Beth Orton: Classic or Dud?

I was/am looking forward to seeing her live in November; the last time I saw her was after Daybreaker and she was good but it was a radio station sponsored show with a bunch of yahoos at it and the crowd really ruined it for me. HOWEVER: checked out some recent youtubes and wow her voice is in very very bad shape. It sounds rough on the album, but sandpaper rough, in a good way; but dare I say the clips I saw of her live she wounds significantly worse than even bryan ferry did live this week. Is this the effect of whatever medication she's started due to her epilepsy?

The last YouTube's I saw ahead of this new album was the tour with Mercury Rev where she sang all the Bobbie Gentry tracks, mostly from "The Delta Sweete" and she sounded fine there.

I really think her sightly ragged vocals on Weather Alive are what really make the album.

Slightly*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYH1JG-7Hj0

this isn't abjectly terrible, but she's displaying some significant degradation in her vocal abilities; there are some more recent ones with a band that are more troubling. some of it also seems kind of like nervousness (her hands seem to be trembling as well), so maybe this will improve as she plays out more again.

yeah on recent live videos her voice is very very rough. she made the it work on the album at least

“This is how I sing. This is my voice now,” she said. “This is who I am and this is what life has made of me.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/21/arts/music/beth-orton-weather-alive.html?smid=url-share&fbclid=IwAR04XuzWFeXkOcEivXxBfgQC2orGuFi6xDTeGCYYpwgchSmQJM0zs1pZBAc

Ach, paywalled

https://archive.ph/ivmzW

this isn't abjectly terrible, but she's displaying some significant degradation in her vocal abilities; there are some more recent ones with a band that are more troubling. some of it also seems kind of like nervousness (her hands seem to be trembling as well), so maybe this will improve as she plays out more again.

― akm, Saturday, October 1, 2022 11:51 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

i'm sorry but this is a bizarre post. she seems fully in control of her abilities in that video to me.

Has some good Marianne Faithfull vibes. Had me wanting to put on Destroyer’s “Kaputt” and some Blue Nile right after.

wow I love this album

it is something else. edged out the shearwater album in number of plays this year for me; they're very similar in ways.

Does the melody of 'Friday Night' remind anyone else of Springsteen's 'Incident on 57th Street?'.

I get Downtown Train

album of the year for sure

xxpost it's After the Gold Rush isn't it?

I hear ATG on (some of) the verses, and DT on the chorus; "well, I've been dreaming" certainly could be a deliberate nod to the former

amazing live show. i'd say catch it but apparently it was the last night of the tour

i lucked out and caught it on a complete whim. i was on a cross-town bus on my way home around 8pm, saw her name on the marquee through the window, got out at the next stop and bought a ticket

person sitting next to me was a middle-aged dude who'd also come alone, and had a bouquet of flowers in the seat next to him which he gave to beth when she took the stage. he sang along to all the older material and repeated "wow. superstar. wow" to himself in between each song

her band were incredible and completely adorable. beth is the cool gen x aunt leading a group of shaggy group of sick chops millenials

she played the whole new album, and a bunch of back catalogue stuff. took requests and played some stuff solo too. the last song of the encore was a super rocking version of "shopping trolley" off comfort of strangers, which she says she regrets never touring (since she "got preggo" right after it came out)

lovely write-up

I love the idea that someone might get so much enjoyment from an artist that they'd be thinking "Wow. Superstar. Wow", though I do wonder how the artist might feel about someone bringing flowers (not that practical, unless it was their home-town show ... and maybe not even then).

Note: love this album while not thinking of myself as a massive Beth Orton fan.

yeah I saw her SF show and it was excellent, and my concerns about her voice not quite holding up were mostly unfounded, I think it's gotten stronger with this tour and the new album held up surprisingly well when performed live.

Nice conversation between Beth and Alabaster DePlume: https://www.talkhouse.com/beth-orton-talks-with-alabaster-deplume-on-the-talkhouse-podcast/