Vocalists/Musicians Wasting Their Talent

Prince, great musical talent, too much show business.

It's very hard work to be consistently great at what you do. Some people are willing to work that hard, others simply aren't. Njonker, your frankness is laudable, and as it relates to the issue of this thread, right on the money (no pun intended). Everyone makes choices, including artists. As you point out, some people are driven to the extent that they are willing to make certain sacrifices in their lifestyles that might not be acceptable to others. As with so many things in life, there are many gray areas to this issue that aren't easily explained. Most endevours in life can be pursued with an artistic sensibility IMO, so these comments aren't only about artists in the usual sense. One sometimes finds the person who is very driven to achieve greatness; everything else including health or family life be damned. Othertimes you have the person who makes a choice to live a more balanced life and if perhaps not achieving his/her theoretical potential, are happy with the fact that they can have a confortable lifestyle and still do what they do best; if perhaps not at the highest level. Then you have those, and I see many examples of this in the artist community, that really are not particularly talented, but persevere in their chosen profession and are either content with their limitation or hide behind the idea that their inability to make ends meet is not because of any limitation of theirs but rather society's inability to appreciate their "talent". Now, there obviously are many examples of unappreciated talent, but in my experience truly great talent is usually recognized. What's more; and this is what a lot of folks have trouble with, no one including artists has a responsibility to anyone except themselves when it comes to the manner in which they should practice their chosen career IMO. If you don't like the work that someone is doing, move on to someone else. It's that simple really. Swampwalker, you touched upon something that is key in this discussion. That is, an artist staying in the pop field his/her entire career. Things have changed dramatically over the last few decades as concerns all this. The "pop" music of seventy or eighty years ago is the music that many revere today. A century ago most households had at least one musician(if not professional), and one of the favorite family pastimes was to play music. All that has changed; and folks, guess what many musicians who have been around for several decades and even musicologists trace the beginning of this decline to?: the advent of recorded music. Ironic isn't it? Food for thought.

Nonjker I think you summed it up. Too many. There is little in the music scene today that I would categorize as cutting edge. Basically a rehash of something previously done and in my opinion some things better left not started. And so far as Charlotte Church goes Sugarbrie, she epitomizes the absolute mediocrity so prevalent today. A pretty (average) voice with a pretty (above average) face. A child woman is her appeal, I mean what else could it possibly be? Hell, give me a 60 piece orchestra, an echo chamber and a pretty face and the masses might like me too. I recently saw "La Traviata" performed by a Russian touring company. The lead singer of the part of Violetta had the most beautiful lyric soprano voice I ever heard live and ranks among the most beautiful voices I ever heard period, a virtual unknown. Her voice was absolutely pure, effortless and soul reaching. My wife who has been an amateur singer her entire life and is very critical of singers in general, was moved to tears listening to this woman sing, as was I. There is a lot of talent out there but it is reaching beyond the talent to acquire something fresh, new and original that touches us personally. Maybe this is the cry for something we each feel a loss for? The future will tell, I hope it is just a temporary down cycle. So far as squandered talent goes, I’m with Swampwalker, Whitney Houston's got my vote.

Wehamilton,

Very good post. Think you've hit the high spots. I offer just one amplification: since business, especially the music business, measures things in picoseconds these days, the pressure on studios, and therefore the artists, to crank things out quickly becomes overbearing. As you rightly point out, that will allow people who are camera friendly to market pablum or worse and still make a ton of money. That's all the business side cares about. Artists ( and pretend artists ) being human, want to make money and you can't really blame them. One other poster wrote that he chose commerce rather than academia so he could make a more lucrative living. Who am I to say he's polluted his ideals by "selling out"?

It's a whole different culture. Most of the serious talent still goes into classical because they have to - it's the only medium that fires their muse.

Thanks, Adamanteus. Harry "Sweets" Edison was quoted as saying "I'd rather be a mediocre originator than a perfect imitator." Problem is, today we seem to have mediocre imitators, and it shows.

I agree serious musicians are still around (many are drawn to classical) and still "suffer for their art" but very few people find starving as noble as it was in the past. Unfortunately, classical seems to be in an economic, if not artistic, slump. Even I, who was raised on rock and classical, find myself listening to it less and less.

It may be a middle-aged phenomenon, but I've been on a Jazz bender of heroic proportions and have really been getting into this previously undiscovered (by me) treasure chest. As I've gotten older, it seems the structure of classical appeals less and the freedom of jazz appeals more. I guess I've become a musical anarchist!