Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me (RIP blogs)

im interested in getting to the bottom of what people hate so much about her voice--cuz its not like a "oh well shes always flat" or something right? like there is something about her tone that seems to cause some kind of visceral reaction in mordy and dan

xpost -- Fizzgig?

I think Regina Spektor singing Joanna Newsom's songs would be pretty great.

xp: For me, it is the extreme nasal tone combined with the baby lisping.

Alright Que, the cat made me laugh

have you listened to the new one dan? not saying youll like it--the affectations are a little toned down tho.

she mewls like a baby tiger

wo she couldn't get closer than THIS...

extreme nasal tone, and also her voice has a very sticky sounding character to me -- like almost mucous'y, like maybe her throat is coated in something.

part of it is that some people just hate the timbre of her voice, and that hatred is exacerbated by the words she's singing. some people also think her voice is an "affectation," which she talks about in that Erik Davis piece on Ys, i believe

Mark G wins

Like, if she didn't sing entirely through her nose 24/7 and she enunciated, I wouldn't be as bothered by the extreme reediness of her tone, but she does all of these things that make her voice less of an instrument and more of a laser weapon currently under investigation by the UN.

xp: Haven't heard the new one yet; if the affectations are toned down I would likely be able to pay more attention to what she's doing musically. From what I can tell she is a great musician with a voice I don't particularly want to ever hear.

i'm actually listening to this now...never heard her before.

it's not that bad actually...this first song reminds me of like "lionheart" era kate bush kinda when kate was more trad piano type production.

i'm not sure if i like it or i was just all hyped up totally hate it and now i'm kinda :/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Greq05zAS9g

okay YES this is much, much better (and hits on/changes pretty much everything I was complaining about)

there's def a strong "grain of the voice" with her, very bodily produced, and it sounds very fleshy and gross i think is the issue i have with it. like it sounds like all the gross bits of the body. her voice doesn't sound like it's coming from somewhere deep, and the things i love about voices (their thickness, lushness, the way they sound coming out of a mouth) are totally absent here.

haha h8rs coming around

screw Beth Ditto...imagine Beth GIBBONS singing these songs, Mr Perry

(anyone know a good hypnotist?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYl0uLrXP7U

I mean, there's no comparison IMO. In one, she's singing, in the other she's being tortured.

imagine Joanna Newsom singing Beth by Kiss

i mean so far this shit ain't that different from say this kate song:

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

^btw this clip is awesome <3

but actually now i'm listening and there's no comparing them as vocalists...kate is so fucking street real with her vocal talent, top 5 dead or alive...

but still i dunno it's not THAT far off in the continuum of music from like Candlemass to C&C Music Factory

yr setting her up for failure when you compare her to KB! but remember that shes only 3 albums into her career & still figuring out what she does

i heard she "does" unicorns

http://cdn3.libsyn.com/dsco/Have_One_on_Them.jpg?nvb=20100224173356&nva=20100225174356&t=0f142bc00ee9d126ea576

a bit of a hasty conclusion, but from what i've heard, her voice is much better on this disc.

(i've heard some of the NPR stream and the video embeds on this thread)

i hesitate to call it 'better' since i never had a problem with her voice on the other two albums. but yeah--its less... affected but no less unique. imo.

is this album any good

"less affected" is good enough for me as a description

kate is so fucking street real

oh word

is this album any good

― puff puff post (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Wednesday, February 24, 2010 12:48 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

ya it is

the only vocal stylings I have a problem with are the laddish affectations of British indie frontmen who throw in 'oh-oh-oh-ohhh' or 'yeeeeah' every other breath, in order to fill the space where a cutting lyrical sentiment could be, and doubtless to bolster the most thinly-veiled empty-head-onism youth, minor fame and a recording contract can buy. it is akin to watching a rapist pluck a dandelion for his next victim

i wonder what kind of monster you will be at 40

pluckage

wtf are you even talking about, lj

got y'all a dandelion

lj u are my boo

This kind of shit:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlMfV7A3V00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVLqo7C-WwA

All of the above are sex-offending morons.

Oh Christ.

If Joanna looked like Beth Ditto this thread would only have five messages posted to it.

― mottdeterre, Wednesday, February 24, 2010 11:44 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

ridiculous double reverse sexist garbage imo btw

CAD is OTM btw - that statement didn't get lampooned quite enough

What the album does contain is more than two hours of exquisitely beautiful songs over three discs, performed with a new singing voice after the old one quite literally disappeared.

Newsom developed vocal cord nodes in spring 2009, and all that came out when she opened her mouth “was like the hiss on opening a Coke can”. For two months she went around with a notebook, forbidden from singing, speaking or even crying. “In fact crying was the absolutely worst thing I could do to my voice. So I was constantly telling myself, don’t feel, don’t feel, don’t feel.” On recovering, she mourned when she realised that her old voice was never coming back, though she says she must give “full disclosure” and admit that further vocal modifications have been deliberate.

so yes this is going to convert a lot of h8rs--her voice is like totally different

Okay, no, sorry. You don't to call anyone "sexist" two posts after calling musicians you don't like sex offenders. Fuck off with that.

(xpost)

bless those nodes

anyway what I am saying is let JN sing how she goddamn pleases and try to keep your visceral reactions as a matter of personal taste and not an assault upon her character. the only genuinely offensive voices are those modulated to convey empty feeling, hence my post upthread

lol jon you do not understand - I get to do what I like, especially if on both occasions it's 'holding to account the objectification of women' - that issue doesn't have a subjective position IMO

Unless you have actual proof that those guys are sex offenders (and maybe they are, couldn't give a fuck about either of them enough to know) then, no, you don't get to toss that accusation out there for "holding to account the objectification of women".

anyway what I am saying is let JN sing how she goddamn pleases and try to keep your visceral reactions as a matter of personal taste and not an assault upon her character

I'm kind of curious about this, actually: when the objection to her voice is equiv. to 'the guitar on this record is never tuned' (which "she has really annoying tone colour, is nasal, is often flagrantly out of tune*" kind of is) is it really a personal reaction? aren't there kinds of immediate aesthetic judgement which aren't?

*cf. 'sadie', 'three little babes', 'inflammatory writ', 'yarn and glue'

But yes, her voice is miles better on this album, if you ask me. Love it.

it took me soooo long to adjust to ys because (among other things) i thought she'd started singing too 'well'

i dont know about the flagrantly out of tune bit, but "annoying" is definitely a "personal reaction"

I return to ILX to find that mildly caustic turns of phrase have been outlawed? Who's running this show? They're probably not *actual* sex offenders, certainly not convicted, but their music incites sexism. I'll forgive you for not giving a fuck because those songs weren't huge in the States, but they certainly were here, and from a feminist (read: sensible) perspective, that's worrying/problematic. The singers' mannerisms go a long way towards creating an atmosphere of sexual predation. Maybe you hear it completely differently.

Mr. West, whose name I am calling out because shit got heated enough, it is interesting, as long as you can provide an explanation as to why she is singing *WRONGLY*, as opposed to 'differently/uniquely/annoyingly'. What is she doing, that is 'wrong' and improvable? On a purely objective level? Bear in mind that 'often flagrantly out of tune' could well be an aesthetic choice, hence subjective, ditto 'nasal'.

The singers' mannerisms go a long way towards creating an atmosphere of sexual predation.

Quoted for absolute fucking ignorance. I mean, really, you honestly believe this shit? You aren't even worth debating with.

go pluck yourself