To Be Clear: I’m Not Talking About Shane MacGowan

This is a – sort of – corollary to the thread where it was principally decided that our elder pop heroes might consider calling it a day simply because, in many cases, their voices were shot.
The version of Wuthering Heights from Kate Bush’s The Whole Story came up on my shuffle – the one with the new vocal – and it occurred to me that the industry is missing a trick by not trying to flog us our old favourites with new, improved, vocals.
The fact is that it is geriatrics like us who are the ones actually paying big dollar for music because we get a tingle when a Beatles album we already own gets a makeover. I presume that’s the reason for all the “It’s Al Green’s Greatest Hits, Now With Added Orchestra!” style albums they keep pumping out (“This is the kind of shiz the olds like”).
A feature of the multi-decade careers our idols have now is that, in many cases, they get better at singing* their earlier material as they mature (or take lessons). Leonard Cohen’s performances in his last years were acclaimed. Partly because his older stuff never sounded so good? Nobody really wants The Smiths to reform, but, as he has become more disagreeable down the years, Morrissey has proportionally become a pretty decent singer. Is his flat delivery on those early recordings fundamental to their charm? It’s too late to go back now, but the singing on the early records of Kylie, Madonna and U2, for example, are as different as the early work of Saint Etienne, before they settled on their classic line up.
Yes, I know you can get this effect from going to gigs and many acts have re-recorded their hits following calamitous early-career contracts, which is another thing altogether..
Thoughts..?
(*and playing, of course).

0