GRE Issue: The real talent of a popular musician cannot accurately be assessed until the musician has been dead for several generations, so that his or her fame does not interfere with honest assessment.

The issue in the paragraph pertains to the assessment of the talent of a popular musician during his lifetime would not be appropriate as the popularity of the musician interferes with the judgement, where as when the musician has been dead for a few generations and their fame subsides then we can look at his work from a unbiased perspective thereby resulting in an honest assessment of the work by the musician.

Although this issue is contentious, I believe that the talent of a musician can be judged during his lifetime. The reasons being, I believe that in today's scenario the popularity of a musician is no indicator of the talent of the singer. The popularity could be dependent on how entertaining the singer is. Also the talent of a singer can be measured by their live performances on stage. With the ever increasing usage of technology in music, the songs have been computerized to make them sound flawless.

As mentioned above, the popularity of a musician in this day and age cannot be an appropriate measure of his/her talent. There are a number of factors when it comes to popularity. Some of the factors are the ability to enthrall and entertain the listeners and catchy lyrics matter too. Where as it can also be noted that some of the most talented singers may or may not turn out to be popular.

Secondly, the increased usage of technology in the music industry has made it difficult to decipher the talent of the singer as the song that is sung in the studio is computerized using technologies like autotune beyond recognition. The true ability of the singer can be judged when they perform live on stage as it will help us understand whether the singer can replicate the flawlessly sung song in the studio on stage.

Thus by the above points, I believe that the real talent of a musician can be judged during his/her lifetime.