Annoying and ridiculous singing voices are the best voices

There's gonna be that urge to represent self-- listen to my beautiful voice, you guys. And there won't be any struggle in the creation because "she could sing the phone book", as they say.

Why are these things handicaps when it comes to writing or producing great songs?

Sund4r- I don't think my original argument holds up 100% but that is partly what this discussion is for. I do like lots of singers whose voices are trained in a very specific mode. But as you said "nearly anyone with any distinctiveness can be mocked or seen as annoying and ridiculous by someone" and I just wanted to see how people felt about certain voices, why they might think they have a good argument for or against their voice; thinking about how much familiarity lets you accept certain things and just general points related to that.

I mentioned Oscar Herrera from Black Tape For A Blue Girl earlier. He sings in a style that he isn't able to pull off entirely convincingly because it doesn't sound like he has the training; yet I'm not sure whether I like those "flaws" better than what he might be like if he was trained. I'll probably never know.

Often I hear people saying "but his/her voice is annoying!" used as an argument ender, as if there is no negotiation with that point. There is also a tendency among some people to do a funny caricature of someones voice as if this is proof of a singer being bad.

my sense is that people typically mock a singer's voice not to prove artistic worthlessness, but to protest that mirth, horror and/or irritation stand in the way of appreciation. i mean that such mockery describes a gut-level personal reaction, not a nuanced critical evaluation.

like, i have a hard time with bjork. her voice too often hits me like nails on a chalkboard, and i'm frequently baffled by her approach to melody and harmony. i won't dismiss her as i do find her work artistically interesting, but at this point, i'm pretty closed to conversion.

Paul Buchanan springs to mind as someone who"s voice may sound a bit amusing, embarrassing even, in it's oddness

Sorry, I really do not understand this at all?!??!?! What?

There's gonna be that urge to represent self-- listen to my beautiful voice, you guys. And there won't be any struggle in the creation because "she could sing the phone book", as they say.

Why are these things handicaps when it comes to writing or producing great songs?

There's no hard and fast rules, obviously! I can only speak from experience. I've heard countless terrible songs. For two years I tended bar at a weekly open mic nights. And I booked shows and worked as a music programmer for radio. There is a tendency for aspiring musicians with naturally good singing voices to err on the side of the formulaic. I guess it's because the song already sounds good at the outset and requires no fine-tuning.

I just assumed it was the case because, you know, everybody has to sit down with their recordings and listen back to it. If you sing like Dan Bejar and your songs are shitty then you'll probably know it and you'll work on writing better songs. If you sing like Dionne Warwick and your songs are shitty you might not notice that they're shitty. You'll just hear your beautiful voice. Doesn't that make sense?

Yeah but Dionne had way better material than Bejar

That could also be related to specialization. I write better than I play because I've spent more time on the former. For many musicians, it works the other way. I never feel like the struggles involved when I play things that I write are a benefit to my writing, though. (And I don't think anyone would say that e.g. Mozart's writing was impeded by his skills as a pianist.)

Springsteen, Dylan and Lennon do get made fun of, but had they been more obscure I think maybe people would make a bigger deal of their voices. I think just about any truly distinctive singer is open to ridicule, I feel like I've heard just about every distinctive singer being mocked.

i have never heard anyone make fun of lennon's voice -- i think it's pretty universally acknowledged that he's one of the all-time greats?

I've never heard anyone make fun of his voice either but I also didn't think he was regarded as a virtuoso singer (though he's certainly better than those other two)? I always enjoy his singing, of course.

I know people who dislike or don't care for the Beatles but I've never heard someone say that it's because their voices are annoying and ridiculous.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDOBMz2TGi8

Can someone tell me the connection between that pig painting and Marissa M? Is it an original of hers?

I've seen it here many times, and it shows up when you GIS her name!

Yeah but Dionne had way better material than Bejar

Well yeah. I didn't want to single out any actual examples of "beautiful voice + shitty songwriter" 'cause it'd just make a contentious point even more contentious. Jill Scott? Coldplay guy? I like some Jill Scott and some Coldplay. But neither could touch David Byrne as a songwriter/producer. Or any of the other so-called "annoying voiced" people itt. It's a broad generalization to be sure, but this is kind of a private assessment of mine. Like when Feist writes a great song I'm like "nice work, pretty voice!" Anyway, that's why I think people like annoying voiced singers. Because if Andy Partridge could sing pretty he wouldn't have to write the clever songs he does.

neither could touch David Byrne as a songwriter/producer.

I definitely think e.g. Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Stevie Wonder, or Prince could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw9DsEay6Ak

Paul Buchanan springs to mind as someone who"s voice may sound a bit amusing, embarrassing even, in it's oddness

Sorry, I really do not understand this at all?!??!?! What?

― Tommy McTommy (Tom D.), Friday, 5 July 2013 17:08 (Yesterday) Permalink

you don't think the phrasing in, say, 'tinseltown...' might sound a bit weird to somebody coming in cold? like, at all?!??!?!

i remember feeling a little self-conscious blasting "Do I Love You?/YES I Love You..." in my bedroom in 1984. definitely something i played by myself.

and yet blasting Wide Boy Awake didn't make me feel self-conscious at all.

a more helpful exercise to this thread would be to remember the singers with bad and ridiculous voices who also had terrible material, like, i don't know, wild man fischer

matt bellamy of muse

katy perry

Solo Lou Reed *ducks*

neither could touch David Byrne as a songwriter/producer.

I definitely think e.g. Joni Mitchell, Kate Bush, Stevie Wonder, or Prince could.

Yah totally! But you're like talking about stone-cold geniuses. Is there a name for that? When you're talking about "people doing things" and then it's like "your arguments about swimming are moot because remember Jesus once walked on water"

i wrote about this very thing once:

"Wackiness and weariness often walk hand in hand where rock and roll singers are concerned. A listener's own personal threshold for whims, quirks, kinks, and vocal contortions, and their willingness to follow an "inspired" performer from point abba to point zabba, is subjective enough as to make one man's pork soda delish in every way, and another man's frog brigade merely soggy to the touch."

http://skotrok.blogspot.com/2012/08/ear-nose-throat.html

haha that piece ruuules

I recently saw Viv Albertine praising Kate Bush for having the guts to sing as crazily as she does with so much confidence, because Viv said it was hard for herself to get the confidence to perform again without feeling silly, when she hadn't been at it for a while. Does Viv sing a lot? I'm not a Slits expert.

Love Mark Hollis. I appreciated Karen Dalton but couldn't properly get into her.