Buble vs Bing (Crosby)

Blake Shelton has a voice I could listen to anytime; it’s just tugs at me.  Even when I don’t particularly care for the lyrics he’s singing, and especially when he’s joking around, his voice just seems to caress the ears.

Rod Stewart, well for my generation, do you really think I can flip a TV channel past him?  Not hardly.

Michael Buble has is good vocalist with better than average stage presence, but I could nap through most of his broadcasts.   Talented, but nothing special for me.

So tonight, despite my almost life-long aversion to television Christmas Specials, as I sat down to decompress from work not much was on to compete with NBC’s nightly Xmas Krap and I just happened to power up the TV in the midst of a duet between Stewart and Buble.  So, I decided to force the reflexes into quiet down and try to enjoy this.

The duet was ok, even with Stewart coming across as the clearly more seasoned artist.  He was clearly holding back to give his host some of the limelight and it came across as very nice.  “Nice” not being a term I recall ever using in the same sentence with “Rod Stewart” before, but this was.   And the anticipation of Shelton performing actually had me looking forward to more.

The next segment was a technical delight, but completely unacceptable.  While the green screen production of a very realistic, comical banter between Buble and Bing Crosby, one step too far ruined all appreciation for the segment.   After the well edited skit, Mr. Buble proceeded to perform a duet with the recorded performance of Mr. Crosby’s classic “White Christmas”.   However, this was a bad idea both because even those of us with a severely limited appreciation for Christmas carols tend to hold that particular classic as inviolate.  Strike One!  Perhaps even worse is that as Buble’s voice began to overwhelm the recording of Crosby, it was clear that he has neither the vocal range nor the style of his predecessor.  In fact, his voice pales by comparison; even more so when the comparison is direct and simultaneous. Strike Two!

And this not being baseball, but rather a product of blatant mass marketing and hype of a holiday, there is no third try, Mr. Buble.  Simply, good luck with your career.  Luckily voice overs and background “muzak” pay much better these days than back in Bing’s day.