Review of Odyssey

[roger]

Hi Nicola,

As far as I'm concerned (and I don't think anyone will disagree), yes, it is since your review. In other words..... Now look what you've started! Lol

Roger

[Dave]

nicola said:

...I find this one of the best and most open discussions about any album I have ever participated in!

I think that is one thing upon which we are all agreed.

Is this since my review or before hand? Make me feel special I think I have exhausted everything I have to say on Odyssey. Because, like so many people have already said, it's all down to personal taste.

Hi Nicola, yes it is and yes, you are special! so thanks!

It was very interesting before you posted but your review sort of made it explode and hey, it became quite philosophical at times! I think we can all pat ourselves on the back too, for keeping it civil... nice one! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Cheers, Dave

[portia]

fusilier23 said:

Yes, it should be a requirement that you put the same emotion into your performance in a studio recording as you do in a live performance, but the dynamics are different and it is not easy to do. I know that it gets awfully frustrating having to stop and start, stop and start, and that can't help but show.

Then, it's your job as the artist not to let it show, otherwise, why would you be recording. You don't have the caliber to endure the process.

As to the CC comments, are you saying Hayley should go pop? I have to disagree, first because I think Charlotte's pop album is junk and represents a sell-out and abuse of what was talent, secondly because pop is a much more transient field where she'd be competing with far too many other artists with established followings.

First of all, I think Charlotte didn't have talent in the classical field -- she simply pushed her voice too far and so now it's going to be hard for her to go back. I think that the haitus she took gave her lots of spunk and energy and that is a welcome break from the gormless, airheaded strippers or the too innocent little girls. Charlotte's pop album is very good compared to what pop really is, and I respect any artist with a bit of backbone and original material to boot.

I'm not saying Hayley should go pop, but I am saying I don't think Hayley has a classical voice and should stick to lighter, crossover numbers. She also needs to develop more emotion when she sings.

And as to the Maria Callas comment, I think one should be able to separate the artist's art with their lifestyle. I can't stand Sylvia Plath, but I can look at her poetry and acknowledge that it is extremely well written. And there are many that are very well written. It's the same with Callas. I don't care how an artist lived. I'm not interested and I don't think it's at all fair to let an artist's lifestyle cloud your objective judgment of their art.

[portia]

roger said:

Hayley has often indicated that the words of certain songs mean a lot to her. I am sure she really "feels" the words as she sings them. If her voice fails to convey that emotion, is that a failing on her part, or on the part of the listener? Let's quickly use an analogy....

If a comedian tells a joke which causes most of his audience to laugh, but you fail to see the humour, is that his fault..... or yours? No, it is neither. It mearly indicates that we do not all have the same sense of humour. Similarly, I suspect we do not all perceive the emotion in Hayley's voice in the same way. Personally, I find it perfectly emotional enough. Any more would detract from the beauty of the tone, the technical ability and so on.

Does it? Why can't it also mean that the comedian is a bad comedian and cannot make the audience laugh?

[Dave]

portia said:

roger said:

Hayley has often indicated that the words of certain songs mean a lot to her. I am sure she really "feels" the words as she sings them. If her voice fails to convey that emotion, is that a failing on her part, or on the part of the listener? Let's quickly use an analogy....

If a comedian tells a joke which causes most of his audience to laugh, but you fail to see the humour, is that his fault..... or yours? No, it is neither. It mearly indicates that we do not all have the same sense of humour. Similarly, I suspect we do not all perceive the emotion in Hayley's voice in the same way. Personally, I find it perfectly emotional enough. Any more would detract from the beauty of the tone, the technical ability and so on.

Does it? Why can't it also mean that the comedian is a bad comedian and cannot make the audience laugh?

Well it can. But it can also mean that the comedian and the audience simply aren't on the same wavelength. I can think of one or two excellent stand-up comedians who would go down like a ton of bricks at a meetiing of the Women's Institute in suburban middle-class England.

Dave

[fusilier23]

I agree that it's the artist's job to keep it seamless, but not everyone, including some artists much higher up the food chain, can manage it. Kiri te Kanawa is the ULTIMATE vocal technocrat, yet she went further than I daresay a lot of artists did or ever will.

Ah, I think I do agree that at least for the moment Hayley's greatest strength is in the lighter, corssover numbers, she knows she isn't going to be an opera singer now, maybe not ever, and maybe that isn't what she wants, or what we as her fans want. But there is also no reason she can't make a foray into light classical for 50 or even 60% of her music. She sounds fine in the broadway stuff and classical standards. There is no need to turn everything upside down.

As for Charl, oh, she had talent, if half of it was only the talent for lighting up a room with a smile and beguiling an audience with little-girl chatter. By its nature that's self-limiting, though. Yes, she pushed her voice too far, anyone who listened to her second 2 albums can hear that. But I don't think she displayed any "backbone" with her stick-her-thumb-in-the-world's-eye approach to things and unlimited tendency to say whatever pops into her head without thinking. And l consider the lyrics to her pop to be second-rate, married to tunes that are no more original than anything else that's on the radio today and forgotten tomorrow.

As to the Maria Callas comment, I'm going to say this once and once, only, so listen very carefully. Image is, has been, and always will be part of all artists. It's never only about the music, otherwise we're right back to the technocracy that everyone on this thread seems to decry in music. I happen to be somebody who lives by standards, and those standards only let me look the other way on so many things. I am mostly a tenor fan, and to my knowledge, among that crowd only John McDermott, who was discovered late in life, and Ben Heppner, who was raised Mennonite in rural Canada, have totally blameless personal lives. Placido Domingo and Daniel Rodriguez were both married at early ages and quickly divorced and remarried, Richard Tucker was arrogant, Caruso a gross overeater, and Mario Lanza given to a lot of excesses, but all these guys have been smart enough to keep these things in their pockets. Conductor Arthur Fiedler hit his wife behind the scenes, but when he stepped out on stage he was everyone's friend. Yet Charl insists on grinding her badness into everyone's face with brainless comments about how she's going to write an X-rated guide and shown up for interviews drunk, as well as TV specials that combine the worst features of reality TV and lifestyles of the rich and famous. Spunk and backbone are one thing, but unprofessionalism and hostility another.

[Richard]

kcuteus1 said:

But I would have to say I do feel that the I dreamed a dream on her DVD is better.

Thank you Kimberly!

The version of "I Dreamed A Dream" on Hayley's DVD was filmed at Russell Watson's concert in Auckland in 2002, with several thousand people in the audience. Your comment backs up what I said about good singers being at their best when they perform in front of a live audience.

Best Wishes,

Richard

[portia]

What? Charlotte Church hasn't been purposely shoving what she does in people's faces. It's not her fault the press hound her every single time she's out. When she's not on stage, she should be able to do whatever she wants. And people should be able to distinguish between Charlotte the stage artist (which is just as good as Joss Stone or Dido, people I consider better in pop but not stellar) and Charlotte the nineteen year old. As to her documentaries, I think she should be allowed to clear the air after all the trash that's been written about her. And it lets you see Charlotte as Charlotte and not Charlotte as the drunkard the press writes her to be.

Image is something, but it shouldn't be everything. Just because you're able to hide faults better doesn't make you a better artist than another person. You're simply a better liar. So Maria Callas wasn't able to keep her faults private, but partly because she was hounded by the press, and she herself was a person who lived spontaneously. She still had the best female voice that graced the modern ages. And good art should be able to stand alone. All you need to know about the artist should be from the art. The press and all that hassle are inevitable cling ons, but artists aren't politicians. I don't hold them accountable for not managing their image right. Handling press is not part of the deal when you're an artist. Of course, I don't like stars that hog limelight, but Maria Callas certainly wasn't that kind.

Anyway, this has gone off topic long enough, so let's just agree to disagree.

[fusilier23]

The best female voice that graced the modern ages? Hmm, I think Renee Fleming, Beverly Sills, Monserrat Caballe, Cecilia Bartoli, Kathleen Battle, Jessye Norman, Nellie Melba, and a bunch of other sopranos and mezzos that I can't name off the top of my head would all have something to say about that. Maria Callas was good, no question of that, but not the best there ever was, and there's no avoiding the fact that she quit at least a half dozen opera companies in a huff, was fired from the Met, and met a distinctly premature (and questionable) death at the age of 54. What you call living spontaneously I call poor impulse control. Maria Callas had issues, so let's not pretend they didn't exist, and as such, they were part of the whole.

Then comes the question of great art being able to stand alone. I really don't know about that, it hearkens back to my schooling where the first grade that was given was always your grade for conduct, and it didn't matter how well you did in math or science, if you got a poor grade for conduct, that trumped everything else. I do not believe character doesn't matter. Although Wagner may have been a first rate composer, he was a tenth rate human being, I can't ignore that. And if image handling isn't important, please tell me why so many publicists get paid big bucks by artists to do just that?

As for CC's documentaries, please. I don't call a documentary in which Charlotte is sitting drinking watching polo and curses her mother out and snarls that "I don't have to be on show *&%^ing 24/7" when asked to sign an autograph in one sequence, and in the next is shown spending big money on a house and a lavish vacation "clearing the air." It is what it is.

[roger]

portia said:

roger said:

Hayley has often indicated that the words of certain songs mean a lot to her. I am sure she really "feels" the words as she sings them. If her voice fails to convey that emotion, is that a failing on her part, or on the part of the listener? Let's quickly use an analogy....

If a comedian tells a joke which causes most of his audience to laugh, but you fail to see the humour, is that his fault..... or yours? No, it is neither. It mearly indicates that we do not all have the same sense of humour. Similarly, I suspect we do not all perceive the emotion in Hayley's voice in the same way. Personally, I find it perfectly emotional enough. Any more would detract from the beauty of the tone, the technical ability and so on.

Does it? Why can't it also mean that the comedian is a bad comedian and cannot make the audience laugh?

If you read what I said again, my example says that most of the audience DID laugh but you fail to see the humour.....

Roger

[nicola]

Portia and Steve, this is getting a bit heated no?

[portia]

Impulse incontrolibility is the same as living spontaneously. I don't pretend that she doesn't have issues. I simply do not care. Everyone has their own set of problems. Van Gogh cut off his own ear, visited prostitutes, drank a lot, was neurotic and attention seeking. He still painted accesible and beautiful paintings. Maria Callas did all those things you mentioned. She still sang spectacularly and is regarded by many as perhaps the best female voice of the modern age. What do I care that she was a diva? She still was able to transform the things she sang. I don't know Maria, only what people have said about her. There are an infinite amount of reasons for her behavior. Until I know all her reasons, I honestly cannot judge.

You don't have to ignore the artist as a person, but you don't have to judge so readily or quickly. Everyone has their own problems. You look at those issues in a different light and artists can go from diva brat to victim of society. It's all relative. I'm not saying you shouldn't have standards. I'm saying that you should also keep in mind that human nature is complex and rarely can be pigeon holed to good, bad and nasty. You need to know a lot about a person to finally judge. And none of us know enough about the artists to judge them as a person. In the very least, I think you owe the artist to keep an objective distance between the art and the artist's personality.

Just because you're a celebrity does not mean you're an artist. And image seems to be so important because most of the public doesn't quite grasp the fact that you know, good art can be separated from the artist. I don't think it's all fair for the public to judge, except for what the celebrity deliberately pushes into the open (e.g. Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes). That, however, is simply tasteless.

Charlotte's life is posh and grand, what else was there to document? At least she doesn't go at lengths to lie about the fact that she smokes and drinks and curses at her mother. What nineteen year old doesn't? At least Charlotte is not afraid of showing that she is capable of vices and human flaws. I have to say though, I thought her first documentary much more insightful than her second. Her first documentary showed how impeccably human Charlotte is, and I gained lots of respect for her from the first one. Still, most of my respect for Charlotte stems from the fact that I think she's incredibly refreshing from the cover ups and stick thin figures that grace the industry today, not her music.

[portia]

roger said:

portia said:

Does it? Why can't it also mean that the comedian is a bad comedian and cannot make the audience laugh?

If you read what I said again, my example says that most of the audience DID laugh but you fail to see the humour.....

Roger

Well, it could be that you have a refined sense of humor and the comedian is still bad, haha.

[Natasha]

OK guys, I only mentioned Charlotte to say that on her recordings she doesn't have the emotion that she has on live performances and I just said that because Hayley does the same thing.

Please don't think I'm trying to butt in or anything but this thread is about Odyssey after all. You could always start a Charlotte Church thread or PM about this topic if you want to continue discussing it but for now let's get back to Odyssey!!

As I've said before, "Odyssey" isn't another "Pure." It's "Odyssey." The down point of the album, I believe, is that most of the songs are slow, gorgeous numbers all of them (well, except "Quanta Qualia" and "She Moved through the fair") and Hayley does them very well. The problem might be that they tried to fit to many of them onto the same disc. Perhaps spreading them out across a couple of albums would have sounded better.

Still, I find "Odyssey" an enjoyable album and now I know for sure that the amazing "shimmer" and "sparkle" to Hayley's voice is 100% real. She really had me awestruck when she performed live because her voice is just so gorgeous now! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Hugs,
Natasha

[Richard]

Hello Natasha!

Thank you for bringing this thread back on topic. I agree that Hayley's live singing voice has improved during the two years I've known her, but it's been a steady improvement, and if anything her unique voice is now more distinctly 'Hayley' than ever. I also feel that Hayley's style has evolved naturally from "Pure" to "Odyssey", and I'm already looking forward to her next album.

Actually I don't have to wait that long because I'm going to see Hayley again in Banbury next month! i.postimg.cc/9fYxy370/smilie-big-grin.gif

Best Wishes,

Richard