<p>violadad - I agree wholeheartedly with you. I hate it when musicians are accused of “selling out”. What exactly is that? If it is music and people enjoy hearing it and the musician enjoys performing it, where’s the problem? </p>
<p>Being classically trained, I never really thought that my son would want to pursue a career in the rock world, but he is happier than I have seen him in a long time. He loves all the different projects, the artistic imput that he has, the energy, the creativity and the control that he has a musician. The lack of artistic input or control is essentially why he hates playing in orchestra for the most part. </p>
<p>Much of modern classical music often seems to be an academic excercise rather than something that is written to communicate something. Certainly not all of it is like that, but quite a bit. Son got piece of music once from a composer that he couldn’t even read. There were so many different notations in it that he couldn’t understand. Essentially, the piece was a collection of many different sounds to try and make with the cello. An interesting idea, perhaps, but it had no musical theme or consistency. On the other hand, I find a lot of pop music to be insipid and boring and a lot of pop singers to be poor musicians. There are some excellent ones out there also. </p>
<p>And finally, for my money, you can add Billy Joel to the musical pop genius list. I love his stuff.</p>
<p>stringfollies - the key part of your post on Aretha and opera is “could have been.” I’ll never forget her butchering Nessun Dorma at the Grammies. That rarely fails bringing tears to my eyes, but I had tears for a different reason that time. She still needs to stick with what she does like no other.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t bother looking it up but it is on YouTube. She filled in for - drumroll - Pavarotti. Maybe filling in for a tenor was not the way to go. My understanding is that Renee Fleming was in the audience. If a woman is going to fill in for a tenor - maybe a world famous soprano should have been considered or maybe - another tenor?</p>
<p>The soundtrack made the hairs on my arm stand on end(in a good way). There are some wonderful “crossover” artists working in film today.
Director Paul Thomas Anderson really knows his music and involves himself heavily in the scoring process. Another great success was his movie Magnolia with the Jon Brion soundtrack.</p>
<p>“The best musicians technically – they make the least. A great jazz musician doesn’t really ever sell huge amounts of copies. People want something they can understand, something they can break down in their head and understand the rhythms. There’s more money in those little songs.” </p>
<p>Scott Storch - Hip Hop and Pop music mega producer</p>
<p>I’ve always been a fan of musicians who refuse to be classified and consider their career a journey, not a destination. Examples:</p>
<p>Linda Ronstadt could have coasted along as a torchy pop singer, but was too much of an artist for that. She’s moved successfully between that genre, Gilbert & Sullivan, Tex-Mex, and big band music. It probably cost her some record sales, but she’s made a good living doing things her way and is there a better way to go through life?</p>
<p>Johnny Cash could easily have allowed himself to become one of the many Grand Old Men of country music. Instead he refused to stick to the label placed on him. He recorded Dylan songs when it wasn’t acceptable behavior among the country music crowd and capped off his career by recording a Nine Inch Nails song (and if you haven’t seen the video his version of ‘Hurt’ or worse yet, never heard it, stop reading right now and go to [YouTube</a> - Johnny Cash Hurt](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmVAWKfJ4Go). You’ll thank me.).</p>
<p>While you’re on Youtube, also check out some of the Pavarotti collaborations on there. They have him performing with the likes of Bono, Joe Cocker, and (my favorite twisted duet paring of all time) James Brown.</p>