Word: divas
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What's wrong with this picture? Nowadays, nothing. But not so long ago, diva moms were as rare as short NBA stars. Though it wasn't impossible to bring up children between performances (Beverly Sills did it), most big-league women singers assumed that having babies would short-circuit their careers, and chose not to. Similarly, opera stars who sang pop music were invariably condemned for pandering to the proles (Ezio Pinza starred in South Pacific, but only after he retired from the Metropolitan Opera). And according to conventional wisdom, niceness was a luxury ambitious sopranos couldn't afford, moving...
...time when singers felt it was an either-or situation," she explains, "but that's not true anymore. Opera companies take my child-care problems seriously. And of course I have something not every singer has, which is an extremely supportive husband." But, then, this thoroughly modern diva does everything her way, from wrapping up her recitals with a group of songs by Duke Ellington to scrupulously avoiding the knife-in-the-back behavior that has given so many top singers a bad name. "I just don't have the energy it takes to get upset and miserable and nasty...
...much the same way. On 32 Flavors, she covers a song by punk-folk singer Ani DiFranco, lending it an upbeat, pop-oriented grace. On the title track, Davis coasts into a relaxed jazz-jam mode. And then on Turtle, her voice arches above the chorus, R.-and-B. diva-like, aching with emotion. Davis will no doubt draw comparisons to acts from various genres--you can hear Joni Mitchell, Tracy Chapman and even Stevie Wonder churning inside her songs. But like most true talents, she eludes direct matches. The gentle waves of her music beat against the shore, recede...
...ahead seem populated with clones and robots and aliens, as well as the erosion or perversion of the things that connect people with other people, like families and friendships and religion. Perhaps the best thing about the music of the British trip-hop group Portishead, and the Icelandic pop diva Bjork, is that it sounds futuristic but never inhuman. Portishead's new album, Portishead, and Bjork's latest CD, Homogenic, echo with sounds that could belong to the next millennium. But both are also suffused with a soulfulness that is timeless...
...dance diva Janet Jackson, like a really successful software program, has been steadily issuing updated versions of herself over the years. Janet 1.0 was tentative, but Janet 2.0 asserted her identity on Control (1986). On Rhythm Nation 1814 (1989) Janet 3.0 began to address social issues (her solutions: dancing and uniforms). Finally, on janet., her 1993 CD, Janet 4.0 adopted a bohemian, just-kicking-it-at-a-Brooklyn-house-party cool, posing on the back cover with jeans unzipped and midriff bare, her body ready for anything...