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| re: Been Having So Much Fun, Thanks! | |
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pidunk 03:59 pm UTC 04/18/07 |
| In reply to: | re: Been Having So Much Fun, Thanks! - Dr_Rock 09:22 am UTC 04/18/07 |
> There's no need to accuse me of denying Jim credit. He is > one of my very favourite composers and people and one of > my greatest heroes. I think, if anything, he doesn't get > the credit he deserves. Yes, on this we agree. I was simply pointing out who sang > what songs on this album to clarify it for you. What clarifies something to me is an actual source of information, not just a telling. Too many times and ways there are of misquoting, misremembering information, that when a specific question comes about, it is a form of some acceptance that the actual source be sought and used to give the clarification. In this case, your insistence upon the availability of the information and my request for it, still has not produced the actual url, cut and paste, quote with context, or any of the things that people use to get information and to validate it. So, your rhetorical statements that I am wrong don't have any authority to them, but when you show your sources, your statements would. It isn't a point about what you recall or what you think you hear. It is a point about what information you are given by Jim. I'm sure that when the facts are sought, and shown to me with accuracy, you'd be happy with my acceptance of it. One thing > about having joined in discussions, read articles, and > listened to interviews in my 15 years as a fervent Jim > Steinman fan is that I can't remember the source of all > the facts. If you can't remember a source you may not necessarily remember the information itself but your impression gained over the time and these activities. One source melds with another source, and you may not be giving the credit to Jim's information but give credit to a fan's information, and that fan's information may have sounded right but been wrong. It is probably seeming picky to you, but my experience and the desire for accuracy is actually demanding a seeking of the information. If you don't want to, you don't need to answer the question and you could leave it to another person who does want to go through the trouble. Not to say that the trouble is not appreciated by me. I appreciate very much that you have attempted to answer, but you answered essentially with the question coming back in repetition. I said people are giving some credit to someone that to which credit does not exist, and you go and give the credit that does not seem to exist in reiteration. I don't want to make you sore, but it is a thing that has been said, and I want to know the source of the information. Jim is heard straining on some notes, I shall state that. Why would someone be cast into a role that they could barely perform? If Jim wanted someone to fill in on a vocal, he certainly had his choice of really good and strong vocals to pick from. He also had the availability option of track punching for the notes to sustain in the engineering phase. He didn't have to trade towards someone who sounds like they have to stretch their limits. Hearing that there is a stretching for limits, is what I hear, and I hear that the voice stretching for limits is Jim's. Some singers do have dual vocals and they may share a vocal credit....singing the same words on the same notes in the song at the same time, or in harmony notes, and rarely is there an actual substitution. If Jim couldn't sing through a whole song, why not just give the song to someone else....he was brave enough to put in the spoken word speech, to do the album himself as it is, and to stretch the limits of his voice. If he was brave enough to stretch the limits of his voice, I'd like to have that acknowledged. I hear that it should be acknowledged. Remember that the song that brought this up was not any of the songs on the Bad For Good album, but a song on a demo which is labeled as being sung by Rory Dodd, which is not. Recognizing that one error is existing, asking others to listen for it, or else to show me where it is not an error, has diverged discussion to the album, which took on a patina that was more than I anticipated. If a demo is credited incorrectly based on album credits, that's natural enough of a mislabel, but when a demo is credited incorrectly based on nothing that actually exists anywhere else, that serves to validate the perception of the error. On the side, it also corrects misperceptions perpetuated by poor information. It may seem all so academic, but I'm sure that somewhere someone on this board really cares. I am, however, pretty certain that the vocalist > on all these songs has been documented. I came into the question being certain, that you and anyone feeling certain in the individual non-specific was certain, and in your certainty you answered. I understand that you feel certain. I respect that you feel certain. I ask, as silly as it seems to you, which I believe it is not, that you check your source just for the moment, just check where you gained your certainty from, and give to me the level of certainty you have from it. Why not try > listening to a song you know is sung by Rory and compare > it to the vocals on these tracks. Because there is no song I know of that is actually sung by Rory. Even this demo of "A Kiss Is A Terrible Thing To Waste" is sung by Jim. Here, I'll start my media player as I type this, just to give another listen. It begins, by the way I notice with similar sound effects as come about in the ending of the original film, "Wuthering Heights." The vocal begins in the highest octave for a tenor. In that octave, the larynx bands are so tight that it is hard to know who is singing, but at that octave, there is not much strength to the vocal. If hiring out to a vocalist, choose a vocalist that can be strong in the highest tenor octave. Jim always knew that, one could be sure, because of his education and experience. He had no shortage of singers to audition. Then the next verse is in a lower octave, and it is Jim's voice. Still not strong, because it is the next highest octave for a tenor, and then when it gets lower, one can hear that Jim's voice as recognizable is stronger, but no change of singer took place. The lack of strength in the higher tenor octaves does not denote an inability to sing the song, as we can hear that the song is sung without major mishaps. That it could have been stronger is a matter of rehearsal and practise. I hear that Jim's voice is the logical voice for the demo because it is in the demo where it is recognizable, following and being followed by the higher tenor octaves. Somewhere someone said that the higher tenor octaves are being sung by Rory Dodd, and I don't see where it is said with accuracy. Plung me for being a stickler, but I want it to be right. Yes, at times certain > vocal inflections do sound very much like Jim, and I'm > sure when Jim wasn't singing lead he was on background > duties, but why would Jim impersonate Rory's voice on > certain tracks and sing in his own trademark style on > others. Logically, if one is sure of a set of facts, one seeks validations. If your facts are right, all you need to do is to show me, or else wave your hands over your keyboard and forego the discussion. Why go through the energy of arguing your point, when you only want to argue, and not show the source? Do I have a source to show? It is the absence of yours. Jim does not have "a trademark style". Technical vocal limitations are alot like the laws of physics. When you go into a grocery store and you're hungry, your appetite influences the breadth of your purchase. Jim's hunger for musical expression sometimes stretches his own capacity to perform it. We always knew that. It appaarently has not stretched his bravery to try to perform it. Listening to the recent songs he gave us, snuck and the unsnuck alike, one could hear the developments in his voice he has attained through the years as well as the flexibility in range and style. The earlier songs where he stretches and gets the label of Rory Dodd, are earlier attempts before the larger development. You can listen to the songs you know are sung by Jim and compare them to the songs you think are sung by Rory Dodd, and compare them. But, I don't know what is sung entirely by Rory Dodd. We have to take it the round way from Jim, to rule out Jim in a vocal, or to validate Dodd, if such is appropriate. Stodgy detail, maybe, but since you love Jim so much, isn't it worth it? > Contrary to what you may believe there are many instances > where an album's main performer is not the most > prominently featured on certain tracks. I do know this, and it is disclosed because the disclosure is honest, the disclosure helps the fill-in singer's career, the disclosure may be called for in a contract or union form, and is all around ethical to do. We could assume that Jim is ethical, that he forwards others careers, that he helps others get ahead, and if he fails to blow his own horn that is his prerogative, but he has not been seen not helping someone have the credit due to them. Rory Dodd is not complaining. He is also not much visible in other ways. Maybe the whole world got together and declared that nobody would give Rory Dodd a leg up? How often does that happen? This does not mean > that they have no involvement with it though and that it > shouldn't be on that album. How many Alan Parsons Project > tracks did Alan sing or play on? Alan Parsons Project is an ensemble, and has always been. How many albums released > by guitar virtuosos (e.g. Malmsteen, Beck, Vai) have other > (often uncredited) main vocalists? They are not featuring vocal performances as such. But if you want to seek an example, Carlos Santana credits the vocalists on his songs. Was that Meat singing > "45 Seconds of Ecstasy" in a high-balled voice on > Neighbourhood? Why are you asking this? > > If you were so keen to start an argument with someone why > not check all your facts to begin with. I'm not starting an argument. I'm asking for the facts. Please don't call it an argument if you don't have the facts. Namely that > nowhere has Jim claimed to have sung all the lead vocals > on the Bad For Good album. Yes he did. He said that he didn't sing them well, but he sang them. All he says in the interview is > that he sung "Left in the Dark," which is true. I have seen discussion in the board which gave this particular vocal credit to Rory Dodd. If it seems like that was not an issue when I asked about it, it happens to be an issue where you state it is wrong. What you did was say to me, that nobody ever said that about Left In The Dark, and so I should shut up and the question is stupid. Unfortunately, your answer expanded the question, and created the argument. But if you want to argue, that is your choice. It is you > that says (and I quote), "my understanding is that Jim did > all of his own lead vocals." Perhaps you misunderstood. I'm seeing all kinds of energy being spent on the ideas that have no validation in the sources given to them. Where does it say that he doesn't? Why should you believe that of all the vocalists in the world, Rory Dodd was singled out not to get the credit for the work done? The credit is non-specific, and the places are non-specific, and it is not a lead vocal because a lead vocal has, in the music industry, legal ramifications. The music industry in California is one of those places where, if someone gets their placement anywhere, they fight for every bit of the entitlement that the placement gets them. The competition between singers is so fierce, that Rory Dodd would have such a feather in his cap which he would use for other singing gigs and for getting his own recording deal. We would hear about him, here and elsewhere. Karla DeVito is an excellent example. Peace. | |
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