Crockett wrote: ↑08 Jun 2018, 17:50#Infinity wrote: ↑08 Jun 2018, 03:59Norma consistently has limp, nasal, off-tune vocals. Time and time again, they kill all of the aishu tracks she performs that should have been handed to somebody with more control over her voice. Even before it was revealed Norma Sheffield wasn't actually Francesca Contini, I was simply never a fan of her.
The problem with her is simply the endless discography, that's one of the longest projects. Next parts of good movies, good video games, bring on the originals bad renown when a classic begins to compare with worse continuation. But it concerns significantly to the music industry.
According to the japanese reviews Norma Sheffield has been nominated as the queen of aishu Eurobeat in the first half of 90's and this was her golden age. What for they made next dozens of songs especially in 2000's ? Ask Dave Rodgers.
Anyway are "Broken Heart", "Sweet Heaven", "Memories" really unacceptable and poorly performed ? I guess there aren't many fans in Japan who would deny that these tracks were big hits back in 1993/1994.
I don't care which artists are most popular and during which era. For what it's worth, I'm really not a fan of a good chunk of A-Beat C's early '90s material in general, regardless of the singer, but Norma's success back then was really more due to lack of competition than anything else. The Italo era was long over, but other labels hadn't yet established themselves, nor had the eurobeat genre itself even evolved into something completely distinct from the past. There's a reason Norma's music has aged so poorly.
However much you try to call Sheffield's early work "big hits", they're still dull schlock to me because Chiara's half-assed vocal delivery spoils whatever earnest, somber tone they're trying to set. Maybe her vocal style just translated well to Japanese audiences, I don't know, but I'm sure not going to pretend I enjoy her because she was important in establishing aishu eurobeat as a mainstay.
In my opinion, if you want the '90s aishu style done right, look no further than Christine's early songs. She may not have gotten nearly the amount of attention back then as she clearly deserved, but not only was her voice honest-to-goodness on-tune and sincerely invested in what it was speaking about, the songs themselves were excellently written, both in terms of melodies and lyrics. "Story of My Life" is my favourite eurobeat song of all time thanks to its impeccably emotional writing and musical development, on top of Cristina Tosi being the absolute perfect fit for the song. "Because the Night" is also in my top 10, as though it's more simplistic than "Story", it's still absolutely masterful in its choice of notes, progressions, instrument riffs, and brilliant lyrical details like "sitting by the light on my tv" and "I wonder why you're not here to hold me", which put me directly in Christine's shoes and feel the heartbreak she's going through in a way Norma never could in any of her songs.
In my opinion we shouldn't be that much critical, because our single personal taste doesn't create and can't demolish once established position of the artist.
Norma may have technically been one of the primary architects of aishu eurobeat songs like "Story of My Life", but her early work is really nothing but an unfinished blueprint of something that artists like Christine and Melissa White would realize a million times more clearly.
It's a little boring already to explain how certain songs and artists became so special without discovering their real names.
Recently I read a comment on FB how Dave Rodgers decided to be a copycat of Mega NRG Man instead of keep his vocal in the best, his natural range from 80's and early 90's. This opinion doesn't change a lot, right ?
That's not nearly the same thing as deceiving people into thinking one singer is somebody completely different. Just because Giancarlo was more influenced by Tomas as eurobeat started to speed up does not mean he wasn't still assertive about his public identity as well.