zphage
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Re: ELVIS
Dec 18, 2007, 19:28
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Bing Crosby was probably the first pop star.
Elvis fans are not always music fans per say, a lot are personality fans.
If we lose all electricity tomorrow, as long as there is a voice and a guitar for someone to rock out, Elvis will always be relevant.
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Shelby Mustang
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Re: ELVIS
Dec 18, 2007, 22:13
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one of my sons middle name is Elvis.
nuff said
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ELVIS (zphage) |
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Five
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Re: ELVIS
Dec 19, 2007, 18:09
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Great singer, great voice, when provided with worthy material and a good band...
So yeah, the Sun stuff, the early RCA stuff, are great songs sung really well and are among my favorite things to sing and plunk around the house on:
"Mess Of Blues," "Love Me," "Trying To Get To You," "One Night" are my favorites to play though I like to listen to a lot of the other early ones from time to time or turn them up if they're on the radio
I had a record player fixation as a tiny child and an Elvis' Golden Records was prominently featured in that
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ELVIS (zphage) |
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Dog 3000
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Edited Dec 19, 2007, 22:32
The first pop star?
Dec 19, 2007, 22:02
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The start of Crosby's career predates Sinatra by a decade, but somehow I don't think Der Bingle was really a "pop star" in the modern sense.
He did not have that "timeless" quality Sinatra does -- Sinatra will be popular forever like Elvis and Beatles, but Bing seems unlikely to ever have a resurgence in popularity -- he's been considered "hopelessly square" since at least the 60's, by the 70's was a punchline for jokes, and by the 80s all but forgotten. And no girls ever screamed and wet their knickers for him in the first place as far as I know.
(I mean can you imagine a TV ad with a fly new remix of . . . what the hell songs did he sing anyway, aside from "White Christmas"? Does anyone under the age of 50 remember?)
Not sure exactly WHY this should be however . . . . ???
Seems like it may be personality (or "iconic celebrityhood" or something) more than music, but their personalities are there in the music too. That's why Elvis is ELVIS and Pat Boone et al are not.
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handofdave
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Re: ELVIS
Dec 19, 2007, 22:26
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Elvis's detractors all come from the same place... they already have some reason agreed upon why not to like Elvis (he 'stole' black music, he joined the army, etc.)
Take Elvis, especially the early Elvis, at face value, and it's hard not to like what you hear.
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zphage
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Re: ELVIS
Dec 19, 2007, 23:44
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Gary Giddins "A Pocket Full of Dreams" is a great book on Crosby and the starmaking machinery being built that both Sinatra and Presley utilised.
Crosby's biggest days are preRIAA so exact sales may not be known, but it is assumed he is easily around Sinatra's 25 million units.
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Dog 3000
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BINGLE
Dec 20, 2007, 00:41
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But how many units will Bing sell in the next 50 years compared to Sinatra or Elvis?
Again, it's not something I can quite put my finger on, but I don't think he's a "POP" star. Not referring to how many records he sold at the time (Kate Smith and Caruso sold boatloads too), but the music itself.
Bing's music is pre-modern. His style and recordings will never come back into vogue, any more than 15th century Italian madrigals would. The paradigm shifted somewhere between Bing and Frank I guess. Sinatra is "modern" somehow; people still relate to his style & music. (Miles Davis even cited him as a primary influence!!)
Ever heard Bing's versions of rock songs from the 60's btw? Peeee-uuuuuuu! Frank's rock songs from the time don't "rock" either, but at least they don't make you laugh / cringe!
I'm not so much "arguing against anyone" here, but trying to delineate what it is that makes a "pop star" in the "modern" sense. What exactly it was that Elvis (or Frank) had that wasn't there before (Bing may have had exposure and record distribution, but he didn't have "IT" -- whatever it is!)
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zphage
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Re: BINGLE
Dec 20, 2007, 00:49
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Ironically Crosby is considered the first modern pop star because of his vocalese. He moved closer into the mike to sing casually, essentially 'croon'.
Prior that Al Jolson, Rudy Valle, blues and jazz singers sang louder(a greater distance from the mike) and much more mannered.
Crosby's classic 40's and 50's sides stand up, they are solid. He just isn't fashionable (for a lot of reasons).
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Jim Tones
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Re: ELVIS
Dec 20, 2007, 01:49
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handofdave wrote: Elvis's detractors all come from the same place... they already have some reason agreed upon why not to like Elvis (he 'stole' black music, he joined the army, etc.)
Take Elvis, especially the early Elvis, at face value, and it's hard not to like what you hear.
He was the KING dave, let's face it!
;-D
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Dog 3000
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Pop vocal style (into another ramble)
Dec 20, 2007, 18:57
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Actually I can see that from a musical angle -- Bing may have been the first to "sing for the record/mic" in a sense. That is a pretty huge deal, but there's still a big distinction between "musical innovator" and "cultural force."
Michael Jackson's vocal stylings -- where every over-emphasized intonation and breath becomes it's own "hook" (JAMON! ungh! OOOOO!!!) -- has been tremendously influential in recent decades (Whitney, Justin, Britney, Beyonce, Fiona, Joss, probably this Amy Whingehouse I keep hearing about too.)
I think a big part of the decline in the "musical qualities" of pop in the last couple of decades (chord changes and melodies replaced by looped beats and samples) has everything to do with the foregrounding of the "hook-laden vocal" -- which serves to focus attention of the "celebrity-ness" of the singer. Cuz at this point "popular music" is entirely about the "popular" (celebrity) and not the "music" (clothes and hair are probably just as important as what's going behind the hook-singing; "music" itself really isn't all that important any more, relative to new fangled culture-transmitters like "videogames" and "the Internet".)
"Pop star" to the next level!
But all of this is really a tangent away from "rock" . . . . but to take it back to the top, Elvis' big influence was really on "pop" and "celebrity" rather than mere "rock" (where he was merely one influence, not "THE" influence.)
It's that "iconic" thing again -- the "it" factor which makes Elvis immortal while Bing falls down the memory hole -- these days the record biz is all about that "it", not music. Which is another factor in falling CD sales of course -- the music isn't the product anyway, the product is "JUSTIN!" (or whoever) -- and CD's are only one small slice of the revenue stream.
No one buys JUSTIN! CD's because they love music, they buy music CD's because they love JUSTIN!
My guess is at some point the "music industry" per se may go away entirely (it's only been around as long as the automobile anyway, and does anyone expect autos to still be around in a few hundred years?) The time and energy now focused on "music" will move to some other facet of "celebrity-ness" which is more readily marketable in the media & technology environment of the future (looks have been more important than sound for a long time anyway -- which is one more reason Bing is not due for a comeback!)
Music will always still exist of course, but it will be the terrain of a few "hobbyists" and "patrons of the arts" -- like how "painting" is still done today, but doesn't have the relevance it had in the 16th century.
(Us record geeks are basically like "model train hobbyists" or "Trekkies"; we'll always be around, but in small numbers relative to the mainstream of people who are in to "football" or "TV sit-coms".)
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