Lines Delivered in Goofy Voices That Almost Ruin Otherwise Perfectly Good Songs for You

The goober who shows up at the end of "Top of the Pops" by The Kinks and says "And you know what this means? You can start earning some realll money."

The smug doctor who diagnoses Industrial Disease in the song of the same name by Dire Straits.

The (I dunno - boho lunkhead?) who sings "yeah you wanna go back to Coolsville" in the Rickie Lee Jones tune.

Fine songs all! But those stupid voices...

Rickie Lee Jones does tend to do that weird baby voice sometimes and I am not sold on it

That's right, she follows up the lunkhead voice with the baby voice on Coolsville, and it doubly irritates.

“All of God’s childrens gotta have their freedom!”

^^^That too!

Every Bob Dylan song

This could certainly apply to a few Kinks songs.

Any Genesis song where Peter Gabriel starts delivering lines in a faux-cockney accent, "Get 'Em Out By Friday" being a prime example.

I actually like it in "The Red Telephone", if it was a white singer it would be more dubious.

VdGG's "After the Flood" has this moment where Hammill yell-sings "Annihilation!!" into some primitive vocoder and it sounds like a muppet singing

more a dalek than a muppet

Hawkwind do the Dalek voices (through a ring modulator) too.

The German-language version of "The Model" glides along nicely until the second verse, where, after the line "Sie trinkt in nachtclubs immer Sekt" ("In nightclubs, she always drinks champagne"), someone oafishly bellows "Korrekt!" Thankfully, as we know, decorum is maintained in the Anglophone recording.

That part in Stevie Wonder's "Maybe Your Baby" when he says "I'm a little boy".

"No, no, no, no, no, no, you had to be a beeg shot, deen cha"

The goober who shows up at the end of "Top of the Pops" by The Kinks and says "And you know what this means? You can start earning some realll money."

Pretty anti-Semitic too.

There's all this stupid yelling in the background of the first verse of "Phantasies" by Stephen Malkmus, in case we were such fools as to want to enjoy the song.

ah yes, ring modulator. I know Hawkwind do it but their music is supposed to be kind of goofy isnt it?

Never managed to get into The Police because of Sting's weird fake caribbean accent. It did help me immediately correctly guess that Vaal's singer is his daughter though.

xxp Is that guy in "Top of the Pops" supposed to be a record company exec? I could never figure it out, except that it was somebody with a goober-y voice.

Phil Ochs delivers one of the choruses of his song "The Doll House" in a Dylan voice, which doesn't hurt it exactly but raises a lot of overtones that might not have been intentional.

Paul Simon does it sometimes with jive-y phrases, especially in "Pigs, Sheep and Wolves."

certain versions of 'cortez the killer'

xxp Is that guy in "Top of the Pops" supposed to be a record company exec? I could never figure it out, except that it was somebody with a goober-y voice.

That's not so much a goober-y voice as a comedy London Jewish voice. I know Ray Davies was in some sort of dispute with his managers - about half the songs on the album are about it after all - and I always wondered whether it was supposed to be Larry Page, though I don't know whether Larry Page is Jewish or not tbh.

Ween - Push The Little Daisies, but of course, that was the "point"

Metallica - All Nightmare Long

James really leans really hard into his country-twang on the chorus and although I wouldn't consider it an A+ tune even despite that, his voice makes me averse to hearing it, to where if they play it live, I will put 7 earplugs in.

Tori's line about the cigar on Leather does my head in a bit.

My mum's favourite song ever pretty much is Moonlighting by Leo Sayer; it's a story of two lovebirds doing a flit but she hates the line where he imitates the girl saying (strangled whiny monotone) "My mother will have lost her miiind". She's right, it seems deliberately harsh which is a shame, as in the rest of it he seems perfectly sympathetic to both characters.

Ween - Push The Little Daisies, but of course, that was the "point"

if you're talking about the ending part, all I can hear is Eric Cartman (who didn't exist back then). if you're talking about the rest, well pretty much everything on Ween's first 3 albums is like that

The German-language version of "The Model" glides along nicely until the second verse, where, after the line "Sie trinkt in nachtclubs immer Sekt" ("In nightclubs, she always drinks champagne"), someone oafishly bellows "Korrekt!"

I kind of love this bit, goofy or no.

The bit at the end of "Big Yellow Taxi" where Joni goes high/low on "They paved paradise / Put up a parking lot" then giggles. Not only is it crap, but people who think she's nothing more than some elfin folkie judge her entire oeuvre on it.

Two hours and nobody got to Bowie's "China Girl"?

Joni's laugh is a treat

Phil's mockney accent may be worse than Gabriel's

Worse than either is Greg Lake's in "Benny the Bouncer".

Can't remember if they actually go full horrible racist accent in "Dreadlock Holiday" but I'm thinking yes they do

Mick doing funny voices in "Emotional Rescue" is the counterpoint to this thread

No accents, but I love all the silly voices in 10cc's "I Wanna Rule the World".

I love John Lennon's COOKIE in "Hold On"

the "blackface" voices in Furry Sings the Blues

The doofy voice on the chorus of “Last Stop: This Town.” I like the bit on “The Red Telephone,” it just contributes to the generally unsettling atmosphere.

On the new Sault album: ”Oh, you from London?"

Surely everyone loves the "what is he loike?" bit in 'Buffalo Stance', yknaimean?

sometimes I like it, sometimes not so much

The entire song is in goofy voices, which is fine, but I do wish they hadn't sped up the voices in that one bit in "She's Goin' Bald" by the Beach Boys. Offhand, I can't really think of any time when speeding up voices to chipmunk levels is a good idea.

Kinda opposite, but I rep for the Yoko line in Bungalow Bill, just because it was so hated by Beatles purists.

its a real outlier, as the only time someone other than the Beatles deliver a line in one of their songs.

its a weird twee line as well, so it stands out.

Bungalow Bill just seems like it should be a discarded studio offcut on a bootleg, not a track on one of the biggest albums of all time. though tbf you could say the same for roughly half of the white album.

Lay me place and bake me pie I'm starving for me gravy
Leave my shoes and door unlocked I might just slip away
etc

You people really hate silly voices

And fun

smurfs too

You'll be hating on "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" in a minute

End of Bewlay Brothers is awesome and terrifying wtf?

i guess if were awoken at night by horrible mockney voices singing about pies and gravy that might be terrifying but otherwise nah.

I've always heard it as an ogreish monster more than mockney

All chipmunk vocals are great this is canon

― Southgate Serves Imperialism (Noodle Vague), Friday, July 9, 2021 10:12 AM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RP19fnff_c

Saw that at the movies when it came out, boss movie, shame about all the incels getting radge about introducing girl chipmunks to the Chipmunk Cinematic Universe

At the end of Like I Love You, Justin Timberlake delivers "You know, I used to dream about this when I was a little boy.." in this mixture of baby talk voice and pillow talk voice that absolutely squicks me out.

All chipmunk vocals are great this is canon

I had the same instant reaction, even if I can't think of any examples right now - except for this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyIwF1ZTXZA

people who think she's nothing more than some elfin folkie

who are these people

for one thing elfin folkies are too self-serious for giggling

Prince’s pitched-up “Camille” voice can be too much in the breakdown part of “If I Was Your Girlfriend.”

I can still enjoy the album, but Patton's deliberately nasal stylings on The Real Thing are quite off-putting, and frustrating knowing he was perfectly capable of doing it much better.

The coda of Bewlay Brothers is incredible in every way, and more or less makes the song.

When I think about it, isn't all singing pretty much "goofy voices"?

There's that verse of "Tempted" where Squeeze and Declan swerve down an octave for "the people keep on crowding" and then up an octave for "wishing I was well."

Can do without that, thanks

Also I've never enjoyed the annoying nasal falsetto in Del Shannon's "Runaway," but I know that goofy voices were part of the style of the time. I used to be in a band with a dude who could never resist a goofy-voice bit. "Runaway" was a favorite of his. Also in Blondie's "Dreaming" he could never quite resist including the "woo!" between "fade away" and "radiate." I'm like dude, we're covering the song, we don't need to replicate the record. The record is out there and is very widely sold. If people want to hear that record they can go home and do so.

It doesn't ruin the song but I sometimes wonder whether Bill Withers needed the intro to "Lean on Me" to be in the bass register when it sounds fine in the same octave as the verse.

Peter Tork's "GRIZZLE-dah" at the end of "Your Auntie Grizelda" has always bugged me.

I never realized he was saying "grizzle-da!" lol that's bad. just figured it was nonsense syllables, dipple da da etc.

i feel like paul mccartney has like fifteen of these, tho he's more inclined to commit to the goofy voice for an entire section or song, and i actually like all the songs anyway. gonna guess the entire "now git yer dress on! we're goin' down to the Rock Show" spiel has to set some people off.

Fortunately it's on various other live albums but I can't listen to the version of Neil Young's "Cortez the Killer" on Live Rust because he does that "he came dancing across the water, mon" Jamaican voice.

could be a whole separate thread for clowns doing dodgy fake jamaican voices . neil, sting, nilsson, ray davies - burn the tapes.

for me, it's lou reed's ott goofball delivery on the studio version of "sweet jane". the audible fake smile, the forced fake laughing, the ad libs - like nails on a chalkboard to me. feels like the ur-version of the self-aware sabotage Halfway there but for you mentions upthread about malkmus' "Phantasies" (although I kind of think lou was being sincere, thinking he was making the song 'more fun')

I have a lot of love for the theatrical period of the Kinks, but there's this one bit in Ordinary People: "He's changing places with Norman / to get background for his songs" that's pretty annoying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgTRojgnwQE at 3:14

That time when James Blake started singing

the studio version of "sweet jane" ... feels like the ur-version of the self-aware sabotage

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. For me, the meta aspect to Reed's delivery adds to the wry poignancy of the lyric.

"No, no, no, no, no, no, you had to be a beeg shot, deen cha"

I think this one kind of adds to the song, by evoking that first-generation immigrant parental disapproval that courses like a subterranean river through a lot of Joel's work.

The reverse of this is when the singer performs the entire song in a funny voice, only dropping into their normal voice for a line or two, like Prince going from falsetto to chest voice in "Soft and Wet".

Wow, I couldn't disagree more. For me, the meta aspect to Reed's delivery adds to the wry poignancy of the lyric.

I could probably try to disagree more.

I think Lou was having fun on the track btw, I don't think he was 'thinking about making the track more fun'.

oh i have no doubt that he was having fun - i can tell because he audibly (hey!) set himself to the task of (OWW, oh!) working very hard to convey how much fun he was having (comewatchitnowmamaHAHAHAYOWWW!) thru his vocals

I like it, but I guess I can see how it might be a turnoff.

i dont want to speculate about his private life, but frankly it sounds to me like he might have been under the influence of drugs while recording it

I think Lou was going through one of his straight(er) periods at the time. He did sorta do a lot of improvising and messing around when he sang live at the time - I mean, he always did do that but he actually had the chops to pull it off then.

See also his disciple Jonathan Richman putting a lot of band directions in his recordings.

Candy & A Currant Bun's mannered spoken lines are a bit toe-curling, also the weird, too loud 'DROIVE ME WOILD' bit is dumb.

Zappa owns this thread so much he's not even been mentioned yet.

breeding a DWARF
nnng

I find sped-up vocals grating pretty much any time they're used, with Ween being an exception because, like Neanderthal said, that's kind of the point. I love "Songs of Praise" by Roy Wood but I think I'd love it even more without the choir of chipmunk Roys (which I do still appreciate at a conceptual level). I have no idea how "Smokeless Zone" by XTC goes because I always try to skip it before that voice comes in at the beginning.

Candy & A Currant Bun's mannered spoken lines are a bit toe-curling, also the weird, too loud 'DROIVE ME WOILD' bit is dumb.

Kind of agree about the "Drive me wild" bit - which is Roger I think? - but the Syd spoken lines are classic.

Zappa: Entire Albums Delivered in Goofy Voices That Totally Ruin Otherwise Perfectly Good Careers for You

I like the Residents, so I don't even know what I'm doing in this thread.

Looking at most of the examples, I probably enjoy this more often than it annoys me.

The dopey voice Beefheart puts on in "Hobo Chang Ba" was a major error of judgment.

One example that I really like is Alice Cooper singing "you'd kidnap a leper and mail him to your Aunt Jane" in a Paul Lynde voice during "Go To Hell."

Prince can get away with any number of goofy asides, but one that has always bothered me is the valley girl-esque "oh rilly?!"s that are peppered throughout "Housequake."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czLYl4fM8yk

The German-language version of "The Model" glides along nicely until the second verse, where, after the line "Sie trinkt in nachtclubs immer Sekt" ("In nightclubs, she always drinks champagne"), someone oafishly bellows "Korrekt!"

I kind of love this bit, goofy or no.

― catarrh person (Matt #2), Thursday, 8 July 2021 22:48 (yesterday

Would it appear less oafish knowing that it's a reference to a nightclub where Kraftwerk used to go where one of the barmen would say "Sekt? Koooooooooorrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeekt!!!"?

Any Danny Brown song where he does his "crazy" voice

Kendrick, great as he is, has quite a few weird baby voice moments that make me cringe. The nadir is probably "Put that pussy on a PEDESTAL/ Put that pussy on a HIGH HORSE" on Travis Scott's Goosebumps

Pink Floyd, "Have a Cigar":

"Everybody else is just GREEEEEEEN ..."

but one that has always bothered me is the valley girl-esque "oh rilly?!"s

That just reminded me of the "duh" in Billie Eilish's "Bad Guy".

Wow you lot really do hate fun

what do you consider fun
fun, natural fun

Less annoying than “James Browwwwn”

Every line ever delivered by Paul maccartney

Ha, I like his Little Richard voice but yeah I know what you mean, and maybe that one even counts as a goofy voice.

terrible thread, sorry