Often, equipment can as easily function as a security blanket for musicians unwilling or unable to risk anything personal in the studio. Whether one catches the feeling on a record is a subjective matter. How can you be sure? The machinery can hold out the promise of at least mechanical perfection.

It didn't matter that Charlie Chaplin may not have been a great director or a great anything else. He made great movies.

Soul was the music made by and for black people. For most of the Sixties it was thoroughly divorced from white popular music, but by the end of the decade several artists with their roots firmly in both soul and R&B traditions had crossed over.

In the end, the sign of Aretha Franklin's artistry is that she always leaves her mark - first, on the music, then on us.

Elton John can be a master of the sleight of hand. The arrangements make it seem like there are substantial melodies underneath the tracks - but almost nothing demands repeated listenings. Similarly, he always sounds like he's singing up a storm, but his voice glosses over the material, reducing most things to an uninteresting sameness.

Part of me believes that the completed record is the final measure of a pop musician's accomplishment, just as the completed film is the final measure of a film artist's accomplishments.

Since her landmark 'Tapestry,' Carole King has both oversimplified and over elaborated that masterful album's style until her music has become something more overtly but less effectively personal.