Are You a Swifty?

The main takeaway for me about Taylor Swift is that she learned a very hard lesson early on in the music biz about record deals.  I believe it was FZ who called it the international hum job.

She's really taken the lesson to heart, too.  To the point that she's doing a Sinatra re-recording her own stuff to a label she controls.  I think FS and FZ are very happy somewhere as they watch her laugh all the way to the bank.

I am, too.  Too many artists of all stripes get badly ripped off because they aren't contract lawyers.  If even one little kid follows her example to avoid her teenage naiveté, that's a win for society at large and artists in particular.

It seems very few here had any pride about the greatest singer of the century being Ameerican neither chinese nor Russian or German or Italian. (  This is Toscanini saying, not mine and he know a bit about singing and never make lying compliment . He terrorised the singers and the musicians anyway never satisfied  ) .

i am a bit provocative but ... 😊

@immatthewj 

@mahgister was asking who might be an equal to the two singers he mentioned for emotional power in their singing, and I nominated her.

@immatthewj I guess because his Melodies and his lyrics are so engaging. They’re good enough I can Overlook his voice.

@simao , okay. As an aside, and not that it relates or applies to Taylor Swift, but I remember (it must have been around the end of ’86) I read No Direction Home, and I believe it was there that I read that Bob Dylan (and perhaps this was before he started calling himself Bob Dylan) was trying to imitate Woody Guthrie and that was when his style of singing developed and how (I guess one might say) the sound of his voice developed. (I am not going to search through the book right now to try to confirm that, but maybe I will later.)

However, as far as Bob Dylan’s vocals, I love them. I kind of lost touch with what he did after Street Legal (I have listened to a lot of his stuff post-Street Legal, but none of it was really grabbing me anymore), but I think the entire Blood On The Tracks is actually a testimony to how well he can sing. I love his voice on Desolation Row. His voice seems perfect (to me) for Visions Of Johanna. The same for Dignity.

As I typed previously, Bob Dylan’s voice is not for everyone and it may be an acquired taste that some never acquire, but I am one of the ones who does enjoy the sound of his voice and usually prefers the sound of him singing his stuff to that of the countless who cover him.

With all that typed, I also enjoy the vocals of (to name just a few) Bruce Springsteen, Van Morrison, Boz Skaggs, Mark Knoffler, Jim Croce, Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle and Leonard Cohen; I suspect that not everybody thinks that those guys are, or were, great singers either. I really like the sound of Lucinda Williams voice and I used to get a lot of pushback about that also.

@roxy54  , what CD would you recommend for someone to start out with her?