Sorry, I was in California this past week, so I'm a little late with this...

Scott, you said
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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.

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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 -
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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.