Great Music, Songwriters And Singers

[jw5]

One of the best ways to relieve stress and forget your worries for a while is to listen to great music.

I followed American Idol in past seasons but not really this season.
However, there was a great performance from one of the contestants this season. Casey James, singing the John Lennon great "Jealous Guy".

People like Kelly Clarkson, Daughtry, Callie Underwood have sold millions of records, but I can't remember the songs they sung on AI.
I don't know how many records Taylor Hicks has sold, but I can still remember him singing the Elton John hit "Levon" and the song by Ray LaMontagne "Trouble" and frequently go to U tube to hear the performances again.

My other posts will be on great music, songs, songwriters and musicians. Please join in the discussion.

 

[axe168]

One of the best ways to relieve stress and forget your worries for a while is to listen to great music.
.

You should support your local talents.. JJ Lin, Stephanie Sun, Sun Ho...

How can your countrymen held their heads high, if you ppl support cheap foreign talents ?

heehee..

 

[Ramseth]

Local talent classic, Upturn The Downturn by Lim Swee Say.

 

[jw5]

You should support your local talents.. JJ Lin, Stephanie Sun, Sun Ho...

How can your countrymen held their heads high, if you ppl support cheap foreign talents ?

heehee..

I think JJ Lin is a great talent. Great songwriter, good singer.
He has a very "sweet" duet with Ah Sa called "Xiao Jiu Wo" or "Little Dimple".
His latest album "100 Days" is one of the better recent albums.
"Jiangnan" is another one of my favourite songs.
The other 2, I don't like at all.

 

[jw5]

One of the greatest songwriters ever - the late John Lennon.
"Imagine", a simple song with a lovely melody and lyrics promoting peace.
"Jealous Guy", as already mentioned, a song which tells the story of many a man's anguish, with raw emotional lyrics.
"Power To the People", a song which should be listened to by all, especially meek Singaporeans.
Other songs about peace like "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)" and "Give Peace A Chance".
Numerous songs with the Beatles or co written with Paul McCartney, who is a good songwriter but definitely not as great in my opinion.

 

[Ramseth]

Listen to In My Life, Nowhere Man (Beatles era) and Watching The Wheels (solo era), then one'd appreciate what a wonderful singer-songwriter John Lennon has been.

 

[Queen Seok Duk]

I think JJ Lin is a great talent. Great songwriter, good singer.
He has a very "sweet" duet with Ah Sa called "Xiao Jiu Wo" or "Little Dimple".
His latest album "100 Days" is one of the better recent albums.
"Jiangnan" is another one of my favourite songs.
The other 2, I don't like at all.

How do you determine if a melody is nice ?

Some people are crazy over Jay Chou's songs, but many feel his music is shit. Now, lets not turn this discussion into Jay Chou. I'm just using him as an example.

So is there anyway you can 'measure' a melody ?

 

[nickers9]

One of my favourite song of all times!

Burn for you - John Farnham

 

[jw5]

Listen to In My Life, Nowhere Man (Beatles era) and Watching The Wheels (solo era), then one'd appreciate what a wonderful singer-songwriter John Lennon has been.

"Watching The Wheels" is another great Lennon song.

Who are your other favourite singers and songwriters?

 

[jw5]

How do you determine if a melody is nice ?

Some people are crazy over Jay Chou's songs, but many feel his music is shit. Now, lets not turn this discussion into Jay Chou. I'm just using him as an example.

So is there anyway you can 'measure' a melody ?

You have asked this question and I have answered it in another thread. I think it was a thread I started about the Taiwan band Mayday.
It's difficult to describe how to "measure a melody". That's why music is so great and unique. It plays on peoples' feelings and emotions and they are usually unable to measure or quantify it.
But I'll try for your sake.
A good melody is something that attaches on to you. You suddenly feel the urge to hum it or sing it or play it on some instrument or to hear it again and again. I always like to talk about the "turn of the melody", how it changes from a key or a series of notes to another key or another series of notes. I always admire songwriters who bravely use the minor keys and also changing from major to minor.
Not all Jay Chou songs are great, but he is certainly one guy who is never afraid to use the minor key.

 

[jw5]

Bro Nickers

Thanks for your contribution and input.
I always appreciate people who comment on what they like.
But I'm afraid I not a big fan of this particular song.
Who are your other favourite songwriters and singers?

 

[jw5]

Another great singer-songwriter in my opinion is Elton John.
Some people don't like him, too flamboyant, too controversial, perhaps even because he is gay.
I don't really care about all that. He makes great music and that's all that matters.
Already mentioned one of his older songs called "Levon" in an earlier post, which was sung by Taylor Hicks on American Idol.
Another song from the same album was "Tiny Dancer".

One of my personal favourites is "Empty Garden" a tribute to the great late John Lennon.
Another is "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road".
Other familiar great songs of his include "Your Song" which has great lyrics, "Rocket Man", "Candle In The Wind", a tribute to Marilyn Monroe, "Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me", "Daniel", etc etc etc. There are so many.

I don't like some of his songs like "Nikita" and "I'm Still Standing" too, well, you can't win all.

 

[Queen Seok Duk]

You have asked this question and I have answered it in another thread. I think it was a thread I started about the Taiwan band Mayday.
It's difficult to describe how to "measure a melody". That's why music is so great and unique. It plays on peoples' feelings and emotions and they are usually unable to measure or quantify it.
But I'll try for your sake.
A good melody is something that attaches on to you. You suddenly feel the urge to hum it or sing it or play it on some instrument or to hear it again and again. I always like to talk about the "turn of the melody", how it changes from a key or a series of notes to another key or another series of notes. I always admire songwriters who bravely use the minor keys and also changing from major to minor.
Not all Jay Chou songs are great, but he is certainly one guy who is never afraid to use the minor key.

I lost that thread, so I didn't get to read your reply. Anyway, thanks for reposting it for my sake.

So you're saying whether a music is good or not is subjective ? There is no way to quantify it ?

Do you play any musical instrument ?

 

[jw5]

I lost that thread, so I didn't get to read your reply. Anyway, thanks for reposting it for my sake.

So you're saying whether a music is good or not is subjective ? There is no way to quantify it ?

Do you play any musical instrument ?

It's definitely subjective, as you can see in my reply to Nickers.
I hope my reply was polite, but I didn't like the song which is his all time favourite.
Of course you can always ask 100 people whether they like the melody of a particular song and if 99 like it and you don't, you will surely wonder why but it's still your opinion, isn't it?
You may conclude that it has a good melody but you still don't like.

Used to play musical instruments, not anymore.

What are your favourite songs and who are your favourite songwriters?
I will be able to understand your taste better.
Of course, you may not like music at all.

 

[Queen Seok Duk]

It's definitely subjective, as you can see in my reply to Nickers.
I hope my reply was polite, but I didn't like the song which is his all time favourite.
Of course you can always ask 100 people whether they like the melody of a particular song and if 99 like it and you don't, you will surely wonder why but it's still your opinion, isn't it?
You may conclude that it has a good melody but you still don't like.

Used to play musical instruments, not anymore.

What are your favourite songs and who are your favourite songwriters?
I will be able to understand your taste better.
Of course, you may not like music at all.

The reason I asked is this. We're assigning value to music and songwriters. If it all boils down to subjectivity and individual preferences, then the value we assign is itself of little value. A 5-year old kid can disagree with a music professor on whether a particular piece constitutes good music, and if, indeed, we cannot quantify or measure music, then surely there is nothing much the music professor can do to prove that his opinion is "more correct".

I'm exploring the possibility that the music arranger plays a more dominant role than the composer of the melody in determining the tune. If it's down to the way the music is arranged, then it's no longer subjective since there are many different ways to change the music but maintain the melody.

 

[Ramseth]

In terms of melodies, there's a marked difference from mid-1960s. Pre-mid-1960s, melodies formed the backbones of songs, musical instruments were used to deliver them. Post-mid-1960s, melodies form just the frameworks; instrumentalists built creatively out-of-the-box around it and up from it. Of course being melodious always have an edge in catchiness, it's not that important anymore than pre-1960s.

That's thanks to the Beatles beginning to add distinctive sounds that weren't part of the melodies during performance and recording, e.g. the opening riffs to A Hard Day's Night and I Feel Fine, in contrast to say, Ticket To Ride, of which the opening riff is part of it's melody in traditional pop-rock style. The Beatles were also innovators par excellence in merging parts of two songs into one song, e.g. We Can Work It Out and A Day In The Life (anchor song of the Sgt. Pepper Lonely Hearts Club Band album).

From that same era, big Rolling Stones hits like Satisfaction and Honky Tonk Women didn't even have any catchy melody to begin with. They were just simple bluesy hymns amplified around riffs and backbeats. These techniques were shortly elevated onto heavy metal high album art by Led Zeppelin.

From late 1960s to mid 1970s, the kings of tunesmiths must be the Bee Gees. But from mid 1970s to late 1980s so-called disco era, the Bee Gees sound dramatically changed with the fusion of melodies to the disco beat. It produced their classics like Stayin' Alive and Night Fever. Of course, they also continue to their big harmonised vocals melodious hits then with How Deep Is Your Love and Too Much Heaven.

 

[krafty]

John Lennon and the beatles are the greatest! Most of his/their songs are so close to what I am thinking or feeling...

Strawberry fields forever...remind me of the time when I was working in a strawberry farm.


STRAWBERRY FIELDS FOREVER:

No one I think is in my tree, I mean it must be high or low.
That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right.
That is I think it's not too bad.

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out.
It doesn't matter much to me.

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.

Always know sometimes think it's me, but you know I know and it's a dream.
I think I know of thee, ah yes, but it's all wrong.
That is I think I disagree.

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.
Strawberry Fields forever.

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[jw5]

In terms of melodies, there's a marked difference from mid-1960s. Pre-mid-1960s, melodies formed the backbones of songs, musical instruments were used to deliver them. Post-mid-1960s, melodies form just the frameworks; instrumentalists built creatively out-of-the-box around it and up from it. Of course being melodious always have an edge in catchiness, it's not that important anymore than pre-1960s.


From late 1960s to mid 1970s, the kings of tunesmiths must be the Bee Gees. But from mid 1970s to late 1980s so-called disco era, the Bee Gees sound dramatically changed with the fusion of melodies to the disco beat. It produced their classics like Stayin' Alive and Night Fever. Of course, they also continue to their big harmonised vocals melodious hits then with How Deep Is Your Love and Too Much Heaven.

Thanks for your great analysis.
Bee Gees write great songs. Don't think they are great singers though.
In addition to Too Much Heaven and How Deep Is Your Love, there's also Words, Masachusetts, New York Mining Disaster 1941, etc etc.

 

[Ramseth]

Thanks for your great analysis.
Bee Gees write great songs. Don't think they are great singers though.
In addition to Too Much Heaven and How Deep Is Your Love, there's also Words, Masachusetts, New York Mining Disaster 1941, etc etc.

You're right. None of the three of them has outstanding vocals when standalone. They knew that and worked out their distinctive trademark harmonised vocals. Barry Gibb's falsetto capability was fully capitalised on in the disco era when they were trying to outdo the black dominated R&B that moulded into disco style naturally and effortlessly.

There were great Bee Gees-written songs that they decided that they themselves couldn't deliver at optimal performance. Grease by Frankie Valli, Woman In Love by Barbra Streisand, Islands In The Stream by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton. Those were epochal songs of an era too.

 

[Ramseth]

John Lennon and the beatles are the greatest! Most of his/their songs are so close to what I am thinking or feeling...

The Beatles as lasted 8 years as a recording group, from the Please Please Me album in 1962 to the Abbey Road album in 1969 (the Let It Be album was released in 1970 but it was actually recorded before Abbey Road). After their breakup, compilations of various old materials previously released or unreleased still hit the charts and ring the cash registers of record stores for decades until today.

Guiness Book Of Records lists Paul McCartney as Number 1 songwriter and John Lennon as Number 2 of all time. Of course, Lennon was handicapped by a period of retirement from 1974 to 1980 and ultimately his unfortunate and most lamentable demise in 1980. Anyway, both are equally great. In fact, all four of them are greats.

The Beatles is the only group in history, that after breakup, all members turning solo could still hit Number 1 on the Billboard charts on their own.