I've been listening to CDs from my vast collection while I work my day job and I put on Sarah McLachlan's Fumbling Towards Ecstasy earlier today. I used to play this CD all the time. Sarah's songs are often sad, but she has such a beautiful voice that I can overlook the sadness. One of my favorite songs on the CD is "Elsewhere." Sarah's voice is so powerful when she sings, "I believe this is heaven to no one else but me." Hearbreaking and so beautiful. I remember someone I used to work with said attending a Sarah McLachlan concert was great and low-key because her music lulled everyone to sleep. I wasn't sure if she meant that as a compliment or an insult to the singer. Maybe both. Whatever. Sarah's great and she's a singer who can really sing, unlike a lot of artists out today who put on a good show, but can't really carry a tune. Speaking of not great singers, I recently saw a clip of a highly popular artist (whose name will not be mentioned here) doing a song with the great Stevie Nicks. This "artist" sounded so bad whenever she opened her mouth to "sing" and even Stevie looked like she wanted to run from the stage to get away from this woman's warbling. Terrible. Stevie deserves to share the stage with artists who can bring it as hard as she does, not some pop star who sounds awful live and is probably auto-tuned to death in the studio and in concert.
Another really good singer is Kelly Clarkson. I watched a clip of her singing Whitney Houston's song "I'm Your Baby Tonight" on her show and she was really great. I'm not even a fan of that particular song (because they played it too much when it was out), but I enjoyed Kelly's version of it. You can see it on YouTube (because that's where I watched it). Kelly Clarkson is the best performer to come out of the American Idol show. She's very talented and she's another singer who can really sing.
In other music news, I was surprised and saddened to hear that R&B singer D'Angelo died from cancer at age 51. He was so talented and really made some great songs. His song "Lady" is a particular favorite of mine. Why do we always lose the good ones? He's another singer who could really sing. He had a lot of personal struggles in his life, but he made some excellent music while he was around. RIP, D'Angelo.