I wasn't ever a Madonna fan, but here's my opinion on her:
Posted on 02/14/2011 9:44:44 AM PST by Responsibility2nd
Classics never die. Who will remember Lady GaGa in 40 years except her nurse?
You just listed three female singers (although Lohan has not made a living at singing to my knowledge) that went from cute little girl singers to pretty much porn looking young adults. The female singers have a much harder time - either then can push the “cute” thing until it gets to the ridiculous state - I think when you are 20 you no longer look 14. Anyway, when they come to outgrow their image is where they get in trouble. The transition to adult usually means to the image makers - sexy, sleazy look (I guess Madonna sleaze never went out of style with the image makers). The male singers can transition any way they choose i.e. the Jonas Brothers = nice kids = nice adults. Bieber can do the same. Give the Bieb a break. He's a good kid from a good Christian home. His hair will change with time.
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‘The studio has been screening the movie (Never Say Never) for many Christian faith leaders in hopes that the film will attract a religious audience, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Bieber is quite vocal about his faith during interview, and you can see it as well throughout the film. Many times, Bieber is seen praying before a concert or talking about God as his inspiration.’
http://www.reelmovienews.com/2011/02/justin-bieber-never-say-never-promoted-to-religious-audience/
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I don’t care for his type of music, but I’m inclined to cut the boy a little slack.
Maybe he could have some positive influence on the young people.
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You know, CSN&Y may be goobers, politically, but they made absolutely outstanding music together. I LOVED their close harmony!
Lief Garrett has not aged well.
Hey now, don’t be dissing Paul Revere and the Raiders!! ;o)
I appreciate your opinion
(1) Credit Brian Epstein's clean-cut Beatles look and new haircuts and matching suits. The photos by Astrid Kirchherr and others of them (with Pete Best and Stu Sufcliffe instead of Ringo) in Hamburg's Top Ten, or '61 photos at Liverpool's Cavern Club make the Beatles look anything but feminine -sometimes snarling and menacing (well, Paul still looked like Paul).
(2) American R&R groups up to 1964? Them's some pretty slim pickin's. Well, before he went in the army, Elvis wore eye shadow and mascara - and pink satin sports coats. Not particularly masculine. Buddy Holly was okay, but, then again, he was a Texan. Eyeglasses and all, he could have kicked Elvis's butt from Memphis to Bangor to Modesto and back. Chuck Berry (along with Bo Diddly, the true Kings of Rock 'n Roll - Elvis was the white pretender, a great pop singer, who didn't write the stuff) were okay, but their oddness (which later resulted in things like installing cameras in women's restrooms) were evident even in retrospect).
Maybe the non-group, most solo, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, although Jerry Lee wouldn't have won any macho contests on appearance alone, no matter how feisty he was about making inconvenient wives achieve room temperature. Then we had surf music, with Jan & Dean and the Beat Boys. Not all that macho. What else are you considering American Rock and Roll pre-1964? Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs? Shep and the Limelighters? Do-wop like Dion and the Belmonts? The Penguins? The Crows?
So I think the Beatles non-greased, longer hair was different - but R&R groups to use as comparison came after the Beatles, not before them. Before the Beatles in the US was more likely do-wop, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Presley-pop, and dreck. And Link Wray.
(3) Finally, I know it's out of context today, but here is the Beatles' first TV appearance on Ed Sullivan. Judge for yourself if they still look feminine to you compared to Justine Bieberiffic:
Paul's playing his Hofner #1, before it was refinished into a three-color sunburst and the second pickup was moved higher up the body. That's Ringo's Ludwig drumkit #2. Drumkit #1 wasn't flown over from England - the kit sent over from rehearsal was a white pearl not to his liking and this black pearl had the Beatles "Drop T" logo (designed by Ludwig) painted on at the last minute.
George (the true guitar lover in the group - although if you admired one of his guitars, with a few exceptions, he was so kind-hearted he would hand it to you), is playing what I believe is Gretsch Country Gentleman #2, dark brown painted instead of brown stained, with double mutes, replaced at some point with a custom painted black dual-mute Country Gentleman, sometimes referred to as an "English Gentleman." Some say it was painted jet black.
Lennon's playing his short-scale '58 Rickenbacker 325 - purchased in Mapleglo but now painted Jetglo, and he's replaced the "TV' tuners with Burns stereo knobs, the bridge with a Bigsby bowtie bridge, and the tremelo with a Bigsby. John was always fiddling with his guitars. It's pre-'65, so he's not wearing the famous Vox 'Python' strap that became synonymous with Lennon and his Rick.
And to think my wife calls me a Beatles' gear geek.
With all due respect to Elvis fans, I think there's a great case that when Elvis returned from the Army, he ceased to be relevant on the music scene for many years because Col. Parker determined that he would be a movie star and not a music star. Instead of recording songs like "Hound Dog," "Blue Suede Shoes," and "All Shook Up" - he recorded show-biz tunes like "Do the Clam," "Queenie Wahine's Papaya" (yeah, those were Elvis 'hits'), "Girl Happy," "Bossa Nova Baby" and what-nobody-can-call-rock "Viva Las Vegas."
He was irrelevant to all but his die-hard female movie fans until 1969, when he came back hard with "Kentucky Rain, "Suspicious Minds," and "In the Ghetto." Then, no more Elvis again until 1974's "Burning Love."
With a couple of exceptions, Elvis was a pop and movie-song star after the 1950s. Popular? Heck, yes. Did his music get better? I'd submit that 98% of Elvis' best music was recorded in the 1950's. Unless "Queenie Wahine's Papaya" is an improvement on "Heartbreak Hotel."
I wasn't ever a Madonna fan, but here's my opinion on her:
“Credit Brian Epstein’s clean-cut Beatles look and new haircuts and matching suits.”
But that led to the Rolling Stones and then music became filthy . . . and they all looked like long haired punks.
To some extent I agree with your post, but it sounds like you are selling Elvis a little bit short. The guy racked up an amazing number of genuine hits (in addition to the many you already mentioned):
Love Me Tender
Jailhouse Rock
Are You Lonesome Tonight?
Teddy bear
Little Sister
That’s Alright Mama
Return to Sender
Don’t Be Cruel
I Can’t Help Falling In Love
It’s Now or Never
Too Much
Crying at the Chapel
Etc.
Etc.
Elvis also sold a whole lot of Christmas and Gospel albums along the way. Good grief! This guy was a legend before he ever went into a movie studio. (Let me add that I actually enjoyed watching his movies on TV in the ‘60s and ‘70s. None were particularly memorable, to be sure, but they entertained me. Shrug.)
Anyway, Justin Beeber he wasn’t.
Respectfully, that's an incomplete list.
George Harrison, who grew over the years to be perhaps my favorite Beatle because he and Ringo were genuinely kind and loving human beings, had #1 hits with “My Sweet Lord,” “Isn’t It A Pity,” “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth),” and “Got My Mind Set On You."
John Lennon hit #1 with "Whatever Gets You Through the Night." Posthumously, he hit #1 with "(Just Like) Starting Over", "Woman" and "Watching The Wheels."
Paul's solo #1 was "Coming Up." He hit #1 with Paul McCartney & Wings' "My Love," "Silly Love Songs", "Listen to What the Man Said," and "With a Little Luck." #1 with Stevie Wonder with "Ebon & Ivory" and #1 with Michael Jackson with "Say Say Say." "Mull of Kintyre" by McCartney and Wings not only hit #1 in the UK, but was the first UK single ever to sell two million copies. McCartney also hit #1 solo in the UK with "Pipes of Peace", about the famous WWI Christmas Truce.
He had a ton of hits because people bought his music, not because it was rock and roll and not because (post-1960) it was any good. His best years were over by the time he joined the army, in my opinion.
"Crying in the Chapel," "Are You Lonesome Tonight," "I Can't Help Falling In Love", "Love Me Tender", "It's Now or Never," etc. can hardly be called rock and rolll, can they? They're popular music. Even "Teddy Bear." Elvis was the King of Pop before Michael Jackson.
And perhaps with one or two exceptions, even those songs all date to the 1950's, when Elvis was wearing eye shadow and mascara.
So, he wasn't a great picture of masculinity.
Elvis? The Elvis we revere musically? That was overwhelmingly the 1950s. And his hits after he returned from the army were schlocky movie songs ("Do the Clam") until three 1969 hits and one 1974 hit.
"My Way" and "American Trilogy" certainly aren't rock.
Don't get me wrong, the man could sing. Just think of what he could have done if Tom Parker hadn't forced him into singing movie cr*p from the 1960s on.
I miss the old days.
As their relationship went into meltdown the musclebound singer insisted on sticking to her four-hour daily exercise regime despite Ritchie’s pleas they should spend more time together.
It meant the film director went 18 months without having sex with his wife, according to the News of the World. And on the rare occasions they did make love, he told friends it was like cuddling up to a piece of gristle.
I guess it depends on how broad a definition you take. I gather you wouldn't consider 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds', 'A Day in the Life', most of the 'White Album', or anything by Pink Floyd to be "rock and roll"?
Yodel who?
No, they're not. Floyd and "A Day in the Life" are something altogether different, almost hard to lump into popular music.
However, I wouldn't consider any of those three songs to be popular ballads - and I'd consider "Love Me Tender", "Are You Lonesome Tonight", and "I Cant' Help Falling In Love" to be nothing but popular ballads. Like "If I Fell." And "Yesterday," the most-recorded popular ballad there is.
The whole deal is - when The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 (not their first US TV appearance), they may have looked effeminate with their hair over their ears, instead of clean-cut like the Beach Boys, or slicked back in a DA like the do-wop groups, but there weren't US rock and roll groups to compare them to. Buddy Holly's plane crashed in 1959. The US had gone to Burl Ives, the Kinston Trio, Peter, Paul & Mary, Bobby Vinton, Neil Sedaka, Sam Cooke, the Everly Brothers, Dion & the Belmonts, Connie Francis, the Drifters, the Crystals, Ray Charles, the Ronettes, and Elvis (Bossa Nova Baby, Good Luck Charm, Return to Sender, She's Not You). There's not a lot of US rock and roll in that group.
For what he spends on that hair, he'd better be dreamy.
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