feeling listless

Music There isn't anything more frustrating yet amusing when a journalist sits down and writes a piece which criticisms much of your CD collection as worthless. But Scott gallop does just that in 'Originality lacking in female pop stars'. I think they key paragraph is:

"But has Miss Keys -- or any of the other borderlines -- even approached the songwriting achievements of predecessors such as Joni Mitchell, Carole King and Chrissie Hynde? Or even those of older peers still in their songwriting and recording primes such as Aimee Mann and Lucinda Williams? To write memorable songs, it helps to have lived. Miss Keys, Miss Jones, Miss Furtado and the rest don't have a lot of life behind them. But they do have a lot of career still before them, so there is plenty of time to close the gap with their hall of fame predecessors."

The problem I actually have with the article is that he lumps all of the singers he lists in together as though they all have the same sound (with the exception of Norah), which obviously isn't the case. Nelly uses more eastern influences, Norah is closer to New York. Frankly I don't care too much who wrote the songs (something which was never an issue during Motown for example). If I want the difficult sentiments I've got Tori, Aimee and Eleanor. In these cases, it's about the voice, the energy and the hook. "He was boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?" Well no, Avril, but we'd hate you to be ambiguous as well ...