It's not a subjective opinion it's from a women who's been teaching university students Music theory. What she says is the abosolute truth. It is a fact. Have you ever heard the phrase popopera? I heard an Opera critic (ie: absolute expert stating facts not his opinion) say Andre Boccelli is more akin to Englebert Humpadinck than Pavarotti but nowadays because standards have dropped dramatically so people just accept second best. It's the same with Beyonce. If you want a real RnB singer check out Raquel Sadiiq (I think that's what she's called). Just because someone's popular, doesn't mean they're the real deal. After Obama's inaugeration where Beyonce, the good pop singer, had the cheek to sing Etta James' (the great blues singer) At Last. A few weeks latter Etta put her in her place at her concert. HAha. Flamming cheek. You never find Beyonce in those lists of 100 Great Singers. You're more likely to find less popular commercial singers like Bjork in or older singers like Aretha in these lists. You'd imagine because of her commercial success if she was that great you'd see her name in these lists. I've seen her peers like Christina Aguilira and Alicia Keys in these lists. But no mention of her in last year's Rolling Stones list, TalkSports survey or Q's 2007 list. Beyonce is a good singer. Meanwhile Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Joni Mitchel, Mihajla Jackson, Tina Turner, Bessie Smith, Diana Ross and Peggy Lee are great singers.
I will never forgive Bono for what he did 3 years ago. He's gone down in my expectations as a singer because of this and the fact that he never insisted in personally editing the music for Live8 for the DVD release. I will never rate him ever again. You'll hardly hear Al Jareaou record a version of Ain't No Sunshine with Miley Cyrus in the vain hope it gets to number 1. When he was on Zane Lowe's show Bono had the cheek to criticize Chris De Burg. How dare he? Who cares how old his music is, at least he hasn't just released an album with few obvious melodies and mostly sound effects and layers. Hazel Davies said Bono only has two ways of phrasing, mooing like a cow or shouting as though he's being hit by Edge's guitar. She said that the human voice provides emotion more than any other instrument can ever provide which is why it's given priority in most musical genre's and that U2 are more about guitar whilst Bono's voice is just one of many layers. The vocals are too high on ATYCLB? They are supposed to be. You ask anyone and most people would say that the vocals are the most important instrument in music. No one's ever bought an album because they like the drum pattern. Chris De Burg a better singer than Bono and so David Hasselhoff because they don't do duets with Jennifer Lopaz and Lady GaGa. Neil said that Susan Boyle's a better singer than Bono.
I don't care about songwriting. Elvis, Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald and Barbra Striesand never concerned themselves with songwriting. I'd rather just hear a singer sing. When a song comes on the radio you hardly think to yourself, hmmm I this has a nice melody, it has my foot tapping and the singing is good, but I'm only gonna like it if the lead singer wrote it. Maybe if Bono paid less attention to glum lyrics rather then this winey attempt at singing which he's done on NLOTH maybe people who post messages on Youtube will rate him much higher as a singer.
