I made this little graphic to help you out. Click it for the fullsize version.
I’ll explain it later, but first the backstory.
I was hanging out with this guy who was trying to argue me up down and sideways that Adele is an amazing singer. I’ma tell you why she’s so popular: she has a great big black lady voice and she’s white. The End. Everything she’s doing is done a million times over every Sunday by the church ladies at New Bethel AME Zion Church of Christ Under an Elm Tree By The River. Still, she has a great tone to her voice that you can’t teach. She’s just born with that and she has a great voice. That doesn’t make her a great singer.
A great singer has great ears. All of the runs and melisma are possible because they have a great sense of pitch. They can hear the chords and sing all around, inside, and through them. Those interesting vocal runs just come out because they have great ears. On top of that, with vocal coaching and/or practice they can really hone their craft and do some amazing things.
A great voice is born, not made. You’re either born with a beautiful sound coming out of your mouth, or you’re not.
So I got bored watching the Walking Dead and made a little graphic. Left to right ranks great singing ability with the best being on the right. Bottom to top ranks great voices with the best being near the top. I graded everyone by Whitney Houston who, hands-down, had the best combination of natural-born-tone and exception singing ability.
Wednesday I had a mini-spa day with Ketan because we are classy and metrosexual. Or, he’s classy and metrosexual and I didn’t have anything to do. We put on Gaelle radio and this song came on.
In case you’ve forgotten since the last time I posted about this song a year ago, this has been one of my favorite songs my entire life. It was especially perfect for Spa Day because who can be stressed when listening to Sade?
Sade took 25 years to make 6 albums because they were making art. Rihanna put out 7 albums in 7 years to make money and stay famous. This is what’s wrong with music.
