Do you remember a time when white boys can sing?

MadSquabbles500

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Do you remember a time when white boys can sing?



Currently none can. Ed Sheeran, and Sam Mendez just dont have that crooning voice. They sound like two losers begging for dates.

Well who else you got?
 
As far as modern crooners, Kurt Elling delivers

 
Not a modern one, but I always liked this video:



I will say, I can't remember hearing much music lately with the singing in a lower register. Seems to be a lot of nasally or slightly whiny ones, or maybe some mid-range, but no-one like say, Jim Morrison or, going further back, Frank Sinatra.

Oh where have you gone, baritones and basses?

Edit: That being said, this Kurt Elling dude @Gorack posted sounds pretty damn good.
 
In today's pop music, vocals are generelly weak no matter the skin color.
Many white boys who can sing play rock music.


 
The best vocalists (both male and female) in the business are white.
 
I still feel they are not quite on the level of the singer I posted. The lyrical content and the way they sync with music is also less mature.

No they don't sound the same, and of course the Righteous Brothers are some of the finest vocalists of all time so they may not be on quite the same level, but they were simply to demonstrate that 'white boys' can very much still sing. I don't know if you grew up in the early 50s/60s, which would explain that you have a certain nostalgia, but for me looking back historically (and I love all kinds of music, including the Righteous Brothers and 'crooners') you can clearly see a shift in music developing from the mid 60s onward. 'Crooning' quite obviously goes out of fashion. Those guys (like the Righteous Brothers) didn't even write their own songs, they were supreme vocalists but they generally either did covers or had songs written for them.
Of course this man, who was a compete genius but certainly didn't have excellent vocals (though not as bad as some make out) had a lot to do with the shift towards singer-songwriters who wrote and sang their own stuff:

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But there are loads of examples. Point I'm making is music changes, and comparing modern music to stuff like the Righteous Brothers is just bizarre when music didn't even sound like that even a decade later. Paul Simon, Tim Hardin, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Graham Nash, Nick Drake, Tim Buckley, Fred Neil etc. ad infinitum don't sound like the Righteous Brothers either, or have that crooning voice, but they are still 'white boys' with great voices. Note, I'm not saying that's the only kind of music that was popular, just making a general point. Hell, to use another 'blue-eyed soul' example, Joe Cocker sounds nothing like old school crooners, is he a bad singer?

And I really don't like Ed Sheeran either, don't even know who Sam Mendez is but there are plenty of good singers. Unless you are looking for some cheap Michael Buble type stuff, it's not likely to be much like the Righteous Brothers...Doesn't mean the singers aren't good.

How about Paolo Nutini?


(time stamped to the best bit)


Or, for a guy that is just straight-up 60s soul you have someone like Paul Janeway from St Paul and the Broken Bones:


 
As for your point about lyrics, it also sounds bizarre to me. Unchained Melody has wonderful lyrics (not written by them of course), but for example Robin Pecknold who I already posted (from Fleet Foxes) writes some of the best lyrics of any generation. The second Pecknold song I posted is a cover from Gene Clark's album No Other. Of course it is subjective though. But by any metric he is a good singer.


If to borrow is to take and not return
I have borrowed all my lonesome life
And I can't, no I can't get through
The borrower's debt is the only regret of my youth
And believe me it's not easy when I look back
Everything I took I'd soon return
Just to be at Innisfree again
All of the sirens are driving me over the stern


I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see....

And some more Father John Misty for good measure (he was the drummer in Fleet Foxes for a while):


 
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The best vocalists (both male and female) in the business are white.
I don't know man... Smokey Robinson and Marvin Gaye are two of the GOATs.
 
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