Reid McLean wrote:
>Elvis can't sing very well (never could, sorry, and I'm kind of a fan.
>Fortunately, he does not sing too much here.)
'Reminds me of a cartoon I saw on Einstein's celebrated centenary:
housewife turns to hubbie, while stashing away the grocs, and explains:
"Mr Schwartz at the delicatessen thinks that Einstein is highly
overrated."
(With apologies to our List's Messrs Schwartz ...and, more so, to
delicatessen managers) The analogy's imperfect, perhaps. The obvious
platitude is that it's all a matter of son gout. Indeed: it's been a
looong while since Bill Powell or Mario Lanza or anyone else was seen as
a paragon of singing, or since parents had to be persuaded that Dylan's
warblings are valid music.
Costello also sings well enough for a core of fans not quite as lukewarm
as you admit to being. Jagger once replied to Dylan's slight about his
not being able to write 'Mr Tambourine Man': "I'd like to hear him sing
'Satisfaction.'" Touche from ole flappy lips, afaic. Costello can do both:
wail like either of them, and often composes a heap better than both.
("Time's a jet plane, it moves so fast"? Oh, puh-leeze, Zimmie!)
'Fact is, few have the emotional luggage to deliver on songs like "Hoover
Factory," "Pills and Soap," Boy with a Problem," The Long Honeymoon," and
"I want you": the often ironic yearning and self-pity and rage -- and
malizia, to use Wm Walton's epithet -- which his music requires. To say
nothing of the early pop tunes-with-a-twist, nor of his successful foray
to Nashville, to whine some Cline. Even popmeister Bacharach seems to
have no problem with this singing...
But hey, what am I doing? I'm the one who complained about not being
able to hear Gerhard in the CD store, for all Costello's caterwauling from
the rock section. It sometimes sounds like that, it's true. Varese and
Gerhard and Liszt can, too. At that stage, the musically curious sit down
and try to get under their musical skin...
Let's just not confuse 'don't like' with 'ain't no good,' s.v.p.
BBailey
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