A singing shame

Such a shame that a lot of pinoy singers of today are way overrated. Stopped by a restaurant earlier where they were playing the Cd of a certain bossa nova singer. Her voice is really pretty…it just falls flat as it lacks je ne sais quois.

Pain and angst really plays a big part in giving texture to a singers voice. take a look at Elliott Yamin, from American Idol 5. His AI singing used to wobble from sharp or flat and he also went overboard with the vibratto …but it was his texture that drew me in. 4 seasons later, he is still my fave (loser) idol. (Not to mention his post AI album did very well on the charts.)

Once, I let my former boss who is a pretty good jazz guitarist listen to a CD of a local acid jazz group. They were majorly tight with the instrumentation and he agreed. “However”, he said, “the singer needs angst.”

True enough, it seems as though these people, from sheltered upper middle class origins, rarely experience real pain. It sounds like they are just mouthing off their sentiments in a singsong manner.

On another note, I’m not a fan of emo and all that whining and shrieking is an exaggeration of expressing angst (mainly bec i feel their source of angst is shallow, based on their lyrics) but you have to agree that expression is also an auditory experience & extends beyond talent, good ear & creativity.

I can totally tell is a singer is sincere in his song or not. Sinead o connor is sincere. Paris hilton is not.

I may not appreciate some of the new bands because of this, but hey, a girl’s gotta have standards so as not to fill up the music memory banks!

Who am i to judge what good music is? I just know what i know from experience …its similar to driving on the road and encountering a reckless drunk in front of you. Some of them are pretentious pricks who drive Priuses to get on the carpool lane. Some of them ride the bus.

You just kind of know you’re better off :p