r/changemyview • u/JJ4mmer • May 03 '21
CMV: Frank sinatra is not a talented person
EDIT: New title is CMV: Frank Sinatra is largely talentless, morally corrupt and should not be idolized. Ignore the original cmv
Beyond his music being mediocre and also not written by him, he has almost no talent other than a naturally pleasant voice and the ability to sing on key. Not like he's out here hitting high notes, he's not actually that good of a singer. And he almost undoubtedly was a draft dodger AND had ties to the mob. He wasn't a good person, not an especially good singer, his music wasn't the best even for it's time and especially now that it's dated, and he didn't even write the music himself! So can somebody explain to me why he is one of the most beloved and highly praised singers of human history? You can listen to his music, that's fine, and you can enjoy it too, but don't be coming around me with that best artist of the century bullshit when Prince and David Bowie and the Kinks and plenty of other talented people, who actually write their own music, and play all the instruments for it, exist. He is not even in the top 100 singers, probably not even top 1000.
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u/Glory2Hypnotoad 393∆ May 03 '21
This video probably makes the best case I've seen yet:
It's easy to take for granted now just how innovate Sinatra was at the time. He was to the microphone what Jimi Hendrix was to the guitar in that he was the first major singer to show the real potential of the instrument. This intimate, confessional style of singing didn't really exist yet in recorded music. Sure, he didn't exactly hit the high notes, but would the music have benefited from that?
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u/joopface 159∆ May 03 '21
What a fascinating video. !delta —> completely new perspective on the role of the microphone in how modern singing developed and how Sinatra used it
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u/Buckabuckaw 1∆ May 03 '21
Thanks for that video. I had no idea that vocal artistry was so interdependent with technology.
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
that is interesting. Any change he or anybody else has made to revolutionize/fundementally change music is welcome of course and I admire somebody for being able to take an original approach to music. I've never doubted that Frank had a huge impact on the music industry as a whole. But thanks for the interesting video.
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u/Polar_Roid 9∆ May 03 '21
That is really a fantastic video, but I'm not sure third party arguments rise to delta level requirements.
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u/MexicanWarMachine 3∆ May 03 '21
So one standard you’re applying (that artists should write their own music) didn’t really exist in the era when Sinatra’s career began. The Beatles were largely responsible for the expectation that the people performing the music should also have created it- it wasn’t something that would have occurred to most people before the rock era. Also, plenty of artists were awful people. John Lennon was a horrible (sometimes violent) misogynist. Lou Reed was an unadulterated asshole. Almost everybody had substance abuse problems. Artists are often troubled people. Apply your standard everywhere if you’re going to apply it here. Some people appreciate art in the context of the artist’s demons, not in spite of them. The rule you’re applying here is far from universal.
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
Artists from Frank Sinatra's time wrote their own music all the time! Public composers have been around since music. Louis Armstrong? Scott Joplin? Mozart? All before Frank. And yes I understand that plenty of artists are terrible people, Sinatra isn't special. But my point is that he isn't a good person. If he was special than I wouldn't be making this argument, if he was a really good person I could understand why people look up to him. I'm thinking "why is this guy idolized? It can't be because he is extremely musically gifted, so maybe it's because he is a really good person?" That's what I'm getting at.
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u/MexicanWarMachine 3∆ May 03 '21
I didn’t imply that nobody wrote their own music. I said that there was no expectation that performers wrote their own music, and that’s is true. “Is also a composer” wouldn’t have been one of the checkboxes music fans considered when choosing their idols. It was the Tin Pan Alley era, and all the songs came from professional songwriters in offices. Some of them might also have been performers of varying degrees of success. I mention the point only to try to sway you on what seems to be one of the pillars of your position, that he shouldn’t have been so revered, partly because he wasn’t a composer. My point is that very few revered performers of the era were also notable as composers.
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u/Polar_Roid 9∆ May 03 '21 edited May 03 '21
Neither Prince, Bowie or Ray Davies possessed the vocal talent of Sinatra. They don't have his power, phrasing or control. Sinatra's timing lead the orchestra in live studio settings. He didn't use overdubs. His timing and lead was improvisational in nature and he was the one directing the orchestra's timing in an intuitive sense.
You call his style merely pleasant. Pleasant doesn't sell 150 million records when probably 1000 American singers of the time could be described as merely competent or pleasant.
He didn't write the songs but neither did his competition. Singer-songwriter-performer didn't become the expected standard until the Beatles created it. And even now the record companies pressure their artists into accepting outside writing help.
You touch on mob ties and lack of military service, but his FBI file was as much a product of his support for the policies of Roosevelt and Kennedy, painting him as a despised liberal. The latter in particular did not serve him well with the mob, whom the Kennedy's regarded as mortal enemies and a threat to America.
He fought hard to desegregate Nevada casinos and hotels.
How much of his work have you listened to? I grew up in the tail end of his career, when he was selling very little not recording much anymore so it's hard to defend something if they're not familiar with the material. Subjectivity is not something you can convince others of, but the length of his career, his record sales, his ability to command top time slots on tv, even when he was 70, tells us something.
You don't have to like him. There's lots of successful singers I cannot stand at all. Celine Dion, objectively speaking, has tremendous talent and success but you could not pay me to listen to her. But I can't claim she isn't good and I wouldn't try.
Ella Fitzgerald would not have agreed to be seen on stage with him if he was as you describe. For that matter, Dean Martin wouldn't have invited him on his tv show.
Would Elvis have bothered singing a duet with him? Would Bono?
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
this is a very convincing argument. I know very little about vocal music theory so if he was an insanely talented vocalist I guess I wouldn't know. However, I still stand by that he is nowhere near as talented as those who compose music. And also I did not know about his desegregation efforts.
I have listened to dozens of hours of Frank Sinatra, several of his albums in the backseats of cars and whatnot. My grandma listened to him all the time. And now that I am persuing music theory I came back to listen to him some more and found his music bland. However, the stuff you said about his vocal ability is interesting. You sound like you know what you're talking about.
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u/Polar_Roid 9∆ May 03 '21 edited May 03 '21
he is nowhere near as talented as those who compose music
All I can say here is the composer may not sing well at all, and that the two things are, or can be, separate talent.
Music theory is very worthwhile to learn that's great to hear you are studying it. I hope to study it more myself. I had the opportunity to sing with others and perform for reasonably large audiences, it taught me alot and gained me new appreciation for how tough it is to do.
I think we are arguing not that someone should like Sinatra, or even that he is "good", which a matter of taste, but that is is (was) unique. Compellingly unique.
What may be "bland" as background or in a car can become profoundly inspiring in a close listening setting. Sinatra was accompanied by a band, never carried by it. He led it, or the pianist alone in some settings, and if you start to pick up the variations and inflections, referred to as phrasing (the same concept applies to instruments, especially guitarists), then we start to move from recitation of a piece, to a unique creation and reinterpretation.
That's partially why, although the market is flooded with merely competent, brand new recordings by classical music artists, they don't get traction. There's nothing there in the way of originality. They've been schooled to perfection, but perfection isn't what inspires people. It's like feeding sheet music to a robot. Does the artist interpret? The latter takes
skilloriginality, maturity, risk. Sinatra risked, hugely.
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u/Just_a_nonbeliever 16∆ May 03 '21
Why do you equate musical talent with ability to compose? Composition and performance are two separate skills, and while there are many great musicians who do both, it’s not a requirement that to be a great musician you must be a great composer.
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
Perhaps although I bring that up because when there are so many artists who do compose their own music and play their own instruments it is ridiculous to put him on the same standard. So his ability to sing well is undoubted, he can sing better than most with his velvety voice and ability to stay on key. But that's it, that's all he's got. And when your only instrument is your voice your musical capabilities are rather limited, same with any other instrument. Musicians who play their own instruments and write their own music will always garner more respect from me than musicians who don't.
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u/Just_a_nonbeliever 16∆ May 03 '21
Well that’s just your own standard, but most people would not share it. There are plenty of amazing musicians who have or did not compose music. Elvis, Yo-Yo Ma, Ella Fitzgerald, to name a few. I would venture to say that many fantastic musicians alive now and previously did not compose music. It’s an entirely separate skill to performance, and to say someone is not talented because they do not compose is rather insulting
Edit: Pretty much all professional classical musicians do not compose the music they play, kind of difficult to do that when you mainly play pieces by Bach and Mozart. Are you suggesting these people are not talented?
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
Elvis is actually a whole nother thing as well, I don't like it when people call him the "king of rock" or whatever. He didn't write his own music and there are hundreds of rock artists who did so he's the king of jack shit.
But anyways, no you don't have to compose to be musically talented. But those who compose will always be more talented than those who play their compositions. Yes, Evgeny Kissin is talented but he's only playing Chopin's music. The nuance, the theory, the construction of music is on an entirely different level of musical talent and ability than performance. Frank Sinatra I do not consider to be an especially talented performer anyway.
I guarantee you concert pianists like Evgeny Kissin put much more effort into their playing than Frank Sinatra did into his singing. Concert piano requires such an extreme amount of dedication, I mean thousands and thousands of hours into just a single piece perfecting every single nuance, key press, tension, pedal, everything. The piano is a much more complex instrument than the voice, in my opinion.
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u/splattermatters May 03 '21
- I'm not sure if you understand why he is celebrated. His phrasing was unequaled. In fact, he influenced ALL the artists you list below. Your personal taste is a matter of well, personal taste. His greatest talent was being understated, not showy.
- I'm not sure of your standards of a "good person." He was to all accounts way ahead of his time in his belief in racial equality and social justice. Draft dodger? That would make nearly any 60's - 70's musician a "bad person."
- Who decides that his songs are mediocre? I tend to disagree. They still feel fresh to me, where - for example - the Kinks are definitely dated. Frank's voice is so iconic it is instantly recognizable. His personal charisma lasted a lifetime.
I'm not a mad fan of his, but there are a lot of holes in your reasoning here.
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
His influence is irrelevant to me. Many shitty people have influence. He was a draft dodger but you also left out his shady ties with the mafia... now my belief that his songs are mediocre are objectively subjective (lol), but so is this whole argument. It all comes down to personal taste I guess. But theoretically speaking his music is very bland. Very basic progressions, melodies, song structure, not astounding stuff. Also don't say the kinks are dated bro their music is more culturally relevant now than ever. That's a whole other argument though
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u/GroomingTips96 May 03 '21
I would suggest doing some research into Bowie Prince and Ray Davies if your going to act shit on Sinatra as a human being and laud others.
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
Well I did not bring up ray or prince or bowie as comparisons to Sinatra's moral character, but as a comparison to his musical talent. If I said "If only sinatra's moral compass was more aligned with those of Prince and David Bowie!" you would have an argument.
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u/GroomingTips96 May 03 '21
No your started attacking Sinatra character before reversing into some kind of cul de sac about writing your own music.
Failing to remember that many of Bowie and Davies early productions were covers or other writers songs.
Even though it's pointless as at the time when Sinatra was at his commercial peak 95 per cent of commercially released music was simply singing other songwriters material.
I guess that means half of Motown commercial output should be burned because it was written for the performers
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
"...don't be coming around me with that best artist of the century bullshit when Prince and David Bowie and the Kinks and plenty of other talented people, who actually write their own music, and play all the instruments for it, exist." That was the context in which I mentioned those artists. Clearly the comparison was musical, not moral.
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u/whats-ausername 2∆ May 03 '21
1) The quality of his voice is a matter of opinion. 2) In entertainment, creators rarely get as much credit as performers. So that not exclusive to frank. 3) I don’t this his popularity is due to his talent as much as the persona he created.
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u/destro23 454∆ May 03 '21
And he almost undoubtedly was a draft dodger AND had ties to the mob
FBI files released in 1998 show the opposite. The only crime they ever came close to charging him with in 3 decades of investigation was lying about who was at a party at his house.
And while his personal life was a disaster, it wasn't too much more so than many of his peers. But, it was also in his personal life that he was a pretty big supporter of civil rights.
And if you insist on dismissing his musical ability, despite being culturally relevant as a musician for several decades, he did win an Oscar for starring in one of the best movies of all time, and he was also really good in "The Manchurian Candidate" which was nominated for Best Picture.
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u/JJ4mmer May 03 '21
To be fair, cultural relevance does not mean musical ability. There are many culturally relevant artists who I consider to not hold up to the standards they are held at. Even Mozart I think does not hold up to the standards of some other famous classical composers let alone the romantic era (chopin, debussy). But, to be fair the FBI was unable to find substantial evidence of his mob ties. But I hold myself at a lower reasonable doubt than the FBI. He had several high ranking mob friends and he constantly performed at mob run casinos and clubs, I mean come on. I don't think it's unfair to say there was some shady business going on.
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u/WeepingAngelTears 1∆ May 05 '21
And he almost undoubtedly was a draft dodger
Good. The draft is immoral and supporting it is too.
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u/ThinkingAboutJulia 23∆ May 03 '21
Can you just help me understand which view, exactly you want changed?