I'd have more respect for Frank, Dean, Sammy and Bing if

[johnnie]

...they would have written their own tunes. They didn't even play their own instruments, the lazy, talentless, karaoke singing hack-jobs. x(

:hi:

[Left Is Write]

1. ...

I didn't see what prompted this, but I can guess. And, of course, you make a great point.

[johnnie]

2. I think sometimes people forget about stylists

It's just as valid to some people. I wasn't really making a stand or anything..lol, I am just tired today and trying to stay awake. But I do notice a lot of people who blow off anyone today who is just a singer, but at one time almost all the "stars" were just singers and not songwriters.

[RandomKoolzip]

3. Well, I thought rock was invented to get rid of all those guys....

....And replace it with something more substantial. As far as I'm concerned, you can take Sinatra's vocal talent and fling it off the Verrazano Bridge: gimme the MC5 or Husker Du or the Lazy Cowgirls kicking out the jams over that stuff any day of the week. Then again, I just prefer the small-band format musics (Rock, jazz, bluegrass) and their vlaues (collective combustion, the idiosynchrasies of the instrumentalists setting fire to song form, etc) over the producer-driven ones (pop, dance pop, etc.). At least I don't feel like my intelligence is being insulted when a guitarist cranks his amp to eleven and exorcizes the demons.

All American Idol is is the return of Tin Pan Alley, with all the attendant corn, chintz, and contempt for the audience that appelation brings with it.

But, of course, YMMV....

[johnnie]

6. To be honest, I'm not much of a Sinatra fan

But I wouldn't say he wasn't talented...at something.

I much more prefer songs than anything else. If a song is good in my opinion, I don't give a shit who performs it's done ok.

[RandomKoolzip]

7. Yeah, I like a song too. A good song is irreducible.

As Joe Carducci said, "They used to say Tony Bennett could sing the phone book and be great. I'm saying that The Stooges could perform the Tony Bennett Songbook and be great..."

[Spider Jerusalem]

4. Yeah, and don't forget Elvis.

And Maria Callas and Luciano Pavarotti, for that matter.

[mduffy31]

5. There is a world of difference between...

Those guys and the hacks on American Idol.

[johnnie]

8. They all started somewhere

I'm not saying that the kids on American Idol are as good as or whatever to the ones I mentioned. I'm just making a point that there are such thing as singers that are stylists and they don't play their instruments or write songs, they just sing.