Post a controversial music opinion

I rate her as "the finest musician of the 20th century", so if you only rate her 2nd or 3rd that's your right I guess

I know it's not a contest but Ella > Nina > Billie

if you only rate her 2nd or 3rd

not even top 50 tbh

The Royal House of Hangover (Ye Mad Puffin) at 8:43 22 Oct 23

I know it's not a contest but Ella > Nina > Billie

CAAL you have definitely understood the assignment of the thread!

Fitzgerald at her best is just so freaking smooth, and can go great places. The duets with Armstrong on Cole Porter material may not be your thing but I will never not love them.

Scat, generally, is not my thing but I have no quarrel with those who enjoy that aspect of her career.

Nina Simone is a virtuoso and a genius and a hero; her writing and activism are essential. That said, there is really almost no time at which I just want to put on a Nina Simone record, sorry. I am glad she existed but I just don't want to listen to her frequently. It isn't what I want as a pleasurable voluntarily leisure activity.

given those three as choices, if i had to i would rate the same way as YMP.

then again, the live Ella and Duke records are among my favorite live records ever made so i am certainly biased.

i have a friend who is a soul and r&b nerd, used to DJ out a lot, and his complaint about Nina was that she had become the safe/accessible option for white folks to the detriment of the profiles of much better singers. tbh, i can kind of see his point! we had a long talk about it once because i didn’t get it.

Table and I just said opposite things and it's kinda fun that both can be true.

I am a white person and I don't think I think of Nina Simone as "safe/accessible." In fact she's challenging, in a good way! That's what I like about her! I just don't usually want her music washing over my ears. I respect and admire Nina Simone more than I want to listen to her.

yeah, i rarely want to listen to Nina but that’s because i did so much for many years.

I'm with you YMP. I'm so incredibly sick of hearing Feeling Good that I can't listen to it anymore.

Nina Simone is a virtuoso and a genius and a hero; her writing and activism are essential. That said, there is really almost no time at which I just want to put on a Nina Simone record, sorry. I am glad she existed but I just don't want to listen to her frequently. It isn't what I want as a pleasurable voluntarily leisure activity.

This is a very good encapsulation of my feelings. I am 100% opposed to jazz singers who sing jazz standards; don't need to hear that stuff ever, by anyone. And scat singing...well, it's called scat for a reason. If I'm in the mood for angry jazz vocalists who write their own material, I tend to go Abbey Lincoln > Jeanne Lee > Linda Sharrock > Nina Simone.

abbey lincoln and jeanne lee do standards pretty great too

nina simone is a different kind of thing for the most part but she's not overrated at all

ella is underrated in the way mozart is underrated - I won't elaborate

hey who here doesn’t like opera

ah whatever, Nina’s performance at Montreux 1976 is the greatest live performance, say I’m wrong with examples and I’d be pleased to enjoy said examples

Linda Sharrock over Nina, now I've heard everything

Nina Simone rules and any opinion to the contrary drools.

I appreciate Ella but rarely feel like listening to her. Nina is just perfect. Her version of Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues knocks my socks off every time.

ah whatever, Nina’s performance at Montreux 1976 is the greatest live performance, say I’m wrong with examples and I’d be pleased to enjoy said examples

Judy at Carnegie Hall

I am a white person and I don't think I think of Nina Simone as "safe/accessible." In fact she's challenging, in a good way! That's what I like about her! I just don't usually want her music washing over my ears. I respect and admire Nina Simone more than I want to listen to her.

― The Royal House of Hangover (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, October 22, 2023 2:16 PM

all of this definitely where i'm at. re:activism/non-music endeavors- agreed, she rules for all of that. but her music, while related to it, isn't that. it's just. . . okay, y'know? pretty solid ftmp. does that mean she never had any classic moments? of course not! just. . . whoa, let's not get carried away. she's great, but uhh.

re: "safe" option-- really!? i was always under the impression that she was kinda like an early 90s gangsta rapper in her day in terms of pissing off white people. yeah she sold a lot of records, but i have to wonder how many were buying out of curiosity.

(of course that may all have to do with the fact that i got yelled at as an 18 year old for playing a nina record in the house. definitely not a safe choice back where i come from. hrmph.)

also Duke Ellington at Newport for live performance albums, my God

Nina Simone rules any contrary opinion is pure nincompoop nonsense

Is it "worse" to listen to music and hate it or never listen to it at all, even go out of your way to avoid listening to it?

I mean specific artists, not music in general.

Wasn’t there some Nina in a 90’s movie and that’s what brought her into Gen X consciousness? I def remember a friend of mine hearing her in a movie and running out and buying some Nina cd’s. That’s when I first heard her. And it was pretty different and new to us, we were more into punk/gothy things.

This is when the Commitments soundtrack was the common soul cd to be found lying about.

Is it "worse" to listen to music and hate it or never listen to it at all, even go out of your way to avoid listening to it?

Life is too short to listen to music you think you probably won't like. Sure, you might be missing out on something incredible...but the truth is, probably not.

xp Big Lebowski maybe?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Simone#Music

I think a lot of casual listeners (I'm including myself here) want her catalog to sound like "my baby just cares for me", but it's mostly stuff like "they call me Peaches".

I feel like that's right, though, Cow_Art, that in the age of the internet we became more aware of Simone as a person, about her own ideas about her craft and the choices she'd made about how to live her life -- when as a late teen I first bought a greatest hits, orange sleeve I think, all I knew was she had a super great version of "I Put a Spell On You." biographical info about her wasn't accessible to me from avail materials pre-internet. In 2015 two documentaries were released, I think a broader acknowledgment of her as a major artist proceeds after these contextualize her accomplishments for a broader audience. "greatest musician of the 20th century" sure seems like a stretch to me, but what do I know

I mean it when I say it! Ornette comes pretty close tho

Also a cornerstone of my highest of highest estimations of her: her piano playing, it’s just bonkers she can do all that while maintaining such focus on her vocal delivery

all of this definitely where i'm at. re:activism/non-music endeavors- agreed, she rules for all of that. but her music, while related to it, isn't that. it's just. . . okay, y'know? pretty solid ftmp. does that mean she never had any classic moments? of course not! just. . . whoa, let's not get carried away. she's great, but uhh.

so...she's great then, right? Why all the equivocations?

This many Nina posts an no love for Funkier Than a Mosquito’s Tweeter?

Okay, I rooted around and found it. The Point of No Return (1993) soundtrack featured a whole lotta Nina: Feeling Good, Here Comes the Sun, Wild is the Wind, Sugar in My Bowl, Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair. I don’t know how big of a deal it was outside of my podunk town, but in my mind that was when white teens took notice.

I remember being amazed by this music and promptly found a greatest hits cd and played it for my mom who didn’t like it. “She sounds like a man.” Which… whatever, but it’s notable that she doesn’t seem to care about sounding Pretty. She sounds strong, like someone you don’t want to deal with if you work in customer service.

I was recently reading up on "Feeling Good" the song (because it's kind of having a moment in ads rn), learning that the Simone version became a Top 40 hit in the UK after being featured in a Volkswagen commercial, and it became sample fodder afterwards as well. So that's another key point in the Simoneissance.

The Simone VW ad being in 1994 BTW.

She definitely had a moment in the 90s; I remember hearing "My Baby Just Cares For Me" in the movie Shallow Grave.

Def plenty of controversial opinions on Nina Simone … who I put on the same pedestal of brilliance in terms of vocal performance and activism with Diamanda Galas.

when my daughter was born the myriad team of healthcare professionals attending in the delivery room were super cool with us playing whatever we liked thru some speakers we brought

started with sam cooke in the lead up, and moved to nina as things moved along and got real intense for an hour or so

no regrets, though upon delivery we switched to the village stompers

The last scene of Before Sunset is very Nina Simone centric

Diamanda Galas.

Hell yeah, speaking of incredible live performance documents

It always sounds strange when people try to distinguish and then reconcile the music with the figure of the artist. Various versions of "She was good and I admire her but also don't enjoy her and never listen to her" sound a bit confused, like you're pondering about her great legacy of doing nothing for you.

The last scene of Before Sunset is very Nina Simone centric

― bbq, Monday, October 23, 2023 12:15 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Best scene.

i feel bad for the mean stuff i used to say about nina simone on ilm. years ago. i've come around since then.

I don't like her much but calling her "overrated" seems kind of useless.

I remember being amazed by this music and promptly found a greatest hits cd and played it for my mom who didn’t like it. “She sounds like a man.” Which… whatever, but it’s notable that she doesn’t seem to care about sounding Pretty. She sounds strong, like someone you don’t want to deal with if you work in customer service.

― Cow_Art

women who sound like men: _classic_

not liking nina simone never really occurred to me. like it felt like either you liked nina simone or you didn't know who she was, when i was younger. she was all over tv and movies in the '90s, it seems like. i remember "sinnerman" from an episode of "homicide: life on the street". the other one i knew fairly early on was "Mississippi Goddamn". i also like her version of "Revolution" where she changes the lyrics to argue in favor of revolution. (i think it's kind of unfair that people say John was conservative because he did that song. He changed his mind, y'all! But nobody pays attention to that because he was solo then.)

i got into her a lot through her beatles covers. that record of hers that's basically two really long versions of songs from "all things must pass", that's my favorite record of hers. i like her version of "everyone's gone to the moon" too. i've never heard the original but i'm told it's terrible.

i don't know her stuff too well overall though. i'd say i'm more of a casual fan.

I think it’s totally cool and reasonable to not be a fan of someone’s work but enjoy reading their thoughts and to worship their hairdos

I think a lot of casual listeners (I'm including myself here) want her catalog to sound like "my baby just cares for me", but it's mostly stuff like "they call me Peaches".

― enochroot

I want her catalogue to sound more like “funkier than a mosquito’s tweeter”. A full on afro-funk album from Nina would have been amazing as evidenced by that track.

Shylock is the best French prog band, not Magma.

John Zorn is the least interesting artist on Tzadik

i like Tom Waits first four records better than anything else in his catalog