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Quote:
Sam,
I believe Garth Brooks has been out of fashion in the USA for about 10 years, if I'm not mistaken. I think it was about 10 years ago he tried his alter-ego chris something or other experiment. Kind of like a New Coke experiment for him. I can explain that further if New Coke wasn't in Europe.
I could be wrong, but at least on country pop-radio where I was from, Garth Brooks hasn't been on playlists for many many years. Haven't listened to much country since moving to Colorado. Some excellent college stations out here that play a VERY wide variety of music - have a listen online: http://www2.ppcc.edu/NewsEvents/KEPC/
No idea about 'New Coke' but I do know that Garth has not been working for well over 10 years because he wanted to put his family first and bring up his kids as a homeboy. But... He's back!
Follow That Dream Sam Karaoke King -------------------- Turning that corner again - I have to keep following that dream, no matter what
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Rather than me type out the 'New Coke' story - of which I only know a fraction of it - here is the Wikipedia collection of opinion and facts on the topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_cokeBottom Line: Coca-Cola decided to 'mess with success' and had a huge flop. Garth decided to ditch his friends in low places and all of a sudden go alt-rock. Big mistake.
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It's hard to believe that the "Chris Gaines" album by Garth can be considered a failure when it sold 2 million copies, made #2 on the pop album charts and had three Billboard singles from it -- but it is. I guess failure is relative.
Kevin
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Quote:
Rather than me type out the 'New Coke' story - of which I only know a fraction of it - here is the Wikipedia collection of opinion and facts on the topic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_coke
Bottom Line: Coca-Cola decided to 'mess with success' and had a huge flop.
Garth decided to ditch his friends in low places and all of a sudden go alt-rock. Big mistake.
Interesting story - thanks for that insight. Since New Coke was never introduced into the UK, of course I had never heard about it. However, that is not as bad as the story about Pepsi who, allegedly, introduced their slogan into the Chinese market "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into Chinese it read "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave". No wonder the Chinese wouldn't touch it!
Personally, I only very rarely drink carbonated soft drinks
Follow That Dream Sam Karaoke King -------------------- Turning that corner again - I have to keep following that dream, no matter what
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Quote:
It's hard to believe that the "Chris Gaines" album by Garth can be considered a failure when it sold 2 million copies, made #2 on the pop album charts and had three Billboard singles from it -- but it is. I guess failure is relative.
Kevin
Kevin - good point. But I wonder how many albums it would have been had it been a Garth Brooks country-pop album.
With his kind of inertia he had going with the record company, those sales were almost guaranteed.
For some interesting new country-pop, a friend played me some new Eagles tracks from his iPod the other day. Pretty good actually.
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Sorry, I was in California this past week, so I'm a little late with this... Scott, you said Quote:
If it was 'warped audio' then the guitars and fiddles and lap steel would sound out of tune.
They do. The fiddle sounds terrible; the guitars sound off to me, but I haven't checked it. What really came out was when I turned up the bass loud. It sounds bad and out of tune. All the vocals are off and there is a weird phasing sound at times. My guess is that it's just a bad video tape to digital video conversion. Or it could be the earpieces weren't working. It's not because they can't sing. Just not true. One performance would never kill 2-3 decades of absolute excellence.
I've heard George Strait live this past summer and he's fantastic in concert - no bad vocals that I could hear at all.
BTW, the Taylor Swift video that Sam posted has bad, off key vocals as well - especially at the beginning when she's playing guitar. But I don't think she's a bad singer or songwriter at all. But as an overall artist, she's just not there yet. She needs time and maturity. Give her some more years before you tout her as being some sort of female version of Bruce Springsteen. She's more like a slightly older Hannah Montana.
Quote:
In fact, I can't think of many country musicians I enjoy recent or in the past who I would call 'good' singers.
Then you must have never liked Randy Travis, Ray Price, Eddy Arnold, Larry Gatlin, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, LeAnn Rimes, Vince Gill, or Raul Malo, just to name a few. If they aren't good singers than I guess I have no idea what your standards are.
Personally, I like not-so-perfect vocalists (Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Shooter Jennings, Robert Earl Keen, John Hiatt) and not just because I sing that way. I want something real, not something cute. I want something that's got substance and soul.
From Sam - Quote:
Where is the command of the English language?
I guess it's back in England where it belongs... 
To Axegrinder01: I couldn't agree more.
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Now Taylor has gone and won another 5 awards yesterday... American Music Awards
Follow That Dream Sam Karaoke King -------------------- Turning that corner again - I have to keep following that dream, no matter what
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.
>>>... Some people can't spell or even write cohesively! Where is the command of the English language?...>>>
I beleive the word you are looking for is "coherently."
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That too! But I did actually mean 'cohesively'
Follow That Dream Sam Karaoke King -------------------- Turning that corner again - I have to keep following that dream, no matter what
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Quote:
Sorry, I was in California this past week, so I'm a little late with this...
Scott, you said Quote:
If it was 'warped audio' then the guitars and fiddles and lap steel would sound out of tune.
They do. The fiddle sounds terrible; the guitars sound off to me, but I haven't checked it. What really came out was when I turned up the bass loud. It sounds bad and out of tune. All the vocals are off and there is a weird phasing sound at times. My guess is that it's just a bad video tape to digital video conversion. Or it could be the earpieces weren't working. It's not because they can't sing. Just not true. One performance would never kill 2-3 decades of absolute excellence.
I've heard George Strait live this past summer and he's fantastic in concert - no bad vocals that I could hear at all.
BTW, the Taylor Swift video that Sam posted has bad, off key vocals as well - especially at the beginning when she's playing guitar. But I don't think she's a bad singer or songwriter at all. But as an overall artist, she's just not there yet. She needs time and maturity. Give her some more years before you tout her as being some sort of female version of Bruce Springsteen. She's more like a slightly older Hannah Montana.
Quote:
In fact, I can't think of many country musicians I enjoy recent or in the past who I would call 'good' singers.
Then you must have never liked Randy Travis, Ray Price, Eddy Arnold, Larry Gatlin, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood, LeAnn Rimes, Vince Gill, or Raul Malo, just to name a few. If they aren't good singers than I guess I have no idea what your standards are.
Personally, I like not-so-perfect vocalists (Jerry Jeff Walker, Willie Nelson, Shooter Jennings, Robert Earl Keen, John Hiatt) and not just because I sing that way. I want something real, not something cute. I want something that's got substance and soul.
From Sam - Quote:
Where is the command of the English language?
I guess it's back in England where it belongs...
To Axegrinder01: I couldn't agree more.
Dan,
I agree that a single performance can't kill decades of solid performance/excellence. Have yet another listen to this track. The guys were not nailing it that night - that's all. That's o.k. I do not hear nearly the off-pitch character of the instrumentation compared to the singing. I agree with you that likely there was a monitoring issue at hand. That seems typical with live TV performances in general.
When I say 'good' I should have clarified what I meant by 'good'. By that I mean that as a trained 'good', versus subjectively judged 'good'. I enjoy many of the singers you list; particularly Travis, Gill and Nelson. If you stacked them up against a studio singer - they would not hold a candle to the studio cats, even in their own genre. A well-trained studio singer can copy the 'twanginess' of country without much difficulty at all, then turn around and do an operatic track, then R&B, etc. My sister is one such singer. She has a regular paying gig for a couple of vocal music publishing companies where she goes into the studio and lays down ridiculously difficult; sometimes quite inharmonic parts, as a coloratura soprano. These tracks are aimed a college choirs where the directors sometimes present these things as a challenge - not because there is actually a paying listening audience for such stuff. That's her classical training, but what she really excels at is R&B and country. Her performance of 'Stand By Your Man' will make your hair stand on end in delight. Keep in mind that she's from plain-jane midwest Michigan, with nary a southern accent - but she pours it on when she needs to. She can then turn around and knock-off Oleta Adams and even copy the covered nature of some of Oleta's vowel sounds. Then do a light and airy indie-rock thing - you name it, she can nail it. She's 'Good'. But she's never had popular commercial success (really only shopped a 4 track demo years ago). She does have pretty doggoned good success on a per-hour payment basis.
I did not equate financial or popular success with 'Good'. I guess that's the whole point of the thread. Financial success in the music business has rarely been related to musical talent alone. Much can be attributed to business acumen and good old-fashioned luck and opportunism.
Just this past weekend, I listened to a duo CD between Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris. When Emmylou Harris joins in or takes a lead, it gives me goosebumps. Man I love it. But she's not a 'good' singer in the way I would describe it above. Doesn't mean she hasn't had success or provided years of enjoyment for her listeners.
Well, enough about that. I don't expect you to agree with me about the particular YouTube video. I think we probably agree much more than disagree about the definition of what's 'Good' and what's not. Perhaps my treatment of the topic is based on recently reading Malcom Gladwell's book called "Outliers". Could go on, but it's an easy read that's probably at your local library.
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OK, I take it all back! After watching the American Music Awards (AMA) last night I can only say those Country gals and guys sure are talented! Makes me want to pick up an harmonica and start playing slide. 
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