Does Celine Really Want to be Called a GOAT, When There are So Many Other Names at Our Disposal?

    Hiya Cats & Kittens, Happy New Year. I’ve said this before and I’m sure I’ll have to say it again – big media, i.e. Rolling Stone magazine, NPR, etc., work for the interest of the record companies and not the listener, focusing on the top-forty caterwauling of the instant grat/downloaded world we find ourselves subjected to. And maybe it was always this way, but I want to think not. So when controversy rears its controversial head, we have to consider the source. Our latest music controversy, I have to categorize as White People’s Problems – the creation of issues – for issues sake – where there is no real issue. Of course, I’m talking about Rolling Stone magazine’s Top 200 Greatest Singers of All Time list – and the FACT that Celine Dion didn’t make the cut.  Okay, if you’re one of the gaggle of fans of that shipwreck/romance movie and you feel slighted because your personal songbird didn’t make the list, yet Iggy Pop and Leonard Cohen did, I feel you – I’m heartbroken that Maureen McGovern didn’t make the list for “The Morning After,” but whatcha gonna do? This ain’t an issue gang and yet here I am jumping into the fray (sigh).

    Any time you come up with a Top 200 of anything, you’re showing your level of indecision, with your bottom 175 in the running for participation trophies. Vocals are very speculative, one person’s favorite is another’s nails on a chalk board. You can pick favorites, but the word ‘Greatest” carries strong implications. Is Willie Nelson really greater than Morrissey? Distinctive and powerful are necessary elements to a great vocal performance, but don’t always raise it to “greatness.”  Then we have harmonies – Crosby, Stills, and Nash, The Beach Boys, The Finn Brothers – individually all fine voices, but together reach the level of Great. Performers on this “list” include great songwriters, guitarists, and performers, but in trying to fill out 200 blanks you run into problems. Granted there are a few names on here who I didn’t know – you can be good, while being obscure, but great? Anohni, IU, and Burna Boy all could have been left off – there’s even some guy named Spray Foam Insulation?  Oh wait, that’s an ad stuck in the middle of the list, sorry – but you get my point.

    Ten, maybe twenty – and that’s pushing it – qualify as “The Greatest” and the rest…well, thanks, I’m sure your parents are proud.  Let’s take a look and see if we can’t narrow things down a bit.  First, we have to look at the Church Ladies – Aretha Franklin and Mavis Staples – nothing says vocals like growing up singing in the church choir. That said we have to add, Sam Cooke and Al Green, Donny Hathaway and Bobby Womack to the mix. Powerful and distinctive female voices like Bonnie Bramlett, Etta James, and Phoebe Snow. Then there are the Judys – Garland, Holiday, and Rufus Wainwright. [And on a side note, can we please stop heaping undue praise on Whitless Houston and Pariah Carey and raise up Alicia Keyes and Fiona Apple.]

    The men with a cry in their voice – Chris Isaak, John David Souther, and Raul Malo – who owe it all to Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley. Rounding out the list – with just one listen, one single example of perfection – Carl Wilson (“God Only Knows”), Randy Meisner (“Take it to the Limit”) and Karen Carpenter (“Rainy Days and Mondays’), I give you a pushed twenty, you can narrow it from there, if you can. Did I leave some off? Sure, just like RS did, but I can say for a fact that Celine ain’t one of them.  It took twenty-eight contributors to compile the RS’ “200 list” and create what I’m sure the editors of Rolling Stone hoped and prayed for – some senseless buzz that fools the public into thinking their publication is still relevant. They aren’t – uh-oh, I guess Ben Fong Torres isn’t gonna ring me up, like in Almost Famous and say “they want me writing for them.” It’s okay, I hate lists.