Sybil taunted: > You have homebound soccer moms in your office? Just > what kind of business is > it anyway?
They're only let out of the house to go to work and wheel the SUV to soccer practice. Nothing else. ;-) Seriously, I mention the demo/psychographic info not to rag on them, but just because they're not exactly who you'd *expect* to go for Alicia, but they love her. I'm fascinated by the obvious question: why? > And besides all that, I found her performance on the > Tribute to America > program to be quite inspired and moving. So there! Her rendition of the Donny Hathaway song was pretty good, and that is one of the things specifically mentioned by my officemates. In fact, there were a lot of surprisingly good performances on that show. It's the first time I've *ever* liked Faith Hill. Bob's question and mine is not so much why is Alicia as popular as the Belly Button Brigade, but why is she so much more successful than the Erykahs or Jill Scotts who ply similar trades with much more depth and unique charisma. To be fair, though, when Erykah broke I was surprised at how popular she *did* become. And Lauryn Hill is the obvious precursor to Alicia in the current generation of R&B/hip-hop crossover artists even your grandma loves--and she deserves every bit of it. As for playing an instrument--yeah, yeah, yeah, Alicia plays piano, classically trained, samples Chopin, blah blah blah. I think that's a pale explanation, though--her piano playing is just like her singing to my ears: as good as any talented and well-trained teenager but not really superstar quality. Tori, Fiona, Aretha, Nina, even Elton--those are singers who can PLAY, but Alicia seems just good enough. Maybe it's because she's so derivative. If "Fallin'" didn't sound so much like "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" she might be nowhere. Who knows? --Michael NP: Depeche Mode, "I Feel High" ===== ____________________________________________________ "I'm just a little bit heiress, a little bit Irish, A little bit Tower of Pisa whenever I see ya, So please be kind if I'm a mess." --Rufus Wainwright, "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com
