Yo P&J, I'm really happy for you, Imma let you finish, but ILX had the greatest 2009 poll of all time! All time! (2009 ILX Trax Poll Results: TOP TEN TODAY)

otm

seconded

thats fine, the reason i was gettin all snipeylike was bc i was actually interested in hearing him have an opinion that was more coherently connected with what he was talking abt. Like im all for immovable and contrary opinions and i totes agree that if we were all sliding around on some scale with no biases etc to base ourselves on then there would be no position to speak 4om.

Like I take your point and all tho

im glad nobody knows that im a singer so that when i say "holy fuck that lady cant sing" peeps dont get all freaked out and indignant

FYI i am biased against unicorns

that girls song is still really awesome btw

The thing that's kind of hilarious to me about this whole argument is that a group of ppl asked me to explain what I was talking about, I did, and then an entirely unsurprising completely different group of ppl started going "oh shut up about perfect singing, no one cares" when, you know, the point I was making wasn't really about perfect singing as much as it was explaining what I was hearing, how I was reacting to it, and what change would be necessary to get rid of that reaction.

I don't think they are trying to make a name for themselves via microtuning (ie, singing intervals smaller than half-steps) so I don't buy that as part of their aesthetic; even if it is, they aren't very consistent about sticking to it so I'd still find their execution lacking. There's clearly some level of R&B-style vocal proficiency being flaunted here otherwise the vocal line wouldn't have as many melismas in it. The harmonization choices are decidedly not-R&B and are very cool in theory, I just wish they were in tune.

Having said all that, as I mentioned several posts ago and stated when I first heard the song, I like the other components of that song a lot and they've started winning me over to it.

So IKR, the thing I'm reacting to here is that you are taking one negative thing that said about a song and extrapolating that into a blanket condemnation of the song, then contrasting that to a gut-level reaction to the wholly bizarre Joanna Newsom where I was still too busy laughing to say much one way or the other about her vocally to say I am attempting to have my cake and eat it to regarding vocals, when the simple truth is that I don't have one rigid standard to which I hold singers (outside of a baseline "that sounds like it really hurts, hope you can sustain yr career" opinion re: vocal production); it does actually vary based on genre, context within genre, and what I think I can discern of the artist's intent. Most of this is me using musical vocabulary to express an emotional reaction ("I like this"/"I hate this"); some of this is me acknowledging talent when I don't like the end result, or recognizing where someone is breaking conventional singing wisdom but doing something I like.

I am really tired of people acting like I am attempting to legislate what they are supposed to like and dislike when I talk about singing, or answer people's questions about singing technique. I'm talking about what I like and what I don't like, just like everyone else.

good post

tl;dr

lol

(and another reason why I don't make posts like that very often is that I mostly post when I am waiting for something to run or compile, so I try to be curt more than I try to be expansive, so sorry for not fully fleshing out why I was reacting so negatively earlier)

i still remember listening to front line assembly with dan and how he would drone on about the majesty of the lead singers technical acumen, dont believe his lies

hey dont knock bill leeb

(I will totally cop to being dogmatic about "if you are a pop/r&b singer, than you should be able to sing like one" tho, because it irritates the shit out of me when ppl who can't carry a basic tune make careers out of being singers, but even there it's not a hard-and-fast dogma, ie by that logic I should hate Lumidee, but I don't.)

yeah, like i said i was genuinely trying to engage you in being more expansive, and tbh i was making my point in a really confused way that ended up conflating what i was understanding from you with a general feeling i get abt ppl using "weird" styles of singing as a way to be dismissive of them.

haha I wish, in these discussions, that more people knew/would remember that I am a massive industrial head and my favorite band features vocals by Robert Smith, or that I've spent most of the past year talking about how amazing The Knife/Fever Ray is, as that might ratchet down the dogma accusations somewhat; I don't have a problem at all with "weird" styles if I think they work

^^this is what i keep saying when people accuse me of wanting everyone to sing like m.carey

i always totally appreciate dan's professional pov, obviously - can be really useful to learn what technical reasons may be behind my like/dislike of a voice - though when it comes to points of disagreement like cassie or ciara i just ignore them.

yah but in the partic case of this dirty projectors i think they do work, like i think the point is that its got a flavour of mainstream rnb pop vocals abt it, but i mean they're obv comparatively ragged and strained but like equally the music is more anemic and dischordant than most rnb tries to be, also like, it is indie rock

I wouldn't call the music "anemic" at all; that beat is very strong and not really all that indie to me. In fact, not having heard anything else by them, I would not have blinked twice had someone told me that they were a British R&B group who'd listened to a lot of RZA and Prince Paul productions.

my favorite band features vocals by Robert Smith

Prince & the Revolution features vocals by Robert Smith? That's news to me!

Totally kidding, Dan, obviously you were referring to Korn + Robert Smith:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67BXnd8vNuM

see the funny thing about all of this is that the most bothersome thing about the DP song is the wheedly guitar twinkles in the first half, which were driving me slowly mad

(xp) Like, maybe it has a completely different effect in the context of their other songs, but on its own there is nothing self-consciously indie rock about "Stillness Is A Move" to my ears in terms of how the music sounds, how it's arranged, the way the voices sound or the lines they're singing. Maybe in the way the reverb on the drums is recorded; they're a little on the crisp side compared to most R&B/hip-hop productions I can think of at the moment.

This is way more "classical music nerds do R&B" to me than "indie kids do R&B", which likely colors how I react to the singing.

I'm kind of scared to even write out Prince, maybe John took that away from me, too ;_;

^_^ yay

This is way more "classical music nerds do R&B" to me than "indie kids do R&B", which likely colors how I react to the singing.

― PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! PIES! (HI DERE), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 9:44 PM (2 minutes ago)

is pretty otm tho, i mean the rest of the album is "classical music nerds do a talking heads covers album"

also if u heard the guy singing you wouldnt really be hating on the chicks voices one bit in comparison

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFdZH9R1n-4&NR=1

I haven't heard him sing a note yet and I want to kill him

Joanna Newson vs. Dave Longstreth FITE!!!1

Newsom* obv.

What is very strange about this thread is that with all the shit being thrown around, Bob Dylan can walk straight through the middle of it singing a fucking song about Santa and no-one bats an eyelid.

that's because Bob Dylan is fucking awesome

i really thought he was gonna take his hat off at the end of that vid, and it would turn out the hair was attached in a cunning hairhatwig style.

enjoyed dr. c (&others) running down their first impressions btw, don't think i said that upthread

I think this is going a bit far. I do basically buy your premise here - Taylor Swift is your best friend who helps you sort out your situation by reminding you of stuff you already know, and Lady Gaga is definitely NOT that. But I think the fandom for her is still more visceral than you suggest, for many people... if Swift is best friend, Gaga is platonic girl crush. People want to BE her because she's so COOL and gets away with doing strange and wonderful things that you are too shy and ordinary to do (until you go to college and join some burlesque troupe or whatever). The details of what those things are - the bewildering forest of her "aesthetic self-construction" - provide lots of interest and give you something to link to almost daily on Facebook ("Grammy dress! heart gaga").... but people think she's *awesome*, not just intellectually interesting, etc.

This was ages ago but, firstly, me saying that Gaga's greatness is premised on the unmistakeable Gaga-esque-ness of her aesthetic isn't the same as saying people can't have an emotional and personal connection with her - and i basically agree with everything above.

Secondly, yeah, a friend chided me by saying "but isn't "Just Dance" about a totally relateable IRL situation" and it is, which is one of the reasons I qualified my comment by saying "(best) songs" - I think that Gaga has improved immensely perhaps precisely because she has cut the awkward ties between her larger-than-life persona and her initial run of relateable ordinary-experience pop songs; this is the big difference b/w "Just Dance" or "Eh Eh" and basically everything on The Fame Monster.

Re "Stillness Is The Move", I heard it before I'd read or heard anything about it, and while it struck me as the work of an indie group with their ears open, it would never have occurred to me to think of it as an R&B song.

What is very strange about this thread is that with all the shit being thrown around, Bob Dylan can walk straight through the middle of it singing a fucking song about Santa and no-one bats an eyelid.

I lolled

singing a fucking song about Santa

I don't want to hear about Santa fucking, thanks very much.

this is a fucking song
a song in which to fuck

ho ho ho ho

I think that Gaga has improved immensely perhaps precisely because she has cut the awkward ties between her larger-than-life persona and her initial run of relateable ordinary-experience pop songs; this is the big difference b/w "Just Dance" or "Eh Eh" and basically everything on The Fame Monster.

this is a tempting thing to agree with, then i remembered about "telephone" which is amazing but surely the most quotidian of all

I still lol that Lady Gaga had Beyonce guest on a reworking of "Bugaboo"

still blows my mind tbh that people hate on longstreth's voice, it's reall special i think, and basically one of the strongest in popular indie besides like antony?

Hearing Antony is a great way to put me off listening to music for the rest of the night/week/month.

that's because Bob Dylan is fucking awesome

that album made my Xmas - everyone who hears it loves it

yeah even my grandfather who stopped fucking w/dylan when he went electric really like it

Actually I love "Just Dance" now more than I did in 2008.

for a moment i read that as QE II's grandpa chiming in and "Just Dance" was a Bob Dylan song

also if u heard the guy singing you wouldnt really be hating on the chicks voices one bit in comparison

― plaxico (I know, right?), Wednesday, February 3, 2010 1:52 PM Bookmark

dave longstreth is why bitte orca is basically unlistenable

i love bitte orca but you have to admit it's kind of a vocal feat to be that breathy and that whiny at the same time