Well, just to make myself clear, it's not that I 'hate' these performers per se. I do think there's a good bit of overrating that goes on with a lot of this music (I am of the opinion that there's definitely an aspect of 'great white hope' favoritism afoot, which oddly enough seems to attach itself mainly to females, at least where vocalists are concerned - hmm, what ever could be the reason why?), but that's not my main point.
What amuses me is the cliche-come-true of guys becoming audiophiles and then confining their listening to audiophile-approved 'nice'-sounding MOR-jazz-pop female vocals, either because such material doesn't do anything to 'offend', or some writer in a mag told them this is what's 'OK' for audiophiles who don't enjoy classical or real jazz, or maybe they simply can't get a date on the weekend (or want to get away from the wife for a while with another woman).
There's obviously nothing wrong with liking female vocals as a musical catagory, but you can tell apart the music-lovers from the audiophiles by the latter's choice of artists - you never hear about say, Cleo Laine or Tammy Grimes or Nina Simone or Anita O'Day or a ton of other historically significant singers from these guys, just the au courant audiophile-du-jour (yes I do not speak French ;^) hotties.
My suspicion about Husk01 is that the fact that he only finds himself liking one or two tracks off these singers' albums ought to be telling him something about where his audio hobby has led him music-wise: probably away to some degree from the music he loved before he got involved in the high end (if indeed he did love or know much about music before). I have zero symapthy for guys who blow a bunch of money on audio and wind up listening to *less*, not more, music than they did before becoming audiophiles, simply because of some propoganda about what's 'pristine' enough for their new ears to tolerate through those precious systems.
People get into high end for more reasons than just a pure love of music: status climbing, peer pressure, technological fetishism, home theater cross-over, reading audio mags. It's anyone's perogative to become an audiophile for any of those reasons, but unfortunately interesting tastes in music tend not to be bred by focusing on too exclusively on sound (and a flawed conception of what constitutes 'good sound', I might add, but that's another debate for another time...). Therefore, unlike with those of us who are long-time music-lovers and collectors (and I hasten to affirm that there are many among our ranks) and became audiophiles simply because we wanted to better hear the stuff we love, a compilation made by one 'under the influence' is likely to be as boring and unoriginal as the one listed above. In its own audiophilic, claustrophobic way, such a comp is just as trendy and limited as any that might be made by your average MTV-raised 13-year old (albeit with less genuine passion).
Husk, you out there man? Time to either 'fess up or shoot me down with some evidence to the contrary...
