Usher - Classic or Dud?

Don't you listen to metal? Why are you concerned with supposedly objective evaluations of singing ability?

As I said...it's NOT really necessarily necessary to be a great singer to sell a good r&B song. I wouldn't say Al Green was *technically* a great singer, yet I totally feel his music. But while we were on the subject of his singing ability, I thought I would comment on that.

And "Throwback" is good but it should be much better.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Al Green was a great performer and a great R&B artist, but in terms of TECHNIQUE, he was nothing amazing. That is all I said, and it is true. He had the ability to sell a song that made up for it, though.

Do you REALLY want me to out-geek you on this one and give you vocal specifics?

I'm taking bets on how much longer before "Uh" mentions how much he loves crunk + grime. Will the weight of the ILM hive mind overcome his defenses soon? Its not a question of "if" but "when."

Tim, I think Throwback is great!

I consider Timberlake a truly ironic joke. His music reeks of sheer deriviative crap, and I wouldn't be arsed to sit through more than 5 minutes of it.

"Uh," I'm interested as to why you are afraid to read the article.

In any sense, I found the article to be somewhat stupid. It seems to be using one person's critique of Timberlake to represent everybody's, which is just stupid, plus the whole article is rather presumptuous about why people actually bash Timberlake in the media. It's a completely silly, elitist article, that fails to comprehend that just MAYBE the other side has a valid point.

I know I argue "rough" in here, but I would never SERIOUSLY attribute to someone a personal defect because they happened to like an artist I did. Half of my first posts were just for my own amusement.

http://www.angelfire.com/band2/slayerrobfl/images/ugly3.jpg

These days its boo-oooo for me.

I realized recently, mainly because of the weird emotionally manipulative qualities of "Burn" and "Confessions part 2" that Ursher really reminds a lot of a psycho ex-roommate and I think that that's where some of my dislike of Usher is coming from.

Surely performance and bringing a feeling to a song is a kind of technique all by itself. Most ppl can't evaluate or even care much for this def of technique you are talking about.

I am mainly concerned with his hypnotizing moves, though, and can't really seem to recall any of his songs that ever really moved me at the moment.

Also, the copy of Confessions I downloaded had Usher's cover of Phil Collins' "You'll Be In My Heart" from the Tarzan soundtrack hiding in it, which was special.

especially due to how easy it is to fix wrong notes in the studio.

Even by R&B singing standards, he sucks. I'd rather listen to a Lenny Williams or a Philip Bailey or even a Luther anyday.

Of course that's a large piece of being a good vocalist/performer, but in a genre that's so largely focused on the vocalist, it definitely can't be the whole piece of the pie. I don't feel Usher when he sings, either. I'm not saying he's soul-less, but he sounds that way because of his dynamic-depleted singing.

We're getting off-topic, though. All I mentioned is that Usher was a flat, dynamicless singer. I mentioned notes being fixed in the studio to show that merely staying on pitch on recording doesn't mean you're on pitch when you sing, since the studio has helped even Anthony Kiedis sound on pitch at times.

Of course I'll get painted like technical geek now, but I don't think character is the whole piece of the pie whatsoever with an R&B performer.

I can be passionate about taking a dump, and really put my heart and soul into it, but the end result is still shit. Some genres do not require as much ability as others, but I'd prefer a more capable vocalist who has both the magic and the ability like a Lenny Williams.

What's with this overanalyzation of Usher, anyways? I could sum him up in very few words: tired, unenthused boredom.

for the record, I truly enjoy Alicia Keys (though I prefer her first cd.)