he's totally malkmus-ized for someone so 'heartland.' with dylan influencing out to the coasts, maybe now you have coasts influencing back towards the center?
― duke geographic, Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:33 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:33 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:34 (twenty years ago) link
― spittle (spittle), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:34 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:35 (twenty years ago) link
And, as I understand it, the music of Jonathan Richman as we know it would not exist without Lou Reed.
― Sonny A. (Keiko), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:35 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:37 (twenty years ago) link
― noodle vague (noodle vague), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:37 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:39 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:41 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:42 (twenty years ago) link
but just to have the idea to even want do that was cool, no? and in such a way that ramblin' jack would not ultimately be party to.
― duke zimmerman, Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:42 (twenty years ago) link
"Baker's singing itself functions on many levels, examining them constituting a certain kind of critical archaelogy. You start to dig and first you come across what Rex Reed and many other commentators on the subject have described with words like 'innocent' and 'sweetness.' Keep digging and at a certain point you come across a layer of irony, but hammer in your cerebral pickaxes a little deeper and you reach ... more innocence. His pared-down technical machinery at times suggests a hip Alfalfa, a little kid circa 1940, singing grown-up songs, cooing rather than screeching up to the mike and pretending to be a romantic crooner, like a little lady making believe in her mother's formal gown; the preciou precociousness of the thought makes it so endearing.
At other times Baker takes a 360 degree turn: rather than a child feigning emotional maturity, he becomes a rather tainted Lothario in a fruitless search for lost innocence. It's to Baker's credit that he's the most widely debated vocalist since Al Jolson: to some there are incredibly deep emotions stirring or about to be stirred when he sings, while to others, there's a whole lot of nothing going on, and to still others, that in itself is attractive -- a Jim Hoberman says, it's like 'being sweet-talked by the void.'"
― jaymc (jaymc), Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:49 (twenty years ago) link
Maybe there are loads of Lou types (the first John Cougar album is supposed to be Lou Reed influenced--you mention Dream Syndicate, etc.), but I still don't think this was the vocal archetype spittle was originally talking about.
The only Dream Syndicate record I like is the first, self-titled EP on Down There Records. Man, that record is good! A lot of people like the Days of Wine and Roses LP, but I think it's mushy sounding and maybe not too compelling as an album. Too bad that early EP is rare now.
― Tim Ellison, Sunday, 18 April 2004 19:55 (twenty years ago) link
i was saying almost the same thing today, except about neil hagerty's guitar playing.
― duke virginia, Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:12 (twenty years ago) link
― Tim Ellison, Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:15 (twenty years ago) link
― sexyDancer, Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:19 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:20 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:21 (twenty years ago) link
― duke let's go home, Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:21 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:22 (twenty years ago) link
― duke lazybones, Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:23 (twenty years ago) link
― spittle (spittle), Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:24 (twenty years ago) link
bert williams was a (black) performer from the dawn of the 20th century, enormously popular (fairly well represented on record, for the time), who did stuff that was less about virtuosic singing than getting a story and an attitude across. the very lack of emotion in his voice (on some records; he could be fearsomely sentimental on others) serves to put a certain distance between him and the words and stories.
― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:26 (twenty years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:27 (twenty years ago) link
― duke melanoma, Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:33 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:51 (twenty years ago) link
― duke askmurderer, Sunday, 18 April 2004 20:57 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:00 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:04 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:05 (twenty years ago) link
― duke kash, Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:05 (twenty years ago) link
― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:12 (twenty years ago) link
― sexyDancer, Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:29 (twenty years ago) link
Tim, you don't hear this exact thing on Closer at all? Even compared to the delivery on something like "Shadowplay" or "New Dawn Fades"?
BTW I never meant to say that my examples contained every element of what spittle was looking for. Just that they could be seen as containing certain elements of what would eventually develop into a more well-defined 'indie voice'. Obviously David Gilmour is not himself an indie singer.
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:30 (twenty years ago) link
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:31 (twenty years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:31 (twenty years ago) link
― Curt1s St3ph3ns, Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:32 (twenty years ago) link
― sundar subramanian (sundar), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:33 (twenty years ago) link
(sundar, they sing pretty poorly. I was just kidding. Actually, I have to admit it varies from church to church. Some churches are really good at cranking out dreary singing though.)
― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:34 (twenty years ago) link
post-60's, also dylan-influenced. the whole guitarmassplainsongdaybydayunitarianuniversalist strain owes him a heap. don't know about lou reed.
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:40 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:42 (twenty years ago) link
why not ask, "where does the exaggerated overstated pop voice come from?"
― kevin erickson, Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:42 (twenty years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:45 (twenty years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist (rockistscientist), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:46 (twenty years ago) link
no singing allowed!
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:46 (twenty years ago) link
― scott seward (scott seward), Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:47 (twenty years ago) link
but don't styles develop because a lot of 'given' voices are so similar to one another, naturally? or because what's given can be so transformed by style (for instance it was lee perry that taught bob marley how to sing, though we might now feel or have the impression marley was just singing naturally)not that you necessarily were, but you can't knock style. it's a big reason a lot of people outgrow indie
― duke indie, Sunday, 18 April 2004 21:56 (twenty years ago) link