[WalterBright]

> modern music doesn't care about great singers is plainly false

So far, the counter-examples given of great singers turned out to be electronically manipulated to sound better.

C'mon. Post a link to a popular modern one with better tone than Whitney Houston, Karen Carpenter, Grace Slick, Madonna, David Cassidy, (I can name many more), and didn't electronically "enhance" their singing.

[Apocryphon]

How could they have been electronically manipulated if these singing competitions are done live without mixing or autotune? We're talking about talent tested under the most raw conditions. You haven't even bothered to provide any evidence to the contrary.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC21yoI8Di8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWGyVNriJ78

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGN1ST87x-U

It is absolutely insane to claim that there are no prominent modern artists with singing abilities comparable to those in the past. Just trivially disprovable. If we were to go beyond the domain of winner of song competitions, there are plenty of acoustic or live performances from other pop superstars that demonstrate singing capability.

[WalterBright]

Kelly Clarkson - she sounds ok. Not wild about it. Yes, I'm picky. Am I wrong? Compare her to Julie Andrews, decades past her prime https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Te85B8BjlSY and she still blows Clarkson away. And in her prime? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvQ4t-Nk128 still gives me chills to hear her. And that's what a song sounds like without autotune. Amazing!

Carry Underwood - she should never have tried to upstage Julie Andrews! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uo6o1bhWlD8 It's good, but she is just not in the ballpark of JA. No chills there.

Jordin Sparks - nothing but good things to say about her singing. Is she great? Not sure. I think she needs a better song to showcase her abilities. But thanks! P.S. the link is from 14 years ago. A long time in the music biz.

[Apocryphon]

Thanks for watching and digesting these videos. fwiw, not a single person here is comparing any of them to Andrews. All of this is in service of refuting the original statement that “that modern singers can't sing”, which by your own admission, is flatly false.

P.S., while it’s perfectly for to personally believe that Julie Andrews is the best female vocalist of all time, it’s far harder to consider it a matter of empirical fact. One can easily assert that Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James, or Celine Dion is better. One’s mileage always varies.

[WalterBright]

I've heard all three of those. Andrews wins by a knockout in the first round. I bought Dion's albums, too. Sorry, dude!

The only problem with Andrews is her songbook is kinda small. She burned very brightly, but all too briefly.

But I have a suggestion for you. Get the bluray of Sound of Music. Put it on play. Forget about the schmaltzy plot, the sappy lyrics, the saccharine emoting, the cardboard characters. Just listen to the music. You'll be blown away. I envy anyone hearing it for the first time. If you're up to it, figure out which character is Marni Nixon without looking it up.

And lest I forget, check out Roberta Flack. She gives me chills, too.

[Apocryphon]

Sorry, I prefer Mary Poppins to Sound of Music.

Thanks for the Flack rec.

[WalterBright]

Mary Poppins is certainly JA's other great film.

Roberta Flack:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8_fLu2yrP4

Enjoy! It just doesn't get any better than that. Just perfection.

[WalterBright]

Thank you for being the first to provide links to unprocessed songs to make your point. I appreciate it.

BTW, autotune can and certainly is used in live concerts. Musicians have personally told me they use it! They also pump their vocals through effects pedals. What else are they using?

I don't know about competitions.

> You haven't even bothered to provide any evidence to the contrary.

I can't prove a negative. But I've provided many links to popular songs of old, and compared them to popular songs of today.

> absolutely insane

Cool your jets, dude! This is a friendly discussion. I actually want to be wrong here. I listen to popular music all the time, on the radio, Pandora, various streaming stations, and of course I hear it in the movie soundtracks. I want to hear a singer that sounds like an angel, not a Cylon.

[psyc]

It's impossible to know at this point who would pass in your mind. Isn't it possible you just don't care for the examples that have been offered already?

As far as my ear can tell, Lady Gaga, Adele, Pink, Beyonce, Rihanna, Christina Aguilera, and Miley Cyrus all qualify for the purposes of this subthread. I'm not going to claim they're "better" than Whitney Houston - that's kind of an impossibly high bar. I do think they're excellent, and to the best of my ability to determine via the internet, they don't use autotune.

[WalterBright]

As I commented elsewhere, Beyonce is clearly using autotune. The best way to tell the difference is to just become familiar with singers that predate autotune. It's the way they abruptly (too quickly) shift notes, and then stay dead on the note. You'll hear it after a while, and then you can't unhear it. It's a one-way ticket.

> that's kind of an impossibly high bar

So true. But so is Karen Carpenter, Julie Andrews, Grace Slick, etc., that all predate autotune. I suspect a cause and effect there.