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

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.

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, 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.)

post-60's, also dylan-influenced. the whole guitarmassplainsongdaybydayunitarianuniversalist strain owes him a heap. don't know about lou reed.

why not ask, "where does the exaggerated overstated pop voice come from?"

no singing allowed!

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

'Pipe a song about a Lamb!'
So I piped with merry cheer.
'Piper, pipe that song again.'
So I piped: he wept to hear.

'Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
Sing thy songs of happy cheer!'
So I sung the same again,
While he wept with joy to hear.

'Piper, sit thee down and write
In a book, that all may read.'
So he vanished from my sight;
And I plucked a hollow reed,

And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.

Scott, you should right about Michael Franks for the freelance mentalists thing. You might even say I'm requesting that you do so! I'd love to read it.

Have you ever heard that Canadian band Christmas? I listened to their first record the other night; I think I actually auditioned it because I couldn't remember what they sounded like and I was wondering if they should go on that list. They were kind of bad, actually. I don't think they make the cut. Cool guitar tone the guy had, though.