I have noticed that every person who achieves any kind of fame in the entertainment industry is distinctive in some way.
Think about any successful actor, and you’ll realize that there is something, and often more than one something, about them that is unique to them. It seems that the more successful they are, the more likely it will be that their voice is one of those things. You can recognize them in an animated production after they’ve said three words.
This also carries over into the music industry, but with an additional caveat. The artists that last for years on end and album after album are always the ones that write, sing, and play their own material. Artists that specialize in singing what others write for them will be gone after one or two albums.
You may be able to find a few exceptions, but I think these are good general rules.
2 responses to “hold the newsreader’s nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers”
Your point about singers is the difference between an artist and a vocalist. Absolutely agree… though it’s nice when an artist does a cover because they tend to get it right instead of screwing it up.
About the voice being that part of distinctiveness – right now, yes, and I have a suggestion to contemplate in regard to that – the voice is the one part of a personality that is the most amenable to fusion with technology – the most accurately reproduced, the most completely transmitted.
It will be very interesting to see whether technology is ever able to show one person how another person perceives the world.
A “tip of the iceberg” example – I have a cow-orker with red/green color blindness, and I would like to see how he sees the world. Perhaps he is able to see other color distinctions that the rest of us are blind to.
It would be fascinating, and possibly insanity-inducing, to experience the world through the senses of a master artist of any genre – music, paint, etc.