, say flat out "Willie can't sing." I disagree wholeheartedly, a billion times over. NOBODY can put emotion across in a song like Willie Nelson. And that's kind of the point of Willie -- he can say so freaking much with so freaking little. Willie is about phrasing, nuance, subtlety, and conviction. And even technically, especially in the early years, his pitch was impeccable, and his tone was clear and precise.

OK, here's the other side of the coin: Elvis. He never wrote a song in his life, he's one of the most successfully marketed products of all time, both alive and dead, he rocketed to stardom and fame because of controversy, and he was the coolest freaking guy EVER. With the way he was marketed, he didn't even need to be able to sing the way he could. Shaun Young and I were discussing this one day, and he had a great quote: "You just watch him and say, 'Damn they gave all the cool to one guy.'" BUT, Elvis had TALENT, plain and simple. The guy had a thousand-octave range, he had variety in his vocal styles and approach, he could make more vocal tones with just his voice than a guitar player with 50 pedals and gadgets. If you never even saw the guy, you could plain feel, not just hear, the emotion and passion in his voice, and you are immediately taken in, one hundred percent.. Both Willie and Elvis, on the merit of their vocals alone, had/have more talent in the barbecue stuck in their teeth than the "singers" who sell millions of records do today.

So, it's about quality, y'all. I realize that most folks don't understand what goes on with modern recording. And I'm not one of those "if it's new, it sucks" kind of people, either. I just think it's a shame that, as American consumers, we have pretty much put aside quality (what made us the richest, most powerful nation on the planet in the first place) for convenience, and we see the ability to sell mass products and make big money as an art form in itself. How many times have we all said to someone, "So-and-so sucks", only to have the person reply, "Well, so-and-so sold a gajillion records last year. They don't suck."

Yeah, and there were a gajillion cans of Spam sold last year, too.

Roger