Elvis...or Michael?

[Kevy Baby]

Originally Posted by flippyshark

YOn the other hand, Tom Waits would never, ever have made it if he was just singing covers. At best, he would have been a curio like Mrs. Miller. But a Tom Waits song, however brilliant, loses something when it's sung by Scarlett Johansen. Waits sounds like he's lived his boozy, hardscrabble poetry, Scarlett sounds like a schoolgirl with a crush.

Oh, there are certainly a LOT of examples of good songs gone bad when in the wrong hands. I was just making the argument that not all songwriters should sing and not all singers should write their own material.

And while I certainly don't listen to the current crop of bubblegum synthetic pop performers, this is hardly a new phenomenon. Promoters having been making stars of no-talent people who looked good on stage for a very long time. There just happens to be more tools available to make people sound better.