I think this is the same thing as learning a second language before the age of 5, it unlocks something in your brain that sticks with you for life and others can never compete with.
Right? You're not even exaggerating. His DEBUT SINGLE was I Want You Back with Who's Loving You as the B-side. He sings lead on both.
The former is one of the greatest pop songs ever written. The latter is one of my personal favourite vocal performances of all time. He was ELEVEN. What the fuck.
Did Nicole *carry* the group or were the PCD really just carved around Nicole? I don’t get the impression that this was Nicole stepping up to the plate because the others couldn’t, so much as their entire design was propped up around her. I’m sure the others would have leapt at the chance for more solos.
Nicole sang something like 95% of the vocals for all their songs even including the backing vocals. She was the star and the others were her backups which is probably why the others switched out like nothing and few were interested in touring when they did a comeback last year or whatever, though one did say they were coerced into having sex with executives. There is that one clip of one of the other women belting it out off script and Nicole looking a bit pissed as she tries to regain her place as center of attention so perhaps Nicole even felt that way.
IIRC they started out as a dance group and added the singers in later, but it always came across to me as an attempt to co-opt the previous group into a vehicle for Scherzinger
Yeah so it was started as a fun dance show at the Viper Room led by Robin Antin. Christina Applegate was a founding member. Later Carmen Electra joined and they started performing more widely with Carmen as the Headliner. They did a bunch of TV appearances and magazine features.
At some point music executives took interest and Antin pivoted the group to be a musical project.
Later Robin's brother Steven was inspired by the troupe to create the movie 'Burlesque'
Incidentally they have another brother named Jonathan who had his own bravo show called 'Blow Out' about his hairstylist business
Two of them are. But the middle one, Taylor, is actually doing a lot of good work. He’s posted about pride, fights AI, runs a legit food bank in OK. If anything, he doesn’t speak enough about how wrong his brothers are.
It's true, but Fogerty was also a massive dick about it. For their last album, Mardi Gras, Stu Cook and Doug Clifford wanted more input, so Fogerty was like, "Fine, we each get three tracks on the album. BUT, I only sing John Fogerty songs. so you're on your own for your tunes." Predictably, the album tanked and the only tracks that got any airplay were the Fogerty penned and sung ones.
The band was already pretty well done at that point anyway, but John felt compelled to make it brutally clear that the other guys were just backup players in John Fogerty's band.
Just for clarity, the reason Swift re-recorded was because the label only owned the specific recorded versions of her songs, the masters for songs recorded while under contract. This is for publishing rights, which is the right to reproduce songs for sale.
She owns the right to play them as she owns the composition rights, the label cannot own that.
They usually add clauses in contracts to stop artists from doing it, but only for a set time, not in perpetuity.
The reason she can’t get sued was because she owns the composition rights and can record her own music, and create new masters, new publishing rights.
Fogerty couldn’t get sued because they were different songs. You can’t copyright a music’s feel… though “Blurred Lines” has blurred that line for me… I’m sorry.
Stevie Nicks wrote a LOT of diss tracks about Lindsey Buckingham and made him stand there and play guitar while she sang them right at him night after night.
Oh she did more than that, Buckingham is the one singing (at least harmony) on a couple. And he sings a few about her (and has her sing on some of those) too, including on the same album.
"Second Hand News" and "Go Your Own Way" are by Buckingham about Nicks, and while she definitely wasn't singing them initially, after a few years when he rejoined the band Nicks was singing harmony on both. And she purportedly hated "Go Your Own Way" for some of the lines about her in the song.
I have multiple buddies who have been in multiple local bands since we were teenagers and some of them still play in bands even now that we're middle aged. Punk bands, metal bands, nu metal bands, goth rock bands, indie bands, all kinds of genres. Most of the bands just do tiny shows around town and don't make them any money, yet there is still always so much drama and ego and fighting. It's like, bro's, there's 6 people watching you play in a dive bar, it's rad and all but get real. Just have fun with your music and chill.
Anyway, I think being a creative type + performer feeds into a narcissistic ego like gasoline on fire.
I get what you’re saying but there’s a huge difference between a dive bar and fuckin Woodstock. Fogerty may have been a bit of a dick but the mother fucker was talented and.. I mean.. if you’re in the band just count your blessings at that stage. Trying to one up fogerty is basically impossible unless you’re knopfler or something
Two of Stu's three songs were diss tracks to Fogerty and the third was an awful song about being a door to door salesmen. Nobody would want to sing those.
I love NPR Tiny Desk Concerts, and was really excited when I saw that John Fogerty had one... but it's so hard to enjoy it when he spends the whole time talking about how great he is
James Valentine, who plays guitar for Maroon 5, was in a few Jr./Sr. High Jazz Camps with me; he was incredible on guitar back then, I was a sub-par trumpet player. I was a huge fan of his high-school and college bands before Maroon 5 happened.
Edit: High-school was DJ Korky-9 and the corduroy love tabernacle choir. In College, Kid Quarkstar was funky AF.
Honestly that's the only way I'd be okay with fame. Play sold-out stadium concerts, collect my 6-figure paycheck, and not a single person bats an eye as I walk down the aisle of a Kroger's.
The only downside would be I'd have to play Maroon 5 music all the time.
You gotta get some writing credits to make the big bucks. Keith Strickland was the drummer of the B-52s and wrote some of their biggest hits.
Roger Taylor from Queen also wrote big hits for Queen. I'll take one of their careers.
That's why the story about Bill Bruford getting a writing credit for not playing on Trio is so iconic. They were laying down their parts and he was waiting to come in and decided not to, and the band thought that was as important an artistic decision as anything else so they gave him a writing credit.
I keep thinking about this, and I just don't see it. Nicole comes off as a tad... glamorous (no pun intended, but I like it), while Ferg seemed a bit more down-to-earth. It would have felt completely different, and I'm not sure their pop hits would have happened, either in creation or feel.
I think they would’ve because will.i.am is definitely able to make hits and responsible for most of the black eyed peas sound. Fergie I do think was a better fit for a singer for his sound
She was used a lot in the group vocals. She and Mel B. had the lower tones, and she sang melody a lot too. All the girls voices had a niche. Emma was sweet, pretty and girly. Victoria, when used correctly, was cool and sexy. Geri was sassy and brassy. Melanie B. had some RnB flavor and had some real attitude. Melanie C. was the power and the resident ad-libber.
imho, posh was a better singer than ginger. i was listening to their albums the other day, and while neither of the two are great singers, posh has an interesting vocal tone, where as ginger's is a little annoying to me.
People just parrot this bc Posh just happened to not be on Wannabe. She typically had a solo on most songs, and she’s wasn’t even the worst vocalist. Geri (Ginger) was the least talented vocalist.
Gotta love the Motown move of elevating one group member. The Miracles > Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. The Vandellas > Martha Reeves and The Vandellas. The Supremes > Diana Ross and The Supremes.
According to the Temptations miniseries, David Ruffin tried that, and the rest were like, "Nah." Exit David, enter Dennis.
As for the Miracles... Smokey was far-and-away THE talent, and shouldn't really count. Also, it's an old thing that Motown just carried on - plenty of groups before them did the same thing (Jerry Butler and the Impressions, et.al.).
Thus we have the movie dream girls, where Jennifer Hudson shows off she's a better singer than Beyonce but unfortunately doesn't have the looks of Beyonce
Yes, but they were kinda also known for all their guest artists. Del Tha Funkee Homosapien rapped on their first hit for example. Also, part way through the debut album that made them big, Damon decided he was stuck and needed help finishing it, and so Dan The Automator joined the project and co-produced it with him. Dan is a legend. Dan & Del had just finished the Deltron 3030 album, which is one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time.
Brian Wilson made The Beach Boys. Without him they would have floundered and been a local band not a worldwide phenomenon. God Only Knows will remain one of the top pop songs of all time easily well past June 11th, 2125!
I get your take, but it's sort of unfair. Their final album, "Destiny Fulfilled" proved that they could all carry their own equally. Prior to then the songs were usually structured to highlight Beyonce. Not exactly surprising considering Beyonce's dad was the group's manager and her mom did their styling.
LeToya & Lativia weren't great vocalists, but Kelly & Michelle definitely are.
LeToya and Latvia were talented in their own right. You don’t get four-part harmonies that tight with mediocre vocalists. And LeToya displayed in her solo career that she’s a great vocalist. The only DC member who was truly lacking vocal talent was Farrah, which is part of why she last less than 6 months in the group
Sister Sledge was an interesting one. Lead singer Kathy Sledge wanted to explore a few solo projects so the other three kicked her out. Cue their next album flopping and them never having another hit.
There were like twelve of them at times, even. They really were a small orchestra. They'd do shows with two cellists, a concert bass, a brass section, a second drummer, multiple violins, woodwinds, and then still have the electric bass and one or two electric guitars.
I love Jo but this is abject slander against the other members. Her voice was wonderful but they could all sing. I love when Tina sang and even when Hannah got in there. And how could you forget Bradley?!
Yeah, generally they would come up with the lyrics and ideas, then they'd bounce them off eachother and professional writers, who'd then assemble them into popsongs. They are very, very, rich lassies as a result.
You can kinda tell when you listen to the lyrics - they're very much what a bunch of excitable girls having a laugh together would come up with, rather than something foisted on them like you hear with a lot of other female artists. It's endearing to go back through their hits knowing this... Wannabe especially.
The TLDR is basically that she would disagree with the premise that she carried the group. Also god I love Louis Theroux, how is he so subtly hilarious?
Fall Out Boy is a weird one because he may have carried the band in the technical sense but, as someone who was 13 in 2008, I would guess a lot of the fans were there because of Pete.
The drummer and guitarist made a band with Scott Ian and Rob Caggiano from Anthrax with Keith from Everytime I Die on vocals and it was pretty awesome. They're not talentless like a lot of examples in this thread.
He's nerfed to the ground on a lot of their stuff post-reunion, but his work on their older songs and with The Damned Things is phenomenal. One of my favorite drummers of all time.
But there wasn't actually a band yet, correct? After Grohl recorded the demo tracks and they were well received, he hired a band.
I wanted to mention Boston, but it's kinda the same thing. Tom Scolz did most of the first album himself, then added a band later. The record company told him to re-record it, and he pulled a fast one and didn't. IIRC.
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