Tuesday, April 13, 2004

I was reading an article about William Hung's recording success. It followed a predictable enough path, talking about the bafflement of music insiders as to his unlikely success, until late in the article, the author apparently felt the need to put the phenomenon into its proper historical context. A music insider is quoted as observing "that Hung isn't the first bad singer to sell albums." Hard to argue with that. "A housewife who went by the name Mrs. Miller scored a #15 hit in the mid-1960s with a collection of off-key covers that included the smash 'Downtown.'" This is a matter of opinion, but I don't really think it is fair to describe Mrs. Miller as an off-key warbler. She may not have the kind of voice I like to listen to, but she was mechanically rather proficient. The humor in Mrs. Miller was more the juxtaposition of this matronly housewife singing pop songs in a classical style (and later recording a pathetic attempt at a drug-themed album). But what really got my goat is this: "And Tiny Tim was a smash a few years later, despite having a horrible voice." Tiny Tim, a horrible singer?! You might not care to listen to a falsetto crooner rehashing the hits of yesteryear, but how can you justify this claim? It's bad enough when he's dismissed as a novelty act, a tenuous position to hold, but we're all entitled to our opinions. But to equate Tiny Tim with William Hung? Unforgivable.

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