k.d. lang’s voice totally blows me away. Her song selection, alas, doesn’t. I recently got her new album, which had gotten some good reviews – blah. Wish I liked it more than I do – because her voice is freakin’ amazing.
Who are your picks for artists who have wonderful voices and lousy material?
Amy Studt.
That girl’s got some pipes, but her music is typical teeny bopper chick pop, ala Mandy Moore, Vanessa Carlton, etc. She is dynamic and can change tone effectively, but she is just in the wrong genre.
Amy Winehouse definitely, for almost all of her music.
I love the singers in ABBA, but “I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do, I Do” makes me want to kill them. Or myself.
Rod Stewart. With a couple of exceptions (like the rediculously obscure “In a Broken Dream,” he hadn’t sung a song worthy of his voice since he left Jeff Beck.
Really? No love for Every Picture Tells a Story? I love his version of “Reason to Believe.”
“Reason to Believe” is good, as is his version of “Maybe I’m Amazed.” But “Every Picture Tells a Story” is just a rotten song (It doesn’t help that I used to work in a place that had a tape loop that played it every 20 minutes, but I wasn’t too impressed with it even before that).
Generally, Stewart is a mediocre songwriter who has a great rock voice.