No offense...but what's the point of singing-manipulation of your vocal chords to create a musical effect-if it's not in tune? It kind of defeats the purpose of singing, in my opinion.

I understand what you're getting at, I've enjoyed singers who focus on other things besides being perfectly in tune. Some singers have very gruff voices, but other qualities that catch my ear. Or sometimes the gruffness itself catches my ear, a good example of singing I enjoy that most everyone I know hates: Gerard Butler in Phantom of the Opera. I can't really explain what it was that I enjoyed about his singing performance, I guess the struggle to get over the gruffness was what I liked. There was something distorted and almost haunting about his tone, which is something else that intrigues my ear.

The thing though, is that even though his voice is not majestic and pure aka I guess what we know as "in tune," it was still technically in tune. Gerard Butler can use his voice to manipulate and reproduce musical sounds. There are actual people out there who just can't do this and it has nothing to do with the fact that they were trained incorrectly. Sometimes people just can't sing.