"Doorstep" is the one I fell in love.
also: wtf Dan -- still with the Swift hate after Speak Now?
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 May 2011 19:54 (thirteen years ago) link
she has always and will always suck
if she wants me to like her, she should stop singing and let someone else do her material
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 19:55 (thirteen years ago) link
don't wanna derail thread but listen to "Mean" and tell me if what she's doing isn't appropriate to the song she's singing.
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 May 2011 19:57 (thirteen years ago) link
djp your thoughts on what is technically going on in records are always grebt and worthwhile, and more of that on this album would be awesome
of the ones you haven't mentioned 'gangsta' has some shrillness, and one of the others - i don't have the titles fixed in my head yet - has an out-of-time bit with the most outright yelling on the record (the one where she goes THERE IS A FREEDOM IN VIOLENCE I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAND)
― thomp, Friday, 20 May 2011 19:57 (thirteen years ago) link
whoever's playing bass i like it a lot, what that person is doing: it grounds a lot of the chaos
Nate Brenner - he's Merrill's bf
― sarahel, Friday, 20 May 2011 19:59 (thirteen years ago) link
btw, I am listening to "You Yes You" right now and I think it is much better than "The Bizness", largely because she's not bellowing the entire time, which makes the moments where she moves into that mode mean something.
totally cosign: and from what i've gathered about the meaning or themes or whatever of this record, what she's doing musically maps pretty directly onto what's going with that -- buttt even though i usually listen to stuff in a pretty logocentric way this record has been making me go WHAT THE HELL THIS IS AWESOME
AWESOME
the whole time that i've been listening to it, and as such i'm further from having some idea of what it's all About than i would normally to something i've been listening to a lot
― thomp, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:00 (thirteen years ago) link
xpost - thanks sarahel (& contenderizer); that is sweet and makes me happy for them
― thomp, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:01 (thirteen years ago) link
he's a good guy. He's played in a lot of jazz groups.
― sarahel, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:02 (thirteen years ago) link
"Gangsta" is a groove and a half, and again she's switching back and forth between chest and head voice with a lot of mix between light and heavy in the vocal interjections in the background. Also, the vocal pyrotechnics and studio tricks really work well as wordpainting for the lyrics.
One of the things I am really digging is her usage of accidentals in the melody lines; there are points where she has lines that end on diminished or augmented notes that really spice up proceedings.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:03 (thirteen years ago) link
(the one where she goes THERE IS A FREEDOM IN VIOLENCE I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAND)
this is "Riotriot", which is also chock-full of extremely tender singing
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:06 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't disagree with that, or with the idea that there's a lot of tender singing on the record: that just came to mind as one of the most pointedly not tender moments. (although the bit of music which immediately follows THERE IS A FREEDOM IN VIOLENCE is actually a pretty tight and controlled dynamic shift, not a woah loose and noisy one. which i like about it, but, i mean, i like everything about this record.)
― thomp, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:11 (thirteen years ago) link
I just feel like, in comparison, the bellowing she does on "The Bizness" is almost wholly out of step with what I'm hearing on the other songs aside from "Gangsta", which is constructed in a manner where the bellowing makes sense to me. Within context, the loud bit in "Riotriot" makes sense and isn't nearly as egregious as "The Bizness", which basically makes me feel like she's yelling at me for something someone else did.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:13 (thirteen years ago) link
obv I am overstating the yelling on "The Bizness" because it happens on every held note in the song, and that is what makes it overbearing and wearying
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:18 (thirteen years ago) link
responses to "the bizness" are funny, cuz it was one of the tracks i liked best first off the bat, but not my immediate favorite. only became my favorite after a bunch of spins, and has since been supplanted (owne OTM). everyone else i've played the song/album for (bunches!) has immediately either loved or hated that song, no middle ground.
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:20 (thirteen years ago) link
as an aside, re: "pretty"
even at it's most tender & gentle, there's an enthusiastic roughness in merrill's singing that prevents me from reading it as an attempt to project a pretty self (prettiness as something superficial and distinct from beauty, which admits pain, anger, ugliness - basically every human thing and feeling).
she seems, musically, to revel in her own rawness, "realness", funky warts-and-all earthiness. kind of a hippie thing?
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:31 (thirteen years ago) link
you know that "pretty" has multiple definitions, one of which is "pleasing by delicacy or grace", right
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:45 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah, basically - connotatively, that delicacy and grace being a surface maintained for social purposes.
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:47 (thirteen years ago) link
Um, no. That is not the connotation, or rather not the only connotation.
There's more than a little bit of "indie pity party" going on here that I think is a total disservice to the actual music.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:49 (thirteen years ago) link
like, if you can't handle the idea that Katy Perry hollers just as much if not more than Merrill Garbus, you should probably spend less time watching videos and more time listening to what people are actually doing
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:50 (thirteen years ago) link
to take it a bit farther, prettiness is a pose, a craft, a defined space, and typically a safe one. beauty is less circumscribed, much less circumspect, not at all safe.
if it isn't obvious, i'm using these words as they suit me
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:51 (thirteen years ago) link
maybe you should try using them how everyone else who speaks English uses them, then people would spend less time in these discussions yelling at you and questioning your intelligence
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:52 (thirteen years ago) link
if you can't handle the idea that Katy Perry hollers just as much if not more than Merrill Garbus, you should probably spend less time watching videos and more time listening to what people are actually doing
that's presumptive, snide and beneath you. i can "handle" the idea that katy perry hollers. i think she hollers differently, to different effect, for different aesthetic reasons. moreover, she positions her hollering in her music differently.
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:53 (thirteen years ago) link
But... she doesn't! That is my entire point!
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:53 (thirteen years ago) link
wtf happened here?
― ginny thomas and tonic (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:52 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark
and you could be a bit more intellectually generous and curious, rather than simply jumping to combative conclusions
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:54 (thirteen years ago) link
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:53 PM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark
i get that we view this differently, but that's no reason to turn this into a flame war
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:55 (thirteen years ago) link
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:49 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark
conflict aside, i'm curious about this. what does "indie pity party" mean here?
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 20:56 (thirteen years ago) link
The aesthetic difference is in the way the songs are built, not in the way the singers are singing them. You could swap their material and get very credible cover versions from both of them because their voices work in very similar ways; there is a lighter, prettier head voice and a bigger, meatier growly chest voice with a decent amount of rasp.
xp: It means people are casting Merrill as the put-upon plain girl bursting out of her shell in a wall of fury, something a pretty princess like Katy Perry could never understand. It is a wholly adversarial, reactionary position meant to delineate the music as extra-special and intrinsically worthier than the pop counterparts of similar voice to her.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 20:59 (thirteen years ago) link
It would be easier to not be combative if you would stop using "I am going to redefine your words to suit my argument" as a rhetorical style and would just say what you mean.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 21:02 (thirteen years ago) link
Just wrapped up my first full listen and, yep, feeling pretty ashamed for my offhand dismissal of her based on the painted face promo pics and beyond stupid bandname. This is a pretty fun record.
― 'what are you, the Hymen Protection League of America?' (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 20 May 2011 21:04 (thirteen years ago) link
there is a lighter, prettier head voice and a bigger, meatier growly chest voice with a decent amount of rasp.
that describes a lot of female vocalists though!
― sarahel, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:07 (thirteen years ago) link
people are casting Merrill as the put-upon plain girl bursting out of her shell in a wall of fury, something a pretty princess like Katy Perry could never understand. It is a wholly adversarial, reactionary position meant to delineate the music as extra-special and intrinsically worthier than the pop counterparts of similar voice to her.
you're projecting a great deal of that, and i think the projection is distorting this conversation. i'm talking to some extent about how voices are used technically, but also about how that technical use relates to artistic aesthetics and persona. subject matter, production and arrangement are inseparable from this. that said, i don't think that katy ever allows her recorded voice to sound as raw, gritty and shrill as merrill's. that's not to fault KP in any way. i like her music and i like pop. if i'm wrong here, show me how. in any event, please don't angrily berate me for what you only imagine i'm saying.
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:10 (thirteen years ago) link
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 2:02 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark
well, they weren't really your words, to be fair. get bent brought up the "brave enough to be unpretty" argument, which i see some merit in, but comes close to the sort of indie privileging you object to.
i'd like to think i don't redefine words to suit my arguments. i'd like to think that words are a lot more complex and interesting than we often give them credit for. i spend a lot of time thinking about words, and sometimes use them in personal ways without thinking about how well my meaning is going to come across. i'm also a bit slow to process, to understand the semantic tangles that cause confusion. but if you work with me, i think you'll find i'm more cooperative than competitive in these sorts of discussions.
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:16 (thirteen years ago) link
xp to sarahel: I know, that is part of my wider point! Specifically between Katy Perry and Merrill Garbus, while I don't think they have the exact same voice, there are strong similarities; Merrill's is "bluesier" than Katy's but not to a degree where I think it would be that off for either of them to try singing the others' songs. Another parallel would be Adele but I don't think she has the lightness of touch to pull off the quieter ty material, whereas Merrill could basically stomp all up and down all over anything Adele's recorded.
Having said all that, I am more than certain Merrill has more control over her voice than Katy; a cursory search of live performances will bear that out. However, that same cursory search will show quite a lot of grittiness, shrillness, and just flat-out weirdness in the way Katy Perry sings, not all of which makes it onto record but can certainly be heard (for example) in the vocal mood shifts on "Teenage Dream" or the about-to-bust-a-chord yelling on the chorus of "Firework" or even the transition from shouty shouty to held head voice on the bridge to "I Kissed a Girl". I'm not arguing that it is as extreme or that it is a carbon copy; I'm arguing that it is there in the first place. Merrill is very very good at what she is doing, but it isn't the way she's using her voice as a lead instrument that makes her unique; it's the way she's using it as overdubbed backing instruments that makes her unique.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 21:19 (thirteen years ago) link
but it isn't the way she's using her voice as a lead instrument that makes her unique; it's the way she's using it as overdubbed backing instruments that makes her unique.
true. And that's not even unique - as others have mentioned upthread. The rawness, un-prettiness (if you will), is pretty common in avant-folk music, it's a signifier of authenticity and sincerity, etc. But it's difficult for me to separate Katy Perry's voice from the insipid cheerleader anthems she sings.
― sarahel, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:24 (thirteen years ago) link
I think that, if you do, you will marvel and boggle at how a voice like that became one of the most successful pop stars of the past few years because it is a very STRANGE instrument, even in a world where Britney Spears can quack her way into millions of dollars.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 21:26 (thirteen years ago) link
she's on the cover of Vanity Fair in a low cut gown ...
― sarahel, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:27 (thirteen years ago) link
Merrill is very very good at what she is doing, but it isn't the way she's using her voice as a lead instrument that makes her unique; it's the way she's using it as overdubbed backing instruments that makes her unique.
OTM. wasn't trying to attribute any great uniqueness to MP's lead singing, just describing it. i think i hear the chorus to "firework" as a good deal less shrill & jarring than you do (or else you hear "the bizness" as less so than i), but accept the general similarities.
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:28 (thirteen years ago) link
like my first exposure to Katy Perry's singing was while staying with a friend in Brooklyn, and he watched a youtube of hers because he'd seen pictures of her and figured it would at least be a visually appealing experience.
― sarahel, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:30 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm still kind of baffled, honestly, by the turn this thread took
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:30 (thirteen years ago) link
well, when you party with uh-us ...
― sarahel, Friday, 20 May 2011 21:31 (thirteen years ago) link
I got combative when you redefined pretty to inherently mean shallow, which effectively was putting words in my mouth, and then used that as a springboard to argue against a strawman position ("I think there is a lot of shallow, vacuous singing on here that has all of the hallmarks of these pop singers I listed earlier") that was nothing like what I actually said ("I think people are overselling the strangeness of Merrill's voice, particularly in an era when a bunch of weird-sounding women are multi-platinum pop stars AND when she doesn't nearly as much on the other songs on the album as she does on the lead single")
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 21:39 (thirteen years ago) link
the word "bellow" is missing from that post, feel free to insert it where you think it is appropriate
djp, i'm gonna be above quoting you telling me how you were hella wrong about tuneyardsbut not above pointing it outbtw she is v v pretty in person.
― crazy donkey winger (forksclovetofu), Friday, 20 May 2011 21:50 (thirteen years ago) link
for a second i thought merrill was on the cover of Vanity Fair in a low cut gown and i was gonna go get a subscription and then
― crazy donkey winger (forksclovetofu), Friday, 20 May 2011 21:54 (thirteen years ago) link
I got combative when you redefined pretty to inherently mean shallow, which effectively was putting words in my mouth, and then used that as a springboard to argue against a strawman position ("I think there is a lot of shallow, vacuous singing on here that has all of the hallmarks of these pop singers I listed earlier") that was nothing like what I actually said
okay, i get where you're coming from. clarifications and apologies, then. i never meant to suggest that pretty must = shallow, only that (in my mind), it does connotatively tend in that direction, you know, sometimes. i certainly didn't mean to suggest that the prettier portions of this album are necessarily shallower and therefore more appropriately comparable to presumably shallow pretty-pop. apologize sincerely for any such (unintentional) insinuation and can see as how it might have irked.
personally, i don't see merrill's voice as "strange" per se. i see it as strong, arguably a lot stronger and more versatile than that of many multi-platinum pop stars, but that's beside the point. i see merrill's use of her voice as not strange, exactly, but deliberately eccentric and at times challenging in a way that has more in common with the aesthetics of jazz, freak-folk and art rock than with the more anthemic strains of contemporary chart & teen pop. that isn't to damn the latter in favor of the former...
the prettiness debate is odd. how do we determine whether or not a voice intends to seem pretty ("nice," etc.), and in what way? and how do we determine what the use of a voice says about the values and aesthetics of the person using it? i don't know how to answer these questions, exactly, and they're especially difficult to isolate in a pop environment that makes image and celebrity persona so immediately evident and thus inseparable from song and sound. i would still say that katy perry, for instance, strives to present her voice and self in the prettiest possible fashion, the basic strangeness of her instrument notwithstanding, and that merrill seems to take the opposite tack, making a deliberate virtue of exposing her rawer and harsher reaches. hope that's not too inflammatory...
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 22:06 (thirteen years ago) link
I would say that is a reasonable statement with regards to the amount of discernible pitch correction used on their respective material, but I also think you have to consider that basic differences between the types of songs they are singing and how the same (or similarly classed) voice(s) can come across very differently depending on the material sung. One reason Merrill sounds more suited to freak folk is because she is singing music more similar to that than the current pop trends. Put her on a song like "Hot and Cold" or "Rolling in the Deep" and I guarantee you will not read her as intentionally being a weird singer.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 22:23 (thirteen years ago) link
(IOW part of why they cone across that way, IMO a big part, is difference in genre)
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, 20 May 2011 22:27 (thirteen years ago) link
Interesting thread!_Don't_ be put off by the alleged lo-finess of the first record.There's an intimacy on that record that is gone (but not forgotten) on the new one.
― THE Alan Moulder?!? (Ówen P.), Friday, 20 May 2011 22:42 (thirteen years ago) link
Put her on a song like "Hot and Cold" or "Rolling in the Deep" and I guarantee you will not read her as intentionally being a weird singer.
― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 3:23 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark
perhaps that's true, but MG seems very much in control of her art, so i suspect that if she'd decided to cover songs like these on the album, she'd have adapted them to the deliberately eccentric pop style she's currently cultivating. which becomes a chicken v egg thing, i suppose...
― contenderizer, Friday, 20 May 2011 22:50 (thirteen years ago) link