Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Reality Check

The wife and I stumbled across The Voice tonight while waiting for House to come on. Maybe it's my predilection towards avoiding really trendy things. Maybe it's my resentment at seeing music become little more than a backdrop for water cooler TV talk (especially when you add American Idol, The X-Factor, and America's Got Talent to the mix). Whatever the reason, I had a few thoughts I felt compelled to write about.

First and foremost, let me say that I appreciate the effort a show like The Voice puts into getting truly talented people around which to build their show. It's not about embarrassing tone deaf people via a controlled and produced audition process. I appreciate that - 10 years of crappy auditions is starting to wear on those of us who don't even watch American Idol.


That being said, these musical reality shows do indeed reveal a great deal about the current state of musical affairs. The first thing I found myself noticing is how much the standard for lead vocals has fallen in the last 20 or 30 years. Say what you will about the music of the 1970s and '80s, but whenever one of these up-and-coming singers attempts a rock song from that particular era (from the likes of bands like Aerosmith, Van Halen, Bon Jovi, The Police, Heart, or Journey), the gap between the quality of the original and that of the modern version is shown to be colossal. Even when the contestants' vocals are on pitch and in-tune, they remain weak and brittle compared to those of the original singers in the groups. This all serves to confirm a thesis I've been posturing for some years now - namely, that they just don't make 'em like they used to.

Another glaring characteristic I've picked up on with the The Voice's contestants is the inability of a majority of them to adapt their vocals and performances to the presence of a forceful and energetic backing band. The house band on The Voice is a talented and tight group of players, and most (but certainly not all) of the singers they are playing behind seem completely out of their depth simply by being required to sing in front of drums, guitars, and amplification. This illustrates a truly widespread epidemic in the current pop world - singers that sound great in a small, controlled, situation (say, singing with the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar in a coffee house) but lose their vocal quality when forced to front an entire band. Several vocalists we saw tonight sounded like they were whispering their lyrics while the drums pounded and guitars rocked behind them. It did not work very well. Contrary to popular belief, such things are not just a matter of mixing, but are truly the responsibility of the vocalist. Just as a drummer could never expect to play to CDs in the privacy of his bedroom for years and then expect to be instantly able to support a group full of real, live players, a singer should hold no expectation that a good voice alone qualifies them for a career fronting a band. Just because a vocalist sounds good in the vacuum of a vocal booth does not mean that once all that recorded music is performed live that the quality of the voice will automatically maintain itself. Projecting one's voice over the power of a full band with intensity, dynamics, and forcefulness is something that does not usually come naturally to most that would attempt it.

And for those singers that were nailing their parts, in both pitch and tone, the idea of singing the song seemed to be lost on them. They sought to embellish every single phrase and line of lyric, seizing upon every opportunity to declare, "Look! I'm a great singer!"  Now, I understand that nerves are a huge part of this process (which probably helps to explain some of the breathiness described above, as well), but there is such a thing as over-singing. And, for my money, I'd rather not hear someone attempting to outdo a legendary singer's classic song. I'd rather hear someone nail a tune the way it was written to be heard and then explode once the music calls for it. Blow me away with your professionalism first and then really rock my face off once you've hooked me. Now, granted, this may be a bit much to ask from a show that employs Christina Aguilera as one of its professional judges, but over-singing is over-singing, and most songs just don't sound great when they're over-sung.

The simple truth is that there is more to being a great musical artist than raw, natural talent, and good looks don't count for much in the vocal booth. Just like everything else in this world, with music there are things that need to be learned. It is not simply an art form, but a craft, as well, and even the most ridiculously talented prodigies and geniuses on the scene work their butts off in order to refine and hone their trade.

I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that while we used to demand real talent and great songs from the musicians we spent our hard-earned money supporting, these days we seem addicted to fracas and spectacle. On a show supposedly about the quality of the singers, the stage was dominated tonight by male strippers and girls on 10-ft. stilts pretending to play guitars. None of this, of course, had anything to do with the quality of the voice singing the song (Blake Shelton, to his credit, went to great lengths to make this point). It seems that as a culture we are more interested in celebrating pop stars these days than musicians - celebrities whose abs are more impressive than their songs (they do, no doubt, pay more attention to the former than the latter) and who use music as nothing more than a stepping stone to an empire of wealth, built on various products as chincy as their music. Don't worry, though: the pop-friendly media will make sure that they are constantly extolled for a certain kind of supposed business acumen (as if they truly have anything to do with crafting the perfumes, clothes, &  jewelry they will no-doubt be hocking after their third record comes out).

What this "reality" show illustrated to me tonight is that this culture of ours cherishes perception more than actual reality these days, and music is suffering because of it. I do not mean to rip too hard on the contestants on The Voice: the vast majority of them are truly talented singers whose early steps in show business are being broadcast all over the world (not an easy situation in which to find your creative footing, I'm sure). But the show itself serves to illustrate that certain kind of ridiculousness and back-burner status to which music has been relegated by many listeners in this day and age. I can only hope that the new mediums of distribution and new methods of discovery for those who truly love the beauty of music for its own sake will serve to revive the art form. And perhaps musicians and listeners alike will recapture that special thing that once drove singers and players to forsake any false perceptions because the reality was so much better.

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