Yeah, but once again, who's to say they're not expressing emotion? Is there a universal metric for finding out? Could not some person find MP's vocals to be emotional?
Well, if you take out all such factors, then the only thing you could possibly judge singing based on is whether the person hits the right notes. Who cares about whether they convey emotion, energy, tone, range, or heck, even proper technique? As long as they're hitting right notes, that means they're automatically a good singer. Except, I can't think of anyone who'd actually agree with this statement. This calls back to the conversation I had a page or two back about JLB vs. Bruce Dickinson, and the argument was that JLB, for all his range and technique, doesn't convey as much passion as Dickinson. But hey, why don't we just say, "Could not some person find JLB's vocals to be as passionate and emotional as Dickinson's?"
But you know, I'm not gonna have that argument. If we go too far into it, then we'll say we can't judge anything. Maybe some people hear emotion. Maybe other people feel as much energy out of JLB's performance as they do from Dickinson. Maybe some people find that DT12's production is vastly superior to I&W. It's all opinions anyway, so maybe people shouldn't be allowed to critique anything, and every single musician is equal in every way, even at instruments that they can't play, because if it's an expression of their true feelings, then who are we to judge how good it is?
Or, it's just as easily possible that if people are hearing great emotion in MP's singing, it's because they're projecting some of their own emotion into the song, whether it's because of the subject matter or the underlying music, or whatever.
Of course, we can't quantify such things, but if the majority of people will tell me that MP conveys as much emotion as Kurt Cobain, then I'll officially consider myself insane.
And yea, Zook basically referenced exactly what I mean. Except there are other types of bad acting (or in this case, singing) in MP's case, it's not overacting, it's lack of acting. It's more like if she said it with a loud tone of voice, but no expression or substance to her words.