I would like to try something new or at least get away from what TT or amp should I pick type of posting.I am wondering from many of my fellow Audiogoners what performer past and present made you say to yourself WHO TOLD THIS PERSON THEY HAD SERIOUS TALENT. My pick would be for the moment Jennifer Lopez. I just have no idea how in the world she got where she is today. I guess just good luck and the exceptance of mediocrity. Please this posting was not meant to insult anyones musical taste.
Im feeling real ambivalence about this submission, seeing as she pretty much launched me into puberty. But based strictly on talent and performance as skills, and not, well,...eh-hem... you know; Im reluctantly nominating Joey Heatherton. (I still love you Joey!)
I don't know what some of you guys got against J-Lo. She is HOT and can dance. Ok singing wise her voice doesn't have the best range and I remember one live performance it was obvious she was lip-syncing but still I would say she can entertain and perform with some of best pop starlets out there. If some of you don't like J-Lo I'm scared to know your thoughts about Ke$ha. That is one horrible singer.
I know this isn't a musical performer but acting wise the worst of all time to me has to be David Caruso.
My wife watches CSI Miami and I just CRINGE every time I hear him say his lines. I have to leave the room. It is always the same the hands go to the hips as he flips up his jacket and that gravelly harsh sounding voice starts speaking. The tone is the same even when his character is trying to be compassionate. Ugh! I liked him in King of New York but I guess that was because he barely spoke at all.
Shaquille O'Neil. Ever hear him talk? His singing's even worse.
I remember around the time he made an album, there were a couple of basketball guys making albums. The dinger from Digital Underground had a great quote in Sports Illustrated - "These guys deserve a recording contract as much as I deserve an NBA contract."
Then again, none of those guys or the ones in my previous post would have gotten a recording contract had it not been for their celebrity status, so it's not really fair to the original intent of the thread I guess.
I wasn't truly old enough to appreciate Yoko's heyday, so I can't truly dog her out. She's got to be the best of the worst though.
My pick - the "No-talent ass-clown" Micheal Bolton.
Shania twain...and any other new country artist that sounds like a jane fonda workout video...although shania videos minus audio can be entertaining...
Also...fans of Lou reed's street hassle/vu period check out alex chilton's like flies on sherbert...i dig it...but it did get voted as one of the worst lps of all time...curious what others who have it have to say
Shania twain...and any other new country artist that sounds like a jane fonda workout video...although shania videos minus audio can be entertaining...
She's a woman Levy03, those creatures that seem to be the main fans of Celine. It isn't her voice that bothers me, she really can sing, it is the over production and sanguine blandness in her style that turns me off. My wife loves her as well. Same thing with Streisand, the perfectionist who thinks she always knows best. The problem with Barbra her best stuff was and still is from more than 40 years ago, everything since is borrrrring, since she took control, IMO.
My vote for worst entertainer are all the mediocrities of the world, that aspire to more but come up short, too many to know,name and count, but we know who we are.:)
my girlfriend put on some Celine Dion last week. after removing the pencil i forcefully imbedded into my eye....i told her we needed to start seeing other people. the eye is healing nicely and haven't talked to her since.
FWIW, I've come to enjoy a number of Britney Spears tunes of late and find her somewhat entertaining in a pop culture kind of way. So she has trended up for me over the last couple of years.
Does she have talent?
Well, I like her voice for what it is but not sure what you would get there without all the technical enhancements and processing applied. A lot of the talent is with the production guys and songwriters.
If I must pick, I'll go with Selena Gomez. Cute and a decent child actress, but enough with the singing Disney cuties already!
Sometimes it is hard to "get" music until you have been exposed to the culture and language. I'll never forget the sounds I first heard when I visited Brazil the first time. It never left me and has only grown. There is a melancoly texture to the sounds and rhythms that is unique in all music and is why so many American musicians love Brazilian music I suppose. Interestingly Brazilians are really in love with American music as well and adapt it so well in their own.
I just found this thread. All I can say is, tough crowd!
Unsound, I recently heard Cyndi Lauper do a remake of Etta James' "At Last", don't recall the album, recent I believe but I was shocked. I would have never guessed it was her in 100 years. Flat Brazilian Singers? Different strokes I suppose but having been exposed and listened to a lot of Brazilian music over the past 25 years there are some good and bad everywhere but I will say some of my very favorite female singers happen to be Brazilian. Of course I might be swayed by the fact that my wife is a singer and Brazilian and I have been there many times and heard many artists perform live. Brazilian and American jazz are different. You might want to hear Gal Costa live, I do suspect she might be on your hit list, she does a lot of Bossa Nova. Stylistically there is a lot to choose from.
Sonicbeauty... hysterical indeed. Although, everytime I make popcorn for now on, I'm going to think of Kenny G. Please continue!
With regards to Yoko... not only the worst entertainer and performer of all time, she is credited with breaking up the greatest pop band of all time. A doubleworst!
Yoko Ono : Makes my ears bleed. Her claim to fame was never as a singer.
Michael Bolton: Crying his lung out makes me switch stations fast.
Kenny G: It's like hearing the ''your meal is ready'' tone on the microwave oven on a permannent basis. Ouch.
Yanni: Proof that one man (I think) can direct a whole orchestra with his pinky finger, while playing a single piano note every five minutes. Muzak for the masses.
There are so many others, I will keep them for another time. To be continued....
Great Post, some responses are absolutely hysterical! But seriously the worst act I ever saw (and regretably heard) was Walter 'Wolfman' Washington. The worst part about this 'act' I saw is that he brought his own cheering section ( Bottom Line late 90's) He sounded horrible.
Whitney Houston singing I Will Always Love You. C'mon! is there a single more anoying track anywhere? I was in London about fifteen years ago and there was a court case in the news at the time where an apartment resident had burst into his neighbors flat and smashed her cd player into 1000 bits because she played the song over and over and over all day long LOUD. She pressed charges and the judge dismissed the case on the grounds that the song could drive anyone postal!
Have to agree with Priz. And what was the reason Genesis went with Phil for their singer after Gabriel left? Because his voice sounded uncannily close to Gabriel's, which you can hear on very early Genesis where Collins sings harmony with Gabriel>
Any of post-mid-1980's country music. Someone else alluded to it earlier in this thread. There's an element of hermetically sealed self containment about this sub-genre to the extent that it no longer serves as a regionally twanged commentary on life but has instead become a regionally twanged commentary on country music. Sort of like a hundred-odd high end gallery abetted visual artists exclusively painting still lifes which depict paintbrushes and tubes of oil paint. Someone must be buying lots of these five-decades-after-fact devotionals as to whether Hank would approve. Not I.
Michael Bolton, Bruce Springsteen, the Dead, Kenny G, Chuck Mangione. In classical music I would say Joshua Bell(how did he achieve that screetching he calls sound?) and among conductors it is Lorin Maazel(can't wait until his contract runs out with NYP). There are more. Much more. But these are readily available.
Bob Saget is hilarious. America's Funniest Videos was just a way to make some $. Have you seen his appearance in The Aristocrats or any of his standup? He's a filthy-mouthed lunatic.
It matters not personal opinions of what Is perceived to be a good or bad. If there Is a market for It It will be exploited and sold the masses. I would Imagine all of those slated as being poor performers (my previous thread was totally In jest), who are perceived as being not able to sing or act to the high standards required by Audiogoners to make It 'good' have made a decent living out of being rubbish at their job. I can think of a few who are rubbish at their jobs that are not In the entertainment Industry. I think the lifestyle Is better than a 9-5 or a 60 hour work week of hard slog. I mean Celine (no voice) Dion, performs for an hour or so and gets how many mi$$ions? Mick Jagger ugly? Marianne Faithful didn't seem to think so back In the day. Of course, she was not very pretty also!
I totally forgot about Pia Zadora. This is what we get for entertainment when someone like her marrys wealty, and able to play cow tow to their whimsies.
J. Lo is a very good actress. Her music doesn't do much for me, but on the screen she's definitely got the skills. Check out "U-Turn" or "Out Of Sight".
Amy Winehouse has a substance abuse problem. Stevethe4th: you need to separate her chemical dependency and poor behavior from her ability to sing soul music, of which she has great power. When she's sober she's great. Winehouse will lose her life like so many other artists if she is not careful. But especially in today's talent-depleted world of would-be singers her talent is unmistakable.
Sylvester Stallone Pauly Shore Adam Sandler Victoria Principal Suzanne Somers Bo Derek Jenny McCarthy Sharon Stone Pia Zadora Don Johnson Tory Spelling Keanu Reeves Stephen Seagal
all of you dogging on cap't kirk are crazy. watching him sing "rocket man" at the oscars back in the 70s (i saw it for the first time recently on youtube, and recommed you look it up) and his rendition was one of the highlights of my life. has to be one of the funniest things i ever saw.
BTW I don't think that novelty acts like Tiny Tim or that horrible soprano should be included as they know they are terrible and cultivate it. I think the list should only include those who are "legit" acts but are oh so terrible!
~ Ohhhh, I don't know... let's conjur up an old name:
I remember seeing Monty Rock the III on the Tonight Show. I couldn't believe my eyes (which I gouged out with a blunt pencil) or my ears (now in a pickle jar.)
Seems to me that he's performing weddings in Nevada, now, as an ordained minister of bad taste.
Anyone who pertains to be a 'Jazz' artist especially that no end In sight aimless dross that one can't follow the tune/melody type Jazz to Include traditional artists such as Buddy Rich, Oscar Peterson*, Benny Goodman, Lional Hampton, Glen Miller, Johny Dankworth,Louis Armstrong,Duke Ellington, Dave Brubeck, Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, Stanley Clark, Chick Korea,Dave Grusin, Elle Fitzgerald, Cleo Laine, god the list could go on and on.
* take Oscar off the list as I like him coz he plays a Bosendorfer piano.
How about Peter Allen and Liza Minelli? She is in my opinion not even a shadow of her mothers talent.
Separately, or together?
The late Peter Allen wrote some wonderful songs, from "Tenterfield Saddler" (good Oz imagery), "I Still Call Australia Home", "Don't Cry Out Loud" (how can you not love that song?), "I Honestly Love You", "I Go To Rio" and co-wrote "Arthur's Theme". He was a monster on stage, a great performer, with boundless energy and enormous presence. When Australia won the America's Cup, he sang in front of 100,000 people in Perth. They made a show of his life - "The Boy from Oz" - and it was a Broadway success.
Liza has less appeal to me personally, but "Cabaret" was a huge hit movie and Minelli won an Oscar for that show. I just love her performance in that movie and like the soundtrack a lot. "Liza with a Z" was a pretty important TV special, a landmark for performance; and then she had the good fortune to latch onto the Kander-Ebb song "Theme from New York, New York" and made it her signature song (of course, Frank Sinatra usurped it).
Liza has had her ups and downs (as did her mum) and while she lived in her mother's shadow, I think she can hold her head up. She's given quite a lot to the entertainment world.
There are a lot of poseurs being mentioned in this thread - but I claim that Peter Allen and Liza Minelli were fine entertainers and performers.
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