tUnE-yArDs

"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!

wtf happened here?

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

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:52 PM (59 seconds ago) Bookmark

and you could be a bit more intellectually generous and curious, rather than simply jumping to combative conclusions

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

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:53 PM (38 seconds ago) Bookmark

i get that we view this differently, but that's no reason to turn this into a flame war

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.

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 1:49 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

conflict aside, i'm curious about this. what does "indie pity party" mean here?

The aesthetic difference is in the way the songs are built, not in the way the singers are singing them. You could swap their material and get very credible cover versions from both of them because their voices work in very similar ways; there is a lighter, prettier head voice and a bigger, meatier growly chest voice with a decent amount of rasp.

xp: It means people are casting Merrill as the put-upon plain girl bursting out of her shell in a wall of fury, something a pretty princess like Katy Perry could never understand. It is a wholly adversarial, reactionary position meant to delineate the music as extra-special and intrinsically worthier than the pop counterparts of similar voice to her.

and you could be a bit more intellectually generous and curious, rather than simply jumping to combative conclusions

It would be easier to not be combative if you would stop using "I am going to redefine your words to suit my argument" as a rhetorical style and would just say what you mean.

Just wrapped up my first full listen and, yep, feeling pretty ashamed for my offhand dismissal of her based on the painted face promo pics and beyond stupid bandname. This is a pretty fun record.

there is a lighter, prettier head voice and a bigger, meatier growly chest voice with a decent amount of rasp.

that describes a lot of female vocalists though!

people are casting Merrill as the put-upon plain girl bursting out of her shell in a wall of fury, something a pretty princess like Katy Perry could never understand. It is a wholly adversarial, reactionary position meant to delineate the music as extra-special and intrinsically worthier than the pop counterparts of similar voice to her.

you're projecting a great deal of that, and i think the projection is distorting this conversation. i'm talking to some extent about how voices are used technically, but also about how that technical use relates to artistic aesthetics and persona. subject matter, production and arrangement are inseparable from this. that said, i don't think that katy ever allows her recorded voice to sound as raw, gritty and shrill as merrill's. that's not to fault KP in any way. i like her music and i like pop. if i'm wrong here, show me how. in any event, please don't angrily berate me for what you only imagine i'm saying.

It would be easier to not be combative if you would stop using "I am going to redefine your words to suit my argument" as a rhetorical style and would just say what you mean.

― I HAVE ISSUES (DJP), Friday, May 20, 2011 2:02 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark

well, they weren't really your words, to be fair. get bent brought up the "brave enough to be unpretty" argument, which i see some merit in, but comes close to the sort of indie privileging you object to.

i'd like to think i don't redefine words to suit my arguments. i'd like to think that words are a lot more complex and interesting than we often give them credit for. i spend a lot of time thinking about words, and sometimes use them in personal ways without thinking about how well my meaning is going to come across. i'm also a bit slow to process, to understand the semantic tangles that cause confusion. but if you work with me, i think you'll find i'm more cooperative than competitive in these sorts of discussions.

xp to sarahel: I know, that is part of my wider point! Specifically between Katy Perry and Merrill Garbus, while I don't think they have the exact same voice, there are strong similarities; Merrill's is "bluesier" than Katy's but not to a degree where I think it would be that off for either of them to try singing the others' songs. Another parallel would be Adele but I don't think she has the lightness of touch to pull off the quieter ty material, whereas Merrill could basically stomp all up and down all over anything Adele's recorded.

Having said all that, I am more than certain Merrill has more control over her voice than Katy; a cursory search of live performances will bear that out. However, that same cursory search will show quite a lot of grittiness, shrillness, and just flat-out weirdness in the way Katy Perry sings, not all of which makes it onto record but can certainly be heard (for example) in the vocal mood shifts on "Teenage Dream" or the about-to-bust-a-chord yelling on the chorus of "Firework" or even the transition from shouty shouty to held head voice on the bridge to "I Kissed a Girl". I'm not arguing that it is as extreme or that it is a carbon copy; I'm arguing that it is there in the first place. Merrill is very very good at what she is doing, but it isn't the way she's using her voice as a lead instrument that makes her unique; it's the way she's using it as overdubbed backing instruments that makes her unique.

but it isn't the way she's using her voice as a lead instrument that makes her unique; it's the way she's using it as overdubbed backing instruments that makes her unique.

true. And that's not even unique - as others have mentioned upthread. The rawness, un-prettiness (if you will), is pretty common in avant-folk music, it's a signifier of authenticity and sincerity, etc. But it's difficult for me to separate Katy Perry's voice from the insipid cheerleader anthems she sings.

I think that, if you do, you will marvel and boggle at how a voice like that became one of the most successful pop stars of the past few years because it is a very STRANGE instrument, even in a world where Britney Spears can quack her way into millions of dollars.

she's on the cover of Vanity Fair in a low cut gown ...

Merrill is very very good at what she is doing, but it isn't the way she's using her voice as a lead instrument that makes her unique; it's the way she's using it as overdubbed backing instruments that makes her unique.

OTM. wasn't trying to attribute any great uniqueness to MP's lead singing, just describing it. i think i hear the chorus to "firework" as a good deal less shrill & jarring than you do (or else you hear "the bizness" as less so than i), but accept the general similarities.

like my first exposure to Katy Perry's singing was while staying with a friend in Brooklyn, and he watched a youtube of hers because he'd seen pictures of her and figured it would at least be a visually appealing experience.

i'm still kind of baffled, honestly, by the turn this thread took

well, when you party with uh-us ...

I got combative when you redefined pretty to inherently mean shallow, which effectively was putting words in my mouth, and then used that as a springboard to argue against a strawman position ("I think there is a lot of shallow, vacuous singing on here that has all of the hallmarks of these pop singers I listed earlier") that was nothing like what I actually said ("I think people are overselling the strangeness of Merrill's voice, particularly in an era when a bunch of weird-sounding women are multi-platinum pop stars AND when she doesn't nearly as much on the other songs on the album as she does on the lead single")

the word "bellow" is missing from that post, feel free to insert it where you think it is appropriate