I'm not really his biggest hugest fan either, admittedly... he's alright, but when your first dose of him as a kid was his eighties persona, it's hard for the image to recover in your mind...

I'm in the mood for a rant :p:


Just thought it'd be worth bumping this old nugget of a thread again to flag up a couple of other folks who I reckon fit the old icon tag quite nicely. Like my last post here, it concerns a couple more artists who's most famous work took place well behind the scenes of the music industry - two more names who've been fairly influential, ridiculously prolific and very successful who've never really hogged the limelight from the artists they've worked with from their beginnings as a partnership some 50-odd years ago.

They are, in case you hadn't already noticed, the old Burt Bacharach/Hal David songwriting team. Having started work in the days well before the long-play album became the be-all and end-all of the industry, Bacharach and David would write songs to be handed to singers who were after that hit to call their own. Based on Bacharach's typically complex melodies and David's lyrics, this would often be the case, starting with the team's writing about 40 hit singles for their regular client Dionne Warwick. Throughout the 60s and early 70s the Bacharach/David team would compose songs which would be covered by quite a diverse bunch of artists, ranging from Isaac Hayes, the Beatles and Dusty Springfield to the Stranglers, Luther Vandross and even the Manic Street Preachers, not to mention scores of others.

I consider them icons myself if only for the reason that I've inadvertently heard so many of their songs in some way or another. What the World Needs Now Is Love, Close To You, the Look Of Love, Anyone Who Had a Heart, Make It Easy On Yourself, the Last Town I Painted, This Guy's In Love With You - all songs I've heard covered by so many artists in some way, shape or form, and those are only the ones I can think of off the top of my head (along with the videos blow of course). Definitely among the most prolific, successful and influential songwriting partnerships in the history of the industry, and a couple of guys whose work I've found myself listening to a little lately, so I thought it was worth typing all this up. Maybe a bit old-hat for some of our tastes, but they're in my cool-books anyway.

A few renditions of their songs for you...

Burt Bacharach is most definitely an Icon... you can totally identify him with certain sounds and moods.... hence his obvious inclusion in the Austin Powers movies... not to mention his buttery smooth presentation... you'd have to be the biggest hardcore music Nazi to not appreciate his musical prowess and his body of recorded work...