umm, wasn't most of motown like that?

Somewhere in that link, right?

SilentStrider: umm, wasn't most of motown like that?

Not just Motown. A LOT of singers have sung songs written by other people over the years. It's really only a recent phenomena that has the industry insisting that artists be singer/songwriter/musicians.

Personally, I'd rather hear a well written song, sung by someone who can actually carry a tune without needing all the studio wizardry, and backed up by talented musicians, regardless of whether anyone performed more than one of those functions - rather than all of these mediocre s/sw/m "artists" we have ruining the industry in this day and age.

/get off my lawn

You know, I am about to do a world promotion of a film that tells how The Blues turned into Rock and Roll, starting at the Sundance Film Festival.

Evils Presley, The King of Rock and Roll, had his first hit on the Ed Sullivan show.

The song he sang, was recorded 8 years before, in Chicago, by a Black musician.

He sang it word for word, tone by tone.

If the author wants to discredit someone's talent because he/she sings a song written by someone else, the list would go on and on.

Reviewer has Blunt-envy, and wishes he could snag all that virginity at the James Blunt chalet.

I'm trying to think here, the only Singer/songwriter that I can think of is Sheryl Crow, and I know she's sang covers and other peoples songs as well.

/could be wrong

Fab Morvan and Rob Pilatus not available for comment.

Manta537: You know, I am about to do a world promotion of a film that tells how The Blues turned into Rock and Roll, starting at the Sundance Film Festival.

Sounds cool. I hope I get the chance to see it.

Either way, James Blunt makes me want to shoot myself.

Well covered above, but Blunt writes a large percentage of his own songs. If he can't ever use other writers and still be considered a singer/songwriter something's wrong. Annoying or not, people who sing live with acoustic guitars are not the problem with music today.

Kyosuke: Somewhere in that link, right?

Sorry guess link is dynamic

Here's the review

Here's another try at the link

James Blunt: Folkie crying wolf in every line

Matthew Magee reviews James Blunt at Glasgow Academy

James Blunt has paid a high price for the needling ubiquity of his biggest hit, You're Beautiful. That annoyingly hooky chorus took an obscure singer-songwriter and turned him into a national punchline.


James Blunt: intense emotional pitch rings false
Now that he's on tour promoting his second album, can his career survive playground parody and critical contempt?

Blunt poked fun at his own terrible reputation. "You are some of the bravest people in Britain," he told the Glasgow crowd. "A James Blunt gig is not a very cool place to be."

Blunt's comically awkward rock-star guitar gestures and applause-milking hardly helped matters, but it was nothing to the one-dimensional, facile flimsiness of the music.

On songs such as I Really Want You and Out of My Mind there was simply no hope of a surprise, a jolt, a change from the plod and the plead, Blunt's pedestrian backing and incessant emoting.

The songwriting is neat, the playing thoroughly competent, but this is a risk-less, danger-free experience, music that sounds as though it was designed rather than written.

In fact, despite the trappings of singer-songwriter credibility - that guitar constantly slung nonchalantly over the shoulder - Blunt's new album involved a team of co-songwriters including Britney Spears mastermind Max Martin and a Will Young and Kylie writer.

In this context, the magpie taking of snippets of other songs - Coldplay's Yellow in Same Mistake, the James Bond theme in I Can't Hear the Music, Stand By Me in Shine On - began to feel less like playful wit and more like a cynical attempt to hook us with something familiar, to engender affection by subconscious association.

There are other symptoms that suggest that Blunt is a kind of facsimile of a singer-songwriter, an interloper. His seemingly spontaneous jump on to his piano was preceded by a roadie creeping on stage at the scripted moment to bolster the topple-prone instrument.

Blunt's unwaveringly intense emotional pitch also rang false: there is a ceaseless quivering crisis in his voice that graces every syllable, crying wolf with every line.

Such slick, empty-hearted professionalism need not have been Blunt's lot, though.

When he sang You're Beautiful, he infused it with a sharp release of bright joy that was as generous as it was surprising, and I Can't Hear the Music had all the episodic, textural invention missing elsewhere and a captivating performance that was darkly, evangelically intense.

These were flashes, though: moments only in a long parade of fakes and confections, genetically engineered faux-folk that is not built to last.

A singer isn't an artist, a singer is an instrument. If you don't write your own music or lyrics then you aren't an artist. All good bands write their own lyrics/music, but then again I don't listen to Pop garbage.

Kliffoth: A singer isn't an artist, a singer is an instrument. If you don't write your own music or lyrics then you aren't an artist.

I believe Robert Plant (et al) might disagree with you there.

Kliffoth: All good bands write their own lyrics/music, but then again I don't listen to Pop garbage.

You should look into just how many classic songs weren't written by the performers who made them famous. You might be surprised.

Quite frankly, the best artists are that way because they could take someone else's song and improve upon it. It's easy to perform a song that's written to your own strengths. It's much tougher to successfully interpret someone else's song.

Whether he writes his own stuff or just sings the work of others, he's still a giant douche.

Kyosuke: I believe Robert Plant (et al) might disagree with you there.

there's a difference between doing covers of artists you love, and being handed a sheet of music and being told 'here, sing this'

Kliffoth: A singer isn't an artist, a singer is an instrument. If you don't write your own music or lyrics then you aren't an artist. All good bands write their own lyrics/music, but then again I don't listen to Pop garbage.

Yeah, fark Elvis, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, and all those old soul singers like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, who hardly ever wrote their own songs. They were just pop garbage, all of 'em. Obviously you're not a REAL artist unless you wrote the song you're singing.

Mercutio879: I'm trying to think here, the only Singer/songwriter that I can think of is Sheryl Crow, and I know she's sang covers and other peoples songs as well.

/could be wrong

You are correct. Sheryl Crow is the only singer-songwriter in the world. The only one.

SilentStrider: there's a difference between doing covers of artists you love, and being handed a sheet of music and being told 'here, sing this'

Somewhat, but you're using a smaller brush for your sweeping generalization than Kliffoth did.

Ella Fitzgerald was typically just "handed a sheet of music and told 'here, sing this'." She was still an impressive artist, even on those songs.

\just one example out of many

Quite frankly, the best artists are that way because they could take someone else's song and improve upon it. It's easy to perform a song that's written to your own strengths. It's much tougher to successfully interpret someone else's song.

This.

destitute college kid: You are correct. Sheryl Crow is the only singer-songwriter in the world. The only one.

Stand up straight and next time the point might not fly right over your head.

In case you were wondering the point was that Mercutio879 couldn't think of any singer songwriters other than sheryl crow so there really isn't a whole lot of them. The 'I could be wrong' part was about maybe Sheryl Crow isn't a singer songwriter. Nobody was claiming that Sheryl Crow is the only singer songwriter in the world.

SOLO singer/songwriters aren't that common. About 75% of the frontmen in bands are singer/songwriters by definition and the other 25% are only in the band because nobody else can sing (and/or play at the same time)

All hail Debbie Gibson!

Blackbird: All hail Debbie Gibson!

Now there's a famous singer/songwriter/producer I'd forgotten about. Thanks!

SilentStrider: Kyosuke: I believe Robert Plant (et al) might disagree with you there.

there's a difference between doing covers of artists you love, and being handed a sheet of music and being told 'here, sing this'

Except that's not always how it is. Ever heard of a concept called arranging? Just because you didn't write the song doesn't mean you can't change things around and put your own spin on it. Like with some of the classic singers like Frank Sinatra. Frank never wrote his own material, yet everything he did it sounded like Frank. There's a reason for that.

Saying a musician sucks because he or she doesn't write all their own songs is kinda like saying Al Pacino sucks as an actor because he doesn't write and direct all his own movies.

Archie Godwin: destitute college kid: Kliffoth: A singer isn't an artist, a singer is an instrument. If you don't write your own music or lyrics then you aren't an artist. All good bands write their own lyrics/music, but then again I don't listen to Pop garbage.

Yeah, fark Elvis, Johnny Cash, Janis Joplin, Aretha Franklin, and all those old soul singers like Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone, who hardly ever wrote their own songs. They were just pop garbage, all of 'em. Obviously you're not a REAL artist unless you wrote the song you're singing.

exactly. Elvis WAS pop garbage.

You fail at music.

It was kind of a dumb article. I think the reviewer didn't like Blunt to start with, and wasn't going to let anything get in the way of it.

In my town, we had an entertainment reviewer who reviewed the musical Evita at the local playhouse. He pretty much stated in his first paragraph that he hates the composer and everything he does. Not surprisingly, he hated the musical, and was pretty much able to say that they were 'competent'. He went in preparing to dislike and would be granted that.

I admit, I'm not a Blunt fan. I do like his 1973 just because it sounds like the Bee-Gees. But if 'singing your own music' was a requirement at concerts, they'd be REALLY short. A lot of top hits are songs by other people. The 'lasted way too long on the charts for my taste" "I will always love you" sung by Whitney Houston was penned by Dolly Parton. Elvis did a lot of the same. Heck, just about every band.

And most singers are smart. If a major guy in the industry says "I have this song, it'd be great for you", then you take it. And you have your hit...

Manta537: If the author wants to discredit someone's talent because he/she sings a song written by someone else, the list would go on and on.

Ditto.

As a singer-songwriter myself, I'm getting a kick...

Singer-songwriters love music, be it their own or someone else's. They also have certain songs they like to pull from the oceans of pre-existing music because there is a lot of good stuff in there to use. James Blunt has tastes just like we all do (notice I didn't say 'taste' because... well... you know.

That being said, he does strike me as the more cynical sort of s/sw out there. His comments about all the girls he gets and his own reputation, while honest, I'm sure, seem to overshadow any serious artistic endeavors he might be shooting for. Then again, he deals with the British pop press all day long, so there but for the grace of God, and all that...

As for pop singers in general, it's a different animal. Not singing your own stuff doesn't make you fake, in my eyes, as long as you're not presenting it as such. Elvis never said he wrote the songs or was even much of a musician outside of singing. That was his forte, that's what many of us love about his music.

/I'm told I do a killer James Blunt impression when someone requests "You're Beautiful". I do the first verse and chorus before everyone breaks into laughter.

who is James Blunt?

Something about his whiny singing pisses me off big time. There are only two other singers who manage to do so: Celine Dion and Enya. I wish someone would give them all a roundhouse kick to the vagina.

lol @ pop musicians writing their own songs.

/listen to better music

Big bunch o' fail right there. Dionne Warwick got put in the songwriter's hall of fame just for that very reason.

Big fat phoney:


Ludwig van on the other hand..

Thosw: Big bunch o' fail right there. Dionne Warwick got put in the songwriter's hall of fame just for that very reason.

In all fairness, Warwick was always in it for the money - in fact, she's one of the only songwriters who charges a *large* upfront fee just to have the honour of recording one of her new tunes.

/music industry guy from a ways back
//ask me about what a lot of famous people are *really* like
///actually, don't. I think you can guess

Sir Elton John would like to have a word with the article writer, as would his friend, Mr. Bernie Taupin.

Yeah, just like those big posers Billy Holiday and Bonnie Raitt. And Fred Astaire. And Eric Clapton. Hmmm

I don't think there's enough "James Blunt makes me want to donate my ears to orphans" in this thread.

also, guys, I think destitute college kid was being sarcastic. If a musician is an instrument, then, like other instruments, something original can be played just as well as something someone else wrote. So stop being all "OMG BUT JOHNNY CASH IS GREAT !1"

/lawn.

henryhill: who is James Blunt?

Oof. Alright buddy, you asked for it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fox-ja7YDSw

Disclaimer: I'm not responsible for any ear bleeding, urge to strangle, or that general "how did this clown get famous?" feeling that comes from clicking on the link, which may or may not be a rickroll.

"Who is James Blunt?"

More like "What is Google and how do I use it?"

Frank Sinatra anyone?

The problem with James Blunt isn't that he doesn't write his own songs. The problem is that the songs he records are so lame they could bore the paint off the wall.

I'm no fan of James Blunt, and I'm not going to read the article, but if that's the actual criticism, the reviewer should lose his/her job. That's just plain retardation. Professional songwriters and professional performers working together made some of the best music of the 20th Century. Buddy Holly was one of the first to buck this system, followed by the Beatles and their clique, as well as Bob Dylan and his following of traditional singer-songwriter folk musicians.

Kliffoth: A singer isn't an artist, a singer is an instrument. If you don't write your own music or lyrics then you aren't an artist. All good bands write their own lyrics/music, but then again I don't listen to Pop garbage.

I'll bet that you ONLY listen to "Pop garbage". Clearly you have never listened to Jazz or "Classical" music.