two astute judgements herei just assume people of a certain age didnt know any better.
think the appeal of mick is sort of being in on the joke, you know hes a bit shit, he knows hes a bit shit, but everyones laughing at him trying to go against the absence of god given gifts anyway, that kind of relationship between audience and performer you get on charity talent shows.
theres several rappers turned singers who are pretty ropey. cee lo, q-tip, dre3000, etc.White Men Can't Sing
i dont think they deliberately sang badly. i hate robert plant too. but i think many people did and still do think he sung well with power. to me, he was trying to often be a belter, but didnt have the power to pull it off like idk, van morrison or jeff buckley etc (he was prob trying to be a soul shouter type singer like wilson pickett or solomon burke etc). hes better when hes not trying to wallop the song. but theres a diff between not being that vocally able and understanding it and singing to your strengths and singing badly like jagger who sings brazenly badly. rock n roll just prized songwriting over the vocal attributes. these rappers-turned-singers are kind of the same. rnb is/was a vocal-showcasing form.That does make me think there's an interesting link perhaps between the way white rock singers sort-of-deliberately sang badly back in the 60s/70s and how you get a lot of rappers now singing unapologetically badly via autotune – there's definitely a link between rock n roll and that new style of rap, as we've discussed elsewhere. It's a sort of punk rock thing of not giving a fuck that you can't hit notes like Usher.