birth of the flattened cool: the origins of the indie voice?

I mean, there were precursors in the '80s--Thurston Moore comes to mind--but really, aren't we just talking about singers who don't have traditionally good sounding voices? I think the really significant precedent for them singing ANYWAY dates back to punk and then continues through post-punk, '80s college radio rock, and indie-rock.

Right, not traditionally good-sounding, but in a sort of specific way. There's all kinds of not-traditionally-good singing.

What connects a lot of this stuff, to my ears, is an assumed worldliness on the part of both the singer and the listener -- almost like, I'm not going to hit that note, because a.) I probably can't and b.) even if I could, it would be too obvious. Like there's something artificial -- or some artifice, anyway -- about hitting the notes?

Which I guess is the difference between Daniel Johnston -- who registers to me as Naive -- and Stuart Murdoch, who doesn't.

And I think Mo Tucker's vocal on "After Hours" is the direct precursor to about 50 percent of punk/postpunk/indie female singing. But I can't think of any exact precedent for it. Not in the sense that everyone listened to that song and said, "That's what I want to sound like," but in the sense that it introduced a vocal approach that made sense in its context and couldn't have made sense before that context existed.

Do Jesus & Mary Chain count (because I think they did sound like they were imitating Reed to a degree)? Or are they more post-punk than indie? (I am always a little fuzzy on where indie begins and ends.)

Yo La Tengo sounds to me, from what I've heard, like they are going for a VU sound at times, but I wouldn't necessarily the vocals there sound too much like Reed, so I don't know.

x-post (sexyDancer's joke lost on me--who's the woman?)

I don't think Ira Kaplan sang in a Lou Reed style. I could say that maybe Georgia Hubley sang in a Mo Tucker style, but having already said that about Heather from Beat Happening, I'm wondering if it's even true.

BTW what do you think of the vocals on things like Royksopp's "Remind Me" or Bill Frisell's "Perritos"? It seems to combine the 'detachment'/'lack of affect' thing with a more traditional notion of vocal 'chops'. It's maybe a more direct descendent of Astrud Gilberto. I find these very appealing, much more so than most indie rock vocals.

Well, which indie-rock people do you think tried to sing in a Lou Reed style?

Julian Casablancas? Him from Yo La Tengo? Maybe even Thurston Moore a bit (I can hear it in "European Son").

(about 7 x-posts. Mary Chain - good call)

I agree. I was turning against my own claim (though it got a little garbled).

"the "indie" voice? You know the voice I mean. It can be male or female, and it can front music noisy or lissome, but it has a kind of flattened self-awareness -- which sometimes signals irony, sometimes melancholy, sometimes even happiness but happiness of a knowing this-too-shall-pass variety"

referred to the prototypes sundar lists:

"Kraftwerk? Syd Barrett/David Gilmour? Closer/New Order/Pet Shop Boys? The Wire singer who's not Colin Newman? Hip-hop?"

if the "self-awareness" is essentially wrongheaded then i think it can still be characterized as naive, i think.

Are you saying that Lou Reed was doing a "McGuinn vocal readymade???"

As for hip-hop, I think Q-tip fits the mold in some ways. Maybe Mos Def too. Including Jay-Z would be pushing it, but he's probably the "coolest" of the superstars. (Nothing cool about crunk, e.g.)

But obviously, I'm just making up shit as I go.

(x-post) haha, yeah, maybe faux self-awareness is a form of naivete. I don't know.

that's a good point. east coast vs. west coast?

I gotta check out the pronunciation of "ship." Are you referring to a line in "Mr Tambourine Man" and the great big clipper ship line in "Heroin?"

Pete Lush of Things In Herds has this voice. I think he sounds even more like Nick; he maintains more of the huskiness.

Audio sample

Not exactly comic, no -- but there is a kind of implied absurdity, it's part of the whole self-conscious thing. Like, I'm aware I'm singing a song, and you the listener are aware that I'm aware I'm singing a song, and the song might be a beautiful thing that we can both appreciate, and maybe even connect with each other at some level by way of, but at the same time it's just a song that I'm singing, and it will be over soon, and such is life, etc. etc. Which might be a lot to read into Astrud Gilberto, e.g., but that's kind of what it sounds like to me.

and it doesn't even have to be "ship" it could be "grip" as well.

and you should get michael franks's debut if you want to here stuart murdoch in 1970.

As I argued upthread, I don't hear it. The only specific examples anyone came up with was someone like Julian Casablancas.

(xpost) As for Lou, what about Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine and Jonathan Richman? And Patti Smith, for that matter? I don't think any of them exactly sounds like Lou Reed, but they all have stylistic things in common with him that they don't have in common with, say, Ben E. King or Roger Daltrey.

Lou's always been prickly on Dylan, from what I've read. I think he thinks of himself more as a contemporary and peer than a descendant. I remember one interview where he made some backhanded compliment about how Dylan sometimes writes lines that just knock him out. (Paul Simon is always similarly admiring of but undeferential to Dylan. I guess it's hard to be a singer-songwriter of Dylan's generation.)

I think a lot of the personas have to do with the self-consciousness that comes with being a teenager/young adult and specifically in post-1950s America. Institutions like the family and the church and business were no longer places where collegiate intellectuals were going or wanted to go and so new personas were naturally going to be made by these kids.

Reed seems like more of a descendent of the Beats and their culture but Simon is interesting as he was one of the first people from that generation's pop music to popularize the now common way of hiding your genuine feelings (MASSIVE irony and sarcasm). But when Simon didn't use irony to hide any feelings he would be almost proto-emo ('I Am A Rock' for goodness sake).

Indie "heroes" like Dean Wareham are always tagged as Reed-followers but I think we see just as much of Simon's legacy in their work as we do a VU influence.

I mean, obviously he could belt it when he wanted to, and maybe for people who know him only by the somewhat grandiose "New York, New York", it might seem strange to think of him as understated, but that was, I think, the essence of his genius: that tough street-smart Hoboken wise-guy voice, always holding something back, the master of the off-the-cuff gesture, cosmopolitan and urbane - he could make any wide-eyed and innocent '50s love-song sound complex, grown-up and sexual - always in control, ironic, self-aware - in a word, cool.

"got hips like cinderella...

...

must be having a good shame

...

talking sweet about nothing

...

cookie, i think you're

...

TAME!!!"

Could I see that in German theater? Why not?

i'm glad there's already a thread about this. i just tried listening to a new 'indie'-pop thing with vocals for the first time in maybe a year? it was the new 'chromatics.' the music sounded nice but gah something about that voice just ruins everything for me. 'indie'-pop acts need to um ditch the self-learning thing and start focusing as much on singing as they do on production and synths or whatever. blech

like if you're gonna copy chilly, get the most important thing right

"as they do on production and synths"

production = flat dry digital recording into Protools
synths = softsynths they don't know how to use

haw

wait was that an insult to indie pop or chart pop? (really, I don't know)

indie pop

i had the same reaction to some of the after dark songs but i also get the indie thing. and i really like the album. i like indie cool when it's done well (i think the chromatics singer does it ok, not great). james murphy is very indie cool, but i like his vocals.

The thread seems to have been mainly about tracing back the elements of the indie-drawl. But its the combination that codifies the sound.

I'd suggest that its fair to call the originators of individual elements a 'precursor' but they aren't the origin of indie sound. Its when people start to mix the styles of Drake, Reed, Gilberto, Cohen, etc etc that you actually get the indie sound.

For instance Pavement may or may not have vocal styles which have a linage from 1950s beats, but that linage comes via Mark E Smith who is one of the originators as opposed to a precursor. I'd add in Edwin Collins, Paul Haig and maybe Howard Devoto/Pete Shelly as originator of a specific combinations.

Not so sure whether Patti Smith counts as the earliest originator, or a precursor, I'd probably put her just on the precursor side in my imaginary dividing line with the UK Smith-offspring - Slits, Raincoats, Au Pairs, Delta 5, Penetration on the other side as first origins.

Actually shocked Edwin Collins didn't get a mention in this thread already. He's the direct line via Stephen P to Stuart Murdoch.

... the "indie voice" (wish I could think of a better term for it) is very much in the world, but is somewhat removed from the songs themselves. Like, commenting on the distance between the (often) romantic nature of the songs and the unromantic realities of the world? -- spittle (spittle), Sunday, 18 April 2004 16:57 (3 years ago) Link

This is quite beautiful! And I think a big part of Malkmus style, it's not just plain ironic. Great thread.

Malkmus's vocal style isn't really indebted to Mark E. Smith at all. For one, he sings. Musically, of course Pavement took a lot from the Fall but we've had this discussion a hundred million times.

I don't really know very many artists who have a vocal style that resembles Mark E Smith. James Murphy vaguely, maybe.

The influence fell away, but Malkmus did do some E. Smith aping on early songs, especially "Two States", and referred to Slanted & Enchanted as sounding like the work of a Fall cover band.

For one, he sings

As does MES sometimes. Occasionally there is even a tune too.

Sure, there is plenty of examples where Malkmus is his own man, and isn't ever (well, hardly ever) a mere Fall tribute act, but to suggest there is no connection or indebtedness doesn't match what I can hear, or indeed what Ive read in interviews.

I still stand by hearing it only in the music and probably only three or four times in the singing, in their entire career.

I find it incredible how Ray Davies has yet to be mentioned here.

Yeah but you find a lot of the world incredible, don't you

Way too much. This thread lacks credibility. :)

chad & jeremy?
townes van zandt, when he wasn't self-consciously singing in a 'country' style.

i think i am just thinking chad & jeremy because they always remind me of B&S, but i don't think it's the voice that does it ...

Why All Indie Singers Sound Weirdly The Same

I think the sound of indie-rock as we know it today was created by the Red Krayola on their 2nd album. Listen to The Jewels of the Madonna. If that isn't an scarrily accurate precurser to what indie-rock would sound like in the 80s/90s I don't know what is.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), zondag 18 april 2004 17:49 (twelve years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Holy shit.

makes you wonder if they had similar sensibilites to the indie scene or if they just stumbled upon a sound that wld become influential 15 years later

I think Dan beat me to it but...

Red Krayola: 2nd album (I think I said somewhere else that this is the album that invented indie rock! In other words, you probably wouldn't want to listen to it too often)

― Dadaismus (Dada), Friday, 22 April 2005 09:10 (eleven years ago) Permalink

"Children of Danger" by the Memphis Goons was recorded around 70, that always seemed v proto indie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXnoWb88Jr4

What is an example of a singer who is being spoofed in sleeve's video? I think I have an idea of what she is talking about but I think it is probably different from the singers the OP was thinking of.

This is the first thing I thought of:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyASdjZE0R0

Well, yeah, if anything, it sounded more like she was talking about pop singers. Rozes totally sounds like that, though, I agree.

FWIW around 2000/2001 when I was first really becoming aware of "indie", some of the indie heads I knew were really into Red Krayola. Probably by then it had already been cited by some Wire-type mag as proto-indie though.

I find it incredible how Ray Davies has yet to be mentioned here.

― Geir Hongro, Saturday, December 29, 2007 2:50 PM (eight years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

imo he's too dynamic and Kinks songs move around melodically a whole lot. same with Syd Barrett as mentioned way above.

instinctually i want to trace cool indie voice to Lou Reed but he seems to have too much fun w his singing. it needs to be performative and bored. the vocal in "Sunday Morning" is kind of relaxed but a bit too dreamy. "Who Loves the Sun" could be a source, certainly lyrics-wise, but again it sounds too fun.

the early takes of "Strawberry Fields Forever" kind of fit. the vocal melody is pretty relaxed and obviously bored. it's just kind of one-note murmuring for a bit ("No one i think is in my tree") and then becomes self-conscious about that for the rest of it and starts gliding around sort of at random ("I mean i think I know..."). maybe? then there's "Revolution 1" on the White Album where the vocals were recording while lying on the floor for that bored/relaxed effect to counter the lyrics.

the root of indie cool voice is imo in that era of psychedelic pop, variety shows where the hosts put on sunglasses and "acted cool" introducing the Strawberry Alarm Clock or whoever. maybe the most high-profile form is in Monkees songs, that bored inflection used to the sing the verses of the theme song, the indie cool hinted at in that affected sigh after "We've got something to say ..... aww"

this seems like it should be a big influence on later folks, but i don't think anyone heard it until the 2006 archival release:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYB26-cqMMo

wait, not manfred mann, this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syVOWmLWFys&t=434s

ugh i don't know if that is showing up. the sibylle baier record. recorded in the early 70's.

ALSO, since i notice that dan brought up red krayola above, i was playing corky's debt to his father recently and man oh man its hard to believe that came out in 1970. could have been yesterday.

"Who Loves the Sun" could be a source, certainly lyrics-wise, but again it sounds too fun.

Also it's sung by Doug Yule.