groups whose musical direction I can totally get behind, but whose style of vocals really puts me off

practically every rock group from 90s onward

haha didnt even see tracer hand's post!

Oh, probably Cake, too, although I haven't listened to much of their stuff specifically because of that. Dude's. Halt-ing. Cay-dence.

Ahhh yeah, all-right, hoooooo

basically everybody who's come along wanting to sing mournful sad-guy indie in the years since will oldham picked up a microphone

i do like will oldham tho

The National
Fucked Up
Deafheaven
Radiohead
Xiu Xiu

There's a new band/new album (Omni - Deluxe) that had me thinking this exact thing yesterday. I love the album but don't really like the vocals and couldn't remember the last time I felt that way. Typically, good vocals are a requirement for enjoyment of music.

Hot Chip, AIH, "whisker vocal" bands -- agreed. Couldn't ever get into Will Oldham because I hate that style of singing. Feels so contrived. But other "contrived" vocals are fine (punk, metal, whatever) - just not the lonely sad wilderness whittling-in-a-union-suit fellas.

Most good metal bands.

― Three Word Username, Tuesday, July 19, 2016 4:53 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^^^^otfm^^^^

also Radiohead, Deerhoof

Someone always has to mention Deerhoof. I don't think there's a more fitting vocalist for them really, I mean what's the alternative?

no vocals?

there really should be more instrumental rock bands. There are not nearly enough good singers and lyricists for all these bands.

The Smiths

"there really should be more instrumental rock bands."

the mention of Lambchop above. put on one of their CDs the other day and the music sounded great and then the singing started...

this is a lot of atmospheric indie bands for me. and yet i love Low, so, i dunno, it's just a preference thing.

Einsturzende Neubauten.

With HEALTH I took the vocals to be an exercise in contrast with the backing, much like early Cranes. The overall effect reminds me of some more propulsive Wire tracks with Colin Newman at the vocals.

I can't think of a single example of this

I guess RHCP are a bad band made fucking unforgivably abominable by their vocalist

I definitely get this a bit but I don't think I've had it that badly since late '90s/early '00s where there was a load of great electronic acts with awful vocals (I'm not talking about "indie-friendly electrodribble", this was a bit before that, and tbh I didn't hate all of that stuff).

(Although actually now I'm thinking about it I think it really depended on yr definition, there was a lot of that stuff that I did abhor.)

A.R. Kane - the vocals are so poor, I found the records unendurable.

everything go crazy now

I guess RHCP are a bad band made fucking unforgivably abominable by their vocalist

RHCP could be good if it wasn't for Kiedis. The guy is an absolute fucking nightmare. (Though, in counter to the quote that's always brought up as a joke at RHCP's expense, Nick Cave is a fucking awful singer, too, and I'd probably like the Bad Seeds a lot more if, say, Blixa had been the vocalist.)

http://imgur.com/a/wLInt

http://imgur.com/a/wLInt

Beastie Boys

I wouldn't say I can totally get behind their musical direction, but Gentle Giant.

rappers are kind of an outlier in that their vocal style and delivery are linked, though?

Wait what?

not sure where I was going with that, please disregard

It's probably not just his vocal style, but I realised the other day that the Chili Peppers would be a whole lot less punchable if they'd replaced Anthony Kiedis with someone who wasn't an extraordinarily untalented dickhead

New Order

saw them live recently, that guy's a poor singer

decent on record tho

i used to have this 80's new order live boot where he was just hilariously bad. it was funny. the vocals on the boot were way up front. sounded like the post-punk linda mccartney.

Talk Talk

― Iago Galdston, Tuesday, July 19, 2016

i like bobbie watson of comus, but boy she really wanders off pitch a lot.

the falsetto Whitney's lead vocalist does is for some reason v off putting to me

Neurosis
Bad Religion
Deerhoof

Hood

Gonjasufi

Nick Cave

Most good metal bands.

― Three Word Username, Tuesday, July 19, 2016 3:53 AM (nine months ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

My son keeps singing me songs which I like, then he tells me its by the Pumpkins and I recoil. Truth is I would like them if it weren't for that voice, which is odd, because I like quite a lot of singers my sons find unbearable: MES in particular.

Durutti Column

Yeah Billy Corgan is one of that strain of very talented rock musicians whoc should let go of a bit of ego and concentrate on writing and playing for better singers.

Like imagine if Siamese Dream had been sung by, I dunno, Layne Staley.

Joanna Newsom, hands down.

As much as I love Sun Kil Moon (before Mark went off the deep end around 2014), I can't ever seem to get over the fact that his voice makes him sound he's singing with a mouthful of food.

And Tobin Sprout's vocals don't put me off but I'm constantly amazed at how different he sounds when singing vs. talking. It's not that he just sounds like he's in a different register but instead like an entirely different person.

Durutti Column

― Wimmels, Tuesday, May 16, 2017 8:15 AM (one hour ago)

fp

television

Bent Knee.

They are probably awesome and of course she's a perfectly fine singer but I can never make it through a whole song for some reason.

From Autumn to Ashes

A lot of growly death/black/etc. metal, tbh. It's the vocals that put me off from listening to a lot of the stuff as much as I'd like, since it's the music that connects with me the most. The irony/contradiction is that I can't imagine listening to most of this type of metal *without* the vocals, and can't really imagine any style of music *other* than the growls! Maybe that's why I like Opeth so much, since he shifts back and forth between singing and growling, and the music is diverse/dynamic enough to support that.

Morrissey is a gold standard - and this was way before all his racist stuff.

That feels bizarre to me. Morrisey’s voice is key to my enjoyment of the Smiths. Otherwise they’d just be another jangle band.

Can we do songs? Any song in the past few years with guest vocals by John Cale or Iggy Pop are almost album-ruining.

Cate Le Bon's "Ride" (with Cale) from her latest is great

I don't think about it much now, and enjoy a lot of Smiths and Morrissey songs, but in the early 90s when I first learned about Morrissey/The Smiths, it was a pretty common (but definitely not universal) opinion that his vocals were obnoxious. Maybe, as Vinnie suggested, due to his melodic choices, but there's also something about his voice. I'm not schooled in vocal technique or anything like that, but his timbre is a little nasal while also being soft and soothing. To be uncharitable, it could sound like someone in the midst of a reverie of smelling his own farts.

A lot of great singers have normie detractors. Thinking of Dylan in particular.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVTzT3FmxhI

I don't really get the Morrissey/ XTC dislike tbh. I mean I can understand it but it's not like they're Sleaford Mods (lol).

except in a few ways lol

My first exposure to The Smiths (beyond “How Soon Is Now?” on the radio) was a blind purchase of Hatful. The run of “Handsome Devil” into “Hand In Glove” into “Still Ill” had me not-getting it— Morrissey’s voice is lovely but his melodies, especially on those early singles, are so meandering, and the lyrics were so weird and strange and clunky.

“Heaven Knows…”, like, the melody just vacillates between three boring notes and then he’s switching to falsetto on the end of the phrase to go “kick in the eye” or “spit in the eye” (lazy writing!) and I was like… is this a joke?

And then after a while I got it… it is a joke! and it’s a funny joke. Realizing that Morrissey is more comedian than singer made it click.

A lot of growly death/black/etc. metal

Brings to mind perhaps the only instance I've spontaneously raised elsewhere on this site:

The first two tracks are downright catchy in their wonkiness. I feel like I'm eventually going to be a massive fan of Jute Gyte when I finally come to appreciate 'metal vocals' more broadly ― Nag! Nag! Nag!, Friday, 7 May 2021

And I now see it's not the first time the dude has come up in *this* thread. Bless.