tUnE-yArDs

I feel like there are plenty of female singers out there with unpretty voices or aren't afraid to employ unpretty singing (some of whom are massively successful; hi dere Ke$ha, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Adele, Britney, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, etc etc etc)

(I include Taylor because, even though she was clearly told that she needed to sound as pretty and girlish as possible, she has a fucking horrible instrument and sounds like a farting flute)

all those voices are processed within an inch of their lives though. even if they don't have good instruments, the producers make them sound accessible/acceptable *enough*.

would say that ke$sha, katy perry, taylor swift and britney rely a great deal more on prettiness of sound (and pretty-girlyness of pop identity) a whole lot more than MG. not that that's a bad thing...

oh, and nabisco OTM

plus, their voices aren't what sell the records and concert tickets. it's the image, sex appeal, songs that sound radio-ready, etc.

unrelatedly, this record is awesome and stuff

i like the first record a little better cuz the songwriting seems more thought-out and the fact that it's just her makes it feel more personal. but the second one is great fun.

whoever's playing bass i like it a lot, what that person is doing: it grounds a lot of the chaos

tho the chaos of it is also totally great and fun and awesome in its own right

love this record

xposts but whatever

I would say the women I listed rely more on pop music than MG. The biggest gulf between them in terms of vocal production, based on the songs I've heard, is that ty songs use more vocal effects in the backing music.

Hearing Ke$ha and Katy Perry sing during live performances reveals that the weird, offputting-to-some things going on in their voices are not a result of vocal processing or autotuning; it's how their voices work. Also, no one really wants to hear Ke$ha singing outside of her niche, which is pop dance screamfests. Britney didn't actually have the ability to sing ballads until recently, which makes it kind of funny that all of her recent singles rely heavily on turning her into a sound effect (where her weird duck quack is more effective, anyway).

I am not denying that there isn't a shit-ton going on in ty songs, because there clearly is. The voice singing lead, particularly the voice bellowing out "The Bizness", is not nearly as far removed from our current crop of pop singers as the backing music would lead you to believe. Hell, nowadays Bjork isn't far removed from our current crop of pop singers; she probably could have a top ten hit if she threw some more sound effects into "Big Time Sensuality" and rereleased it as a single.

I mean you all are acting like she's Diamanda Galas or something

(as a related aside: someone posted a picture of merrill from a meredith monk concert the other night. i was happy to see those two worlds collide.)

I get that "girls singing pretty" is kind of the standard MO but there are um quite a LOT of women who don't do this and she's hardly unique in that respect.

I dunno how I feel about this, it's alternately irritating and interesting, usually with equal measure. I have worked with her engineer/studio tho and they are great so I'm glad they're getting some high profile (well, relatively) exposure.

Joanna Newsome, Kim Gordon (or any number of riot grrrl bands for that matter), Diamanda, Bjork, etc

I never listened to more than a few clips from the first record - I think I was scared off by the lo-fi-ness of it - but this new album connected with me right away. A reference point which hasn't been mentioned yet is the work of Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess - you've got the experimental vocal loops, fake "world music", and playing with gender expectations - also the Oakland connection.

whoever's playing bass i like it a lot, what that person is doing: it grounds a lot of the chaos

bass player nate brenner gets cowriting credit on many of the strongest songs (gangsta, bizness, you yes you, killa)

btw, I am listening to "You Yes You" right now and I think it is much better than "The Bizness", largely because she's not bellowing the entire time, which makes the moments where she moves into that mode mean something.

I get that "girls singing pretty" is kind of the standard MO but there are um quite a LOT of women who don't do this and she's hardly unique in that respect.

yeah, of course. i just meant that musically speaking and relative to the likes of katy perry and taylor swift, i don't hear much attempt to sound pretty or to cultivate a pretty girl's pop image in this. doesn't make MG unique, but given the extremes to which it's taken, i'd say that there's a bravery in it. that joy-in-fearlessness is infectious, and it's one of the things i like best about this album.

i don't hear much attempt to sound pretty

I am listening to "Wooly Wolly Gong" right now and it (and much of "You Yes You") is making a total liar out of you.

(PS: after a massive negative reaction to "The Bizness" I am warming up to what I am listening to on Youtube)

"Doorstep" also

well okay. i'm talking about her use of voice and persona cultivation overall. she covers so much ground, though, that, yeah, she's got a ton of lovely moments along the way.

comma

"Killa" too

So poking around 5 songs on this album, 4 of them prominently feature pretty singing, but because she brays on the single everyone is focusing on how ugly she can make her voice; why is this?

(I have a theory but it's not the most charitable one in the world)

"My Country" has more support for the harsher-edged vocals than "The Bizness", or maybe I'm just used to them now

but yeah, not in the pretty singing bucket, except for the backing vocal loop bits, but the music is fucking great

oh but she backs off and goes up into head voice before the sax bits, that's lovely

(itt DJP liveblogs a slow 180 on a snap judgment)

"Doorstep" is the one I fell in love.

also: wtf Dan -- still with the Swift hate after Speak Now?

she has always and will always suck

if she wants me to like her, she should stop singing and let someone else do her material

don't wanna derail thread but listen to "Mean" and tell me if what she's doing isn't appropriate to the song she's singing.

djp your thoughts on what is technically going on in records are always grebt and worthwhile, and more of that on this album would be awesome

of the ones you haven't mentioned 'gangsta' has some shrillness, and one of the others - i don't have the titles fixed in my head yet - has an out-of-time bit with the most outright yelling on the record (the one where she goes THERE IS A FREEDOM IN VIOLENCE I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAND)

whoever's playing bass i like it a lot, what that person is doing: it grounds a lot of the chaos

Nate Brenner - he's Merrill's bf

btw, I am listening to "You Yes You" right now and I think it is much better than "The Bizness", largely because she's not bellowing the entire time, which makes the moments where she moves into that mode mean something.

totally cosign: and from what i've gathered about the meaning or themes or whatever of this record, what she's doing musically maps pretty directly onto what's going with that -- buttt even though i usually listen to stuff in a pretty logocentric way this record has been making me go WHAT THE HELL THIS IS AWESOME

AWESOME

the whole time that i've been listening to it, and as such i'm further from having some idea of what it's all About than i would normally to something i've been listening to a lot

xpost - thanks sarahel (& contenderizer); that is sweet and makes me happy for them

he's a good guy. He's played in a lot of jazz groups.

"Gangsta" is a groove and a half, and again she's switching back and forth between chest and head voice with a lot of mix between light and heavy in the vocal interjections in the background. Also, the vocal pyrotechnics and studio tricks really work well as wordpainting for the lyrics.

One of the things I am really digging is her usage of accidentals in the melody lines; there are points where she has lines that end on diminished or augmented notes that really spice up proceedings.

(the one where she goes THERE IS A FREEDOM IN VIOLENCE I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAAAAAND)

this is "Riotriot", which is also chock-full of extremely tender singing

i don't disagree with that, or with the idea that there's a lot of tender singing on the record: that just came to mind as one of the most pointedly not tender moments. (although the bit of music which immediately follows THERE IS A FREEDOM IN VIOLENCE is actually a pretty tight and controlled dynamic shift, not a woah loose and noisy one. which i like about it, but, i mean, i like everything about this record.)

I just feel like, in comparison, the bellowing she does on "The Bizness" is almost wholly out of step with what I'm hearing on the other songs aside from "Gangsta", which is constructed in a manner where the bellowing makes sense to me. Within context, the loud bit in "Riotriot" makes sense and isn't nearly as egregious as "The Bizness", which basically makes me feel like she's yelling at me for something someone else did.

obv I am overstating the yelling on "The Bizness" because it happens on every held note in the song, and that is what makes it overbearing and wearying

responses to "the bizness" are funny, cuz it was one of the tracks i liked best first off the bat, but not my immediate favorite. only became my favorite after a bunch of spins, and has since been supplanted (owne OTM). everyone else i've played the song/album for (bunches!) has immediately either loved or hated that song, no middle ground.

as an aside, re: "pretty"

even at it's most tender & gentle, there's an enthusiastic roughness in merrill's singing that prevents me from reading it as an attempt to project a pretty self (prettiness as something superficial and distinct from beauty, which admits pain, anger, ugliness - basically every human thing and feeling).

she seems, musically, to revel in her own rawness, "realness", funky warts-and-all earthiness. kind of a hippie thing?

you know that "pretty" has multiple definitions, one of which is "pleasing by delicacy or grace", right

yeah, basically - connotatively, that delicacy and grace being a surface maintained for social purposes.

Um, no. That is not the connotation, or rather not the only connotation.

There's more than a little bit of "indie pity party" going on here that I think is a total disservice to the actual music.

like, if you can't handle the idea that Katy Perry hollers just as much if not more than Merrill Garbus, you should probably spend less time watching videos and more time listening to what people are actually doing

to take it a bit farther, prettiness is a pose, a craft, a defined space, and typically a safe one. beauty is less circumscribed, much less circumspect, not at all safe.

if it isn't obvious, i'm using these words as they suit me

maybe you should try using them how everyone else who speaks English uses them, then people would spend less time in these discussions yelling at you and questioning your intelligence

if you can't handle the idea that Katy Perry hollers just as much if not more than Merrill Garbus, you should probably spend less time watching videos and more time listening to what people are actually doing

that's presumptive, snide and beneath you. i can "handle" the idea that katy perry hollers. i think she hollers differently, to different effect, for different aesthetic reasons. moreover, she positions her hollering in her music differently.

But... she doesn't! That is my entire point!