Another Thought on Stylists and Designers
To carry the original analogy into music, Frank Sinatra is a stylist, while Tom Waits is a designer.
Sinatra was a marvellous stylist. He was able to take virutally any song and make it sound like his. But he never wrote the lyrics, and he never wrote the music. Creatively Sinatra was barren, all he did was put his signature on other people’s work. He didn’t make anything new. But he did make songs sound way cooler then they ever had before.
Waits on the other hand is every bit as cool and distinctive a vocal stylist as Sinatra, soaking each song he touches in sweaty hot bourbon. But Waits also writes the lyrics, the music, and the identites that sit somewhere in front of the songwiter but behind the voice in the song.
Ok, I’ll try to stop harping about this (…for a while).
December 16th, 2006 at 10:31 am
“sweaty hot bourbon” …. niblettes is a genius with the english language, does this make him a stylist or a designer?
December 17th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Ah, Tom Waits, a demi-god of note.
December 19th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Yeah, I’ve always really like Waits. He’s not exactly easy listening–but that’s sort of the point.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:43 am
I get where you’re coming from but i’m not sure the analogy quite works. There is a tradition within certain types of music (Jazz, blues to name 2) of reworking standards. The act of making it your own is a creative process in it’s self. When Frank Sinatra could be bothered the end product of this creative process was incredible and inspired many musicians. Miles Davis was one who studied Sinatra’s phrasing and was greatly influenced by him which in turn fed back into his own work. Many jazz musicians have experimented with other’s work, I really like john Coltrane’s version of “My favourite things” from The sound of music, he’s taken that to another level. I’m not sure where this is going, I guess you can be a stylist and a designer.
March 13th, 2007 at 4:28 am
Review: Frank = Designer Tom Waits= Artist