HAIM

cosign the mention of hynde; I keep thinking of back on the chain gang when I listen to these guys

"that don't quite have the vocal chops or lead-singer charisma to pull off the polished style they're attempting to inhabit."

welcome to american indie rock. where you been?

think they are okay vocally though. better than some. amateurish at times but they have some personality. quirkiness. tricks. tics.

vocals not lacking in chops at all imo. show me a slicker 2013 album

also i definitely don't think there's any relying on amateurishness as an artistic quirk going on here

didn't say that. said the vocals sounded amateurish at times (in an indie way, so, really just kinda par for the course) but that they had personality which manifested itself in quirks/tics/tricks. they do stuff with the lyrics. vocally. its not some flat recitation. which i dig.

"welcome to american indie rock. where you been?"

Funny you should bring up Dinosaur Jr... Seriously, though: subpar vocalist put to good use in dynamic and "sloppy" music vs. subpar vocalist in band attempting to play shiny '80s-indebted pop/rock. One works for me and the other doesn't... As much as I try to deny it, I'm a bit of a Carduccian at heart. But I do have plenty of time for this sound when I think it's beautifully and convincingly done.

x-post - flopson, I don't think there's an attempt to use the amateurishness as quirk either, and thank Christ for that. It just doesn't quite cut it for me. It's just... flat.

Haha, "flat"... Not a flat recitation, but the overall performance falls a bit flat.

steely dan

I can't wait to listen to this record

Funny how just reading the words "steely dan" in print can make me feel better

said the vocals sounded amateurish at times (in an indie way, so, really just kinda par for the course)

ok well, still disagree. what is typically indie about the vocal style? i put this album on the other day & my roommate said it sounded like poppy modern country

"subpar vocalist in band attempting to play shiny '80s-indebted pop/rock."

i hate this too. it doesn't feel right to me. or sound right. people think they can tackle anything, but they are wrong about that a lot. you have to crawl before you walk or whatever.

Nothing worthwhile has ever been said about music while using the word "chops".

"You can grow up to be ANYTHING you want!"

Please don't conflate my argument with some sort of virtuosity fetishism...

Although I AM listening to Go by Paul Chambers right now. Those are some chops on display.

i don't get what's subpar about the vocals. i didn't even know haim were considered an indie band. maybe being rated on pitchfork made them retroactively indie, & therefore their vocals retroactively subpar? they seem like unusually good musicians/chops in that company

Maybe "chops" isn't quite the right word. It's just that, there's a certain command, a certain gravitas (not as seriousness but just as presense/charisma) in something like "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" that HAIM just blatantly (to me at least) does not have. Not a bit.

do any other contemporary acts have that, iyo? which ones?

Man this thread got boring

vee dubs

"do any other contemporary acts have that, iyo? which ones?"

Indie acts? Or anything?

haim

not metal ones xp

someday a real rain will come

it's more reminiscent of indie singersongwriter stuff vocally than indie rock but indie all the same. there are a million women who put out quirky/poppy albums on tiny labels and that's kinda what they remind me of. they just have the indie-rock 80's synth/pop/rock thing going on that is all the rage. or has been the rage for years now. so they are kind of a hybrid of different indie genres. to me.

x-post

Neko Case is the first singer who came to mind, but I'll think of someone less obviously "chops"-y.

Why you bored, whiney?

as someone who listens to a lot of quirky/poppy albums from tiny labels this doesn't remind me of that at all. I think more of people like Sheryl Crow or Jennifer Paige (especially "If I Could Change Your Mind") or yes, Fleetwood Mac at times. honestly this should have come out 15 years ago, there'd be much less hand-wringing.

i think they're okay though. like i have said. would be fine to hear on the radio, i guess. not really my thing though. i tend to prefer dance /r&b pop on the radio. the radio sucks SO bad here. ugh. impossible sometimes to hear anything worth hearing. there are, like, three country stations here. for some reason.

xp yeah katherine otm

i meant non-indie rock tiny labels. or small labels. i used to get all those promos from vanguard and they put out stuff like jesca hoop and the living sisters and the watson twins and none of that stuff would be described as indie rock but it wasn't folk and it wasn't any one thing. and there are lots of local performers who make music like that. sorta npr-ish with a kate bush twist.

Katherine: yeah, but this band 15 years ago would have been Reel Big Fish or something.

Maybe "chops" isn't quite the right word. It's just that, there's a certain command, a certain gravitas (not as seriousness but just as presense/charisma) in something like "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" that HAIM just blatantly (to me at least) does not have. Not a bit.

How strange that a woman in her early 20s wouldn't have the gravitas of experience behind her vocal delivery of a woman in her early 30s.

(and i ended up liking that stuff too. i loved that watson twins album and the one jesca hoop album.) i just want a new nina nastasia album.

brenda lee had a friggin' ton of gravitas when she was 12. some people are born with gravitas. stevie wonder had it. people were older in the old days though.

sorta npr-ish with a kate bush twist.

That's harsh. I know I was just making Kate Bush comparisons as a positive, but still. . .

Nina Nastasia is great. DJP, huh? Plenty of singers have displayed those characteristics when in their early '20s. I only brought up Cyndi because she was brought up earlier in the thread (and that song was recorded when she was barely 30, maybe even 29).

Agreed with Scott re: gravitas as well--some have it, some don't. It's just just "gravitas of experience"

I'm sorry, I meant it's NOT just "gravitas of experience"

I have to admit I'm disappointed that this is probably my favorite album of the year, because I don't think it's good enough to deserve that spot. Also, I don't generally like what I've heard of their vocals in live clips, but I think the vocals sound better than typical indie in the studio recordings.

(Still says more about the extent of my listening, my budget, etc. than anything else.)

Although this is ILM and I fully expect to be nailed to the cross for making allusion to some sort of "x-factor" or talent that can't be proven by science or labored argumentation.

i just find it curious that suddenly they are an indie band with all the attendant cliche'd dismissals of indie bands. this thread was started 10 months ago and the first post referring to them as "indie" was a quote from the dero review.

oh man I've waited all my life for a band doing Jennifer Paige's "Crush" with programmed tribal drums.

How are you using the term "gravitas", because both Brenda Lee and Little Stevie Wonder sound like children which is the exact opposite of what I think of when I think of "gravitas"

gravitas is rockist obv

I just wiki-ed it to make sure I was using it properly... "Gravitas was one of the Roman virtues, along with pietas, dignitas and virtus. It may be translated variously as weight, seriousness and dignity, also importance, and connotes a certain substance or depth of personality."

That pretty much works for me, especially the "connotes a certain substance or depth of personality"

I'm kind of a rockist. Sorry.

I wiki-ed "Chollopitas," one of the Roman virtues. It may be translated variously.