NotoriousPKP

When idiots are so dumb they can’t even comprehend their own stupidity.

At the request of one of the original posters, I’ve deleted my post about Lee’s singing. I’ll repost later in an edited version because it’s become apparent that quite a few Holby City viewers were completely unaware that these are actors playing roles and the brief bit of song he did in the wedding ep was sung in character.

It reminds me of the old saying that it’s better to be quiet and be assumed a fool than to speak your mind and remove all doubt of your foolishness. Unfortunately, people love their “hot takes”, don’t they? They are so desperate to be heard, by anybody. A platform is important, vital even, to their self-esteem.

You know what’s also really good for your self-esteem? Thinking about something until you have something interesting to say. Or to discuss if you’re not that sure of what to say.

Writing is also really important. I don’t mean writing the odd “hot take” or live blogging. Writing and rewriting is a cornerstone of one kind of thinking. You write something. Then you edit and question everything you’ve written. Is this true? Is this debatable? Are my points valid? And so on. This is how you build a critical mind.

@mysticgirl84

Wanted to reply to your reply about Lee singing as a cover artist versus singing his own original songs. I know you meant well, but . . . .

I know it’s prevalent among some demographics to consider that only singer/song writers are proper musical “artists”. I’m sorry but I think this is a very ill-informed opinion.

I’ve worked on the periphery of the music industry for many years and there is a shit ton of stuff that most people don’t know about how music is created for the chart or top 100 type of “artists” (and yes, the quotes are meant to be sarcastic). If you’re actually interested in that sort of thing, ask and I’ll bring the receipts, but suffice it to say that the people who are credited for a song are not always the actual song writer and in some cases have contributed nothing to the composition or lyrics.

And even if you believe that so-and-so did write some of the lyrics (or composition) to their bestselling songs, you’d have a mighty hard time convincing me that those lyrics are anything special, let alone “good”. 

Yes, there are still good songwriters who sing their own songs but they are few and far between. And most of the best songwriters are the worst singers. That has been true for a very long time (see Bob Dylan, and long before him, Tin Pan Alley, etc.). These are different skill sets.

Interpreting songs is also a different skill set.  I don’t listen to contemporary chart music, although it’s often inflicted on me because it’s an unavoidable aspect of pop culture.  Mostly I listen to jazz and jazz singers. The repertoire is generally 80-100% standards. Artists who’ve cut their teeth on standards know that you cannot throw any word salad down and make it a good song. Good song writing is beyond most people, even those with decades of musical training.

Puhleeze. How does creating a song based on your personal heartfelt feelings, opinions or experience make it a better song? 99.99% of the time, it doesn’t. One simplistic simile, metaphor or catchphrase repeated ad nauseum doth not make a good song. It might make a catchy song that will sell in the millions, but it does not make it good. If your idea of a brilliant song is that it charted and sold millions of singles, albums, downloads, then, congratulations -- you are the willing victim of the music industry’s branding and marketing machinery.

This is not my opinion -- just do some research on the history of the recording industry. (In short, many decades ago, a massive focus/marketing survey was commissioned by the recording industry and it basically told them that the #1 predictor for what would sell was brand recognition. In other words, all the same things that the advertising industry is built on. Or “if you build the brand, people will buy into it” because they are sheep. Or they are until a certain age (demographic) when they become more fixed in their opinions, not as malleable, and more likely to recognize new crap as crap.).

This is all to say, don’t apologize for loving an artist who sings standards (jazz, musical theatre, etc.). They are standards for a reason and singing standards is much harder than singing original songs. Ten gazillion others have sung this song before you, how do you make it your own and memorable? Fucking hell, it’s not that easy to sing a song full stop. 

When you can inhabit a song, make people forget the other versions they’re familiar with, make them feel emotions they didn’t realize were possible with that song, then that is a tremendous talent. And Mr. Mead has that talent, IMO. 

I’ve lost track of how many times he’s made me change my mind about a song. Songs that I’d grown heartily sick of, songs that seemed simplistic and uninteresting or merely okay-ish, until his interpretation made them memorable and told a story that I could relate to, etc. For me, he is a musical Scheherazade. 

Okay, I’ll be honest too (wish I could reblog the earlier Anonymous post and replies) . . . but I’ll try to be a bit more diplomatic since I know some of you are younger and happy to be all judgy based on the slightest of evidence without doing a smidgen bit more of research. (Forgive me if I then judge YOU based on the slightest bit of evidence).

If you’re referring to his singing on the recent Holby City ep where he sang a bit of “Only You”, I think you’d have to be remarkably naive to think that a WE star for the last 10+ years cannot sing and has a mediocre voice. This is almost hilarious. So, let’s shoot some fish in a barrel, shall we?

He’s an actor. He’s singing in character as Lofty, duh.  Lofty is not a singer, there’s no reason for him to sound like a professional singer, is there? Also, there’s context and subtext in spades which shouldn’t be ignored, but that’s another discussion. He’s not been allowed to sing as himself because the BBC has explicit rules about not allowing performers to promote themselves in outside projects or other professional capacities (Lee’s music & stage work, the other actors who do stage & film work regularly, like Hugh, Jemma, Guy, etc.).

BTW, you can hear a snippet of that song done in Lee’s “real” voice in a show that he did with his friend Stephen Rahman-Hughes in a small cabaret/jazz club setting earlier this year, here (it’s the second song):

https://youtu.be/0nszjB7Or8A

Granted, his voice might not be to your taste. You might not enjoy it, everyone has their own taste, but the guy has a vocal range that very few can match, for any genre of singing (not just WE/musicals).

Gary Barlow gave him a pop song “When I Need You The Most” for his debut album.

"I wrote this song with Wayne Hector and Jorgen Elofsson in 2003 at Delamere studios. Since then I've been searching for an artist to do it justice. Every Saturday night my kids would tune in to watch Joseph. As you all know Lee won and when I heard he was making an album I sent this song to him. He loved it and a few weeks later I heard the finished record. - Super!"  (Source: www.garybarlow.com)

If you hear the song, you’ll understand why Barlow wouldn’t let just anybody sing this song. The vocal range needed would be a challenge for most pop singers. Yes, there are a lot of pop singers who can’t sing for shit and are superstars anyway because their voices are manufactured in the studio. With proper singers, it’s often the opposite. His studio albums don’t even do justice to his live singing voice. From his debut album, All That You Know is probably better to show his range.

Or one of the songs he did for the indie movie Three and Out soundtrack, Somebody Help Me (the Spencer Davis Group rock number) or You’ve Got a Friend (the James Taylor classic). You might find them on Spotify. The latter is the backing track for this fanvid. It was done with a gospel choir and his range & power are pretty evident here (even though he didn’t do the falsetto parts):

https://youtu.be/cVDI7VhkPiM

But that was over 10 years ago -- surely he can’t sing as well now? Actually, his tessitura has an even wider range now. His falsetto is insane. When he did an impromptu version of Bring Him Home with Blake on Gaby Roslin’s BBC radio programme a few years ago, they gave him the big falsetto finish. He sings it solo, of course, and it’s been on his set lists for a few years.

He covered “From Now On” on the Jane McDonald & Friends show earlier this year. It’s not on YT, but one of his fansites might still have it. He smashed it. One of Jane’s backing musicians even mentioned it in on Insta and if you know musicians, you know they are notoriously stingy with their praise for singers. Now, I love me some Hugh Jackman, but HJ doesn’t have a trained singing voice and you can hear the strain when he sings. With Lee, there’s no strain -- from a whisper to belting, he makes it seem effortless.

He doesn’t grandstand like a lot of WE singers either, because that tends to take you out of the storytelling arc of the song, flatten the expressiveness (light and shade) emotionally, and makes the song about you instead of the song itself.  So, if you prefer power ballads where somebody’s shouting the entire song, then he’s not your guy. Just because you can blow the roof off doesn’t mean you should do it for the whole frickin’ song.  Listen to this, even though it’s not the whole song, it’s from the Glamis Proms 2017, singing Maria from West Side Story:

https://youtu.be/C89Y5ehJ5a8