Covers Better than Originals

Birdo Is A Tranny said:
I disagree, especially if you are going to see the said artist live, then it's all about how they look and presentation. An artist has it all, the look, the feel and the sound. In my opinion, if they can only sing then they are a singer, not an artist.

Kind of a salient point, in my opinion. Any artist/act can give a spectacle on stage. All that takes is the standard huge LED screen and lights and stuff. The main thing one needs is confidence and to give your best possible performance.

I think those things qualify as 'the look'. N-Dubz are who they are, and the people who go to see them obviously like them (and thus, are not opposed to the way they look?).

As far as 'music' is concerned, it is all about the sound when you get down to it. I could extrapolate your point about singers further. What if you don't write your own songs (this accounts for the vast majority of popular music), are you then only a singer, and not an artist?

Birdo Is A Tranny said:
I dunno it depends on how much their lives influence their music. Great artists can draw upon their experiences for inspiration. I think the more hardships a person faces the more emotionally powerful the song can be. Take Adele for example.

But if they create good enough songs, this will come across. I don't need to read what they've been up to in Soho in tabloids or other celebrity gossip columns. It's mainly that kind of thing I was talking about. Plus, if you know very little/nothing about an artist, you can often imagine your own meaning to their songs (unless their lyrics are very literal, etc).

This song, for example (listen to it first to see if you can get the real meaning)..

.. is about being addicted to cocaine. I've told this to a few people who like this song, and it always came as a surprise. I know it to be true, my dad has some Fleetwood Mac DVD (he's a big fan) where Knicks is being interviewed, and she reveals the meaning of the song.

She only makes very fleeting references to the practice of actually taking the drug. The 'mirror in the sky' is the table that the coke is chopped up on, which is usually a mirror coffee table so that one can easily see the powder and not waste any (and you see the ceiling when you look down at it), 'saw my reflection in the snow-covered hills' refers to seeing one's refection on said cocaine-covered table after having snorted a line and feeling fucked.

'What is love? Can the child within my heart rise above?' refers to how long-term addiction to cocaine tends to make you an emotionally-void person. Long-term addicts are often unable to feel any kind of normal range of emotions. Sex for them doesn't exist unless they're high. Only then do they feel 'in the mood', so to speak. 'Til the landslide brought me down' refers to the damage drugs do, and the negative emotional effects they have (long-term).

Most people don't catch these references, and develop their own meaning for the song. Usually people think the song is about growing old and having changes in your life. That's not correct, as people pick up on other lines in the song and misappropriate this meaning.

She means that doing coke for years has taken it's toll, and that she has to make changes in her life for the better. Drugs are a young person's folly when they're exploring their bodies and such. Years on, she's not sure if she can move into the later part of her life still carrying this addiction.

None of this actually matters. What matters is that people like the song, and draw their own meanings from it. People like songs best when it strikes a real chord with them, when it resonates with their own lives. Most people are not long-term cocaine addicts. In fact, most people who have done coke only do so every once in a while.

If she had been very literal to the point where it was plain & clear what the real meaning of the song was, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as popular. Song writers usually love it when people totally make up their own meaning. It means the song was flexible enough for many people to relate to it.

To her, it's a regretful look back on her past addictions, and she feels something from singing about that. To someone else, it's a song about passing through the different phases of life, not forgetting who you are, but not resistant to change either. To yet another person it might be a song about the importance of family, etc.

The people to whom I've told the actual meaning to, most of them still prefer their own!

Kind of a salient point, in my opinion. Any artist/act can give a spectacle on stage. All that takes is the standard huge LED screen and lights and stuff. The main thing one needs is confidence and to give your best possible performance.

What I'm saying is that good artists need to have a mixture of both: A performance of the song and the gimmicks. Of course sometimes gimmicks are not needed depending on the type of song. I'll take a personal example.

The first video is Michael Jackson and Britney Spears performing. No gimmicks, because that would have distracted from the performance.

This video is her performing Toxic and in my opinion one of her best performances. It's a perfect blend of gimmicks and "singing". As we're aware she isn't the best singer in the world. A great artist does not mean a great singer. She has performed many songs over the years with too many gimmicks (but that is of course to cover up for her actual lack of singing).

I think those things qualify as 'the look'. N-Dubz are who they are, and the people who go to see them obviously like them (and thus, are not opposed to the way they look?).

Oh yes totally agree, but do you think they would be where they are today if they did not "look" the part?

As far as 'music' is concerned, it is all about the sound when you get down to it. I could extrapolate your point about singers further. What if you don't write your own songs (this accounts for the vast majority of popular music), are you then only a singer, and not an artist?

To me, a really great artist can not only sing, but also write songs that suit their vocal abilities. Yet, there are also great artists who don't write. A painter for example looks at something in the real world and then interprets that in his/her own way through their art. The same can be said for a singer, they look at the words on the sheet and interpret them in their own way. Good painters (singers also) do not look to other artists and see how they paint (sing) and copy it. A cover should be sang from the sheet, not with the original artists song playing in the background of the recording studio.

Now onto your point about landslide, I wasn't aware of the 'true' meaning of the song and did have my own meaning for the song. That is the fun thing about Music. As music is an art form, of course listeners are going to interpret the same song in different ways. A really good song can convey emotion and listeners get the general idea of the song (I.e. Landslide is about regret).