Stylish Rock Band Singer Croon (possibly featuring Libertine and Stroke discussion)

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I noticed last year that I only really like new-model pop-rock indie bands when they’ve got singers who do that whole post-Morrissey vaudeville vocal thing, the thing where they’re sort of arm-waving and vibrato and you almost imagine them traipsing across the stage with a cane and top hat. Casual crooners, is how we’d usually refer to it. Casablancas—possibly the least-rock singer going, really—does this: low mumbly singsong but with lots of big arm gestures (“I’m walking so I don’t have to drive—oh, I”). Guy-from-the-Libertines does it, at least on the tunes of their that I like: relaxed, weaving, “Did you see the stylish kids in the riot?” Even the singer from the Exploding Hearts ran around this, though more in the melodic sense than the timbre (the breakdown on “Throwaway Style” even has some instrumental swing going). (RIP? I don't know which Hearts are or are not still with us, and hell yes I wish they were all around, and not just for humanitarian reasons.)

And it’s perfect. Because here’s the thing: when it comes to Strokes and Libertines, these aren’t really “rock” bands, not in the sense that they need “rock” vocals. They’re first and foremost style bands (with a rock style, see), and the crooner vox have that perfect upscale casual-Friday rock sound, that bright-lights, lookin’ good, Nerve-personals kind of rock style. And of course they’re really pop bands, and of course suave insouciant crooner vox and more pop than rock vox, QED. Like the Hives have their stylish suits, but the vox just aren’t matching: if Howlin’ Hive sounded more like Ian Dury (or even Neil Diamond) I’d probably be all over these guys.

Do you like stylish pop-rock band crooning? Who else is doing it? Discuss.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

david bowie?

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:36 (twenty-one years ago)

Sadly, only the guitarist for the Exploding Hearts is still with us.

― darin, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:38 (twenty-one years ago)

David Bowie has never, to my knowledge, sounded quite casual enough to qualify. Proper Stylish Rock Band Singer Croon is something you could sing while swinging around a lamppost, “Singing in the Rain”-style and/or leaning comfortably (not intently, like Bowie) against a wall.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

the dude from the Walkmen?

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:41 (twenty-one years ago)

you mean the casual croon. i dont think even morrisey qualifies totally for this. the libertines sound somewhat drunk and lazy when they do it, as do the strokes.

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

The Felt guy

― sexyDancer, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

would bryan ferry fall into this category?

― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm waiting for totally limp-wristed high-pitched over-emotive Brit singers to come back into style. Y'know, of the 80s synthpop variety. Back when American teenagers inexplicably wet their pants over puffy-haired guys singing like girls. Altho judging by the Scissor Sisters vocal stylings, this revival may already be on the way...

― Shakey Mo Collier, Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:44 (twenty-one years ago)

Lawrence-from-Felt totally has this, only without the melody, and of course the Walkmen’s Hamilton Chatsworth Pilkington IV is working hard on developing it.

I feel the slightest bit old-fashioned liking this kind of thing, because I think at root it’s a desire to hear back through early pop-rock (maybe Merseybeat) and into actual pop-soul music, where you get the same effect: band playing simple constant backbeat while the singer croons sort of happy and arm-wavy with lots of melody and swing. Like I’m realizing right now that I can imagine Sam Cooke singing a lot of the first Strokes album, and it’d sort of be the greatest thing ever on the planet. (He’d take that “walking so I don’t have to drive” line down, not to mention opening the whole thing with a super-sweet “Is This It.”)

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:53 (twenty-one years ago)

And the "oh I" at the end of that line is totally Cooke-y!

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 18:58 (twenty-one years ago)

I can imagine Sam Cooke singing a lot of the first Strokes album

this makes me wanna barf.

― hstencil (hstencil), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:03 (twenty-one years ago)

this reminds me about that slowie on room on fire, which was basically a strokes'd out rip of smokey robinson's tears of a clown. a

― dickvandyke (dickvandyke), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:07 (twenty-one years ago)

xpost -

I'm working so I wont have to try so hard
Tables they turn sometimes, oh someday
I ain't wasting no more time

That's the lyric.

― Slim Pickens (Slim Pickens), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:09 (twenty-one years ago)

I like my ridiculous version better.

― nabisco (nabisco), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:14 (twenty-one years ago)

The guy from Razorlight suffers this affliction, although he sometimes just drops out into full-on Lou Reed speak-singing.

― Johnny Fever (johnny fever), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 19:17 (twenty-one years ago)

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