Why can't anybody sing any more?
I try to listen to new music with open ears, so when I popped the latest Word CD in my player just now, I just let it run without reading the track list. Despite quite a few musically and lyrically interesting bits and pieces, two tracks stood out a mile as being the only ones with DPVs (dead proper vocals) on them. Who were they? Those upcoming young whippersnappers Al Green and Little Feat, that's who.
Are the only people who can sing properly these days the ones who've been at it for 35 years or more?
All the other vocals on that CD sound so flat - not in the out-of-tune sense (vee haff machines for that now), but in the bland, emotionally barren, unengaging sense of the word.
[Ducks incoming storm of ballistic beer cans. . . but come on, you know what I mean.]
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I know what you mean Archie
......though oddly enough to these ears the Feat track is that rare item, a distinctly average track number for them. Pefectly played of course, but slightly leaden sounding and how I miss Lowell's vocal - if Vince Gill is on it then he is well below par - normally he can outsing anyone from 20 paces.
Apparently it was. . .
Sam Clayton and Craig Fuller on that track.
I know what you mean about the averageness, and the Al Green isn't really up to Hi-years scratch, either, but, hey, we have to be thankful for what we can get.
I find the current vocal stylings
...of the likes of Kate Nash and Jack Penate HUGELY irritating - that slightly off-key spoken word thing just grates.
And I'm bored with playing 'spot the auto-tune', it's so ubiquitous it's not fun anymore...
I'm with you
The landfill indie brigade don't seem to bother with a singer, they just get the least tone deaf musician in the band to mumble the lyrics into the mic half the time. The voice is the most important instrument in the whole band to get right, but this seems to pass many bands by. A lot of white singers seem to be scared of just opening their mouths and belting it out. A fat lot of good that attitude would have done Janis, Cap'n B, Stephen Tyler etc.
They even do this while wearing heroes who produced considerably better vocals on their sleeves. Oasis are a a little obsessed with The Beatles and Slade. Can anyone find me a Gallagher vocal which comes within a country mile of Twist and Shout, Happiness is a Warm Gun or Get Down and Get With it?
Kids these days
Know what you mean about the landfill indie bands. I was listening to Radio 2 the other day and they played The Kooks. The singer has this horrible, mannered voice which is really annoying. Then they played this . . .
Steve Ellis was 17/18 when he made this record. The band were young and unpolished (because there was a big orchestra involved, thus the potential for huge costs if there were any mistakes, only reliable session musicians played on their singles) but I don’t think they’d have been allowed to make a record at all if the singer was as poor as a lot of the indie band wretches these days.
Yours Fuming.
Colonel Bufton Tufton
These are beautilful Archie
and
This is...
...one of the reasons why I mostly listen to music from the 50s, 60s and 70s! Certainly, vocalists in British rock bands in particular have been- for want of a better word- crap for years in my opinion. Personally, I really loathe the voices of Luke Pritchard, Alex Turner (comparing that Last Shadow Puppets thing to Scott Walker- heaven forbid!!) and Kate Nash. There is a school of thought, however, which suggests they are somehow more 'authentic', and I don't get that.
I think they mean. . .
singing pretty much how they talk - which is about as interesting as dancers dancing pretty much how they walk.
May I...
suggest the wonderful Ida Maria?
You want something not bland, emotional and engaging? For my money the best song on the radio 1 and 6music playlist at the moment.
Scarlett
I'm with you Archie. A perfect example is Ms Johanssen, whose voice has zero range, no depth and is flat for almost the whole record. I have played bits of the record to people and without exception everyone thinks it's awful. Yet a lot of critics (including Word) thought it was wonderful. Twenty years ago I don't think it would have made it past Quality Control.
The shame is that some of them can actually sing...
I suspect, however, they are told to up the affectation and down the natural. I caught an odd saturday a.m. accoustic music programme recently, with lots of (harumph) young people doing their stuff without all the studio kit. Editors did a couple and most pleasant crooning (or is it old-groaning)it was, albeit odd emanating from the mouth of one so young. I had no idea who it was, until I saw the same fella careering all over the stage at the TV lights ("high" excised surgically for good reason) of Glastonbury. Likewise, the Fratellis, who I cannot stand, and who I lump, vocally, with the Arctic Monkeys and Scouting for Girls. a statement challenging to some, no doubt, but what care I. They do a really very good cover of All Along the Watchtower, with nary a dropped glottal stop in sight.
Lovely harmonies
on the first track, though.
True, but. . .
they're from Nashville. Try recording rubbish harmonies there and they'll string you up by your ankles so that the local populace can hurl bottles of Early Times at your head.
They don't make 'em like this anymore...
Well, to be fair, they do. . .
They're just not to be found in Landfillville UK, that's all. Here's Eli Reed delivering your paper:
Cripes
that boy is talented...
Well... he's good...
but in my opinion he lacks that indefinable quality that marked Paul Rogers and Rod Stewart out as truly great singers.
Trying too hard?
Maybe it's another case of the Duffy Syndrome - like Mike Yarwood but without the "And this is me..." bit, because there's no "me" there. He's definitely the pick of the current retroid crop, though.
And thanks, Patrick. Your Paul Rodgers clip sets a perfectly valid precedent for me to post this:
Proper singing. End of (as Da Yoof say). And, if anything he's now even better. This recent effort is unavoidably Mayed-up and Ralphsless, but the vocals are just outstanding:
and he is on e-music this month!
Go fer it! (I did)
Skip the mealy mouthed comment made by one listener on that site.
Yeah
I saw that comment aswell. Presumably from someone who thinks everyone should constantly be pushing forward boundaries, programming gizmos, inventing new genres and waving glo-sticks instead of just making the music that comes from their heart. I'd take Eli over a hundred of those tedious deluded bands who bang on about being exempt from pidgeon-holes.
Reed the Paper, Boy!
Got round to playing this today. I had downloaded it on the basis of snippets heard, bolstered by the commendation of Archie, again proving the power of the Word Massive, as his shout meant more than the aforesaid mealy mouthed amateur critic on the e-music site. And yes, the boy can sing. And, in truth, yes, original it ain't, especially if you have any knowledge of Sam Cooke, Jackie Wilson amd the like, the 2 first most obvious comparisons. But then again, if, as a young white lad you are blessed with the tonsils of a sharecropper (needless generalisation alert), you ain't going ever to be playing Nick Drake-alike bedsitter gloomathons, however dandy they too may be. And one mans pastiche is another mans lovingly moulded recreation. I think it works and good luck to the guy: there is some sadness at the cynicism that now expects artists to emerge, fully formed and "mature". It's his first record, at least to my knowledge. The very first Stones LP was hardly a portent of their future possibilities, or, for a more aposite comparator, the first Them LP as a portent for Vans subsequent career, and there were definite echoes of the Caledonia Soul Orchestra at times on this.
I wonder which track the e-musiceer listened to first. I don't know about you, but when I burn my e-music on to disc, rather than making an i-tunes playlist of it and burning that, I find it quicker and easier to "send" to my sonic burner, with the dubious problem that it then often jumbles the starting order. There is one track, and I don't have its name to hand, which does just sound too carbon copy a derivative of early 60s r'n'b/soul, and that came up first for me, nearly making me doubt my faith. Like the recent James Hunter CD, another re-chaneller of the same vibes, strongly recommended BTW, where the first track is way too cod-62, with Adam Faith style plucked violins en masse, nearly spoiling the subsequent courses.
So, art it isn't, fun it is. Well played and consummately sung fun. Pop music in its finest form.
Would I be pushing my luck to say if you like Southside Johnny, you will love this?
This guy can hold a tune
Josh Rouse from a couple of years back.
Fine as far as it goes, but. . .
compare and contrast with another soft tenor with a twangy acoustic, Paul Simon. Not quite the same league, is it? Yes, he can hold a tune but, to twist a phrase from Bruce Springsteen, he hasn't learned how to make it talk.
And speaking of talking, the intro is also brazen thef...er I mean a loving tribute to "Everybody's Talking At Me" by another tenor with a twangy acoustic, Harry Nilsson.
I dunno. Maybe I'm just too old or something.
Not too old Archie
But I would recommend his stuff from the 1972 album onwards. Went to see him a couple of months back and even an old cynic as youself would have been in raptures.
Will check out
I love tips like this. Ta.
Anytime
Hope it passes the test. I'd be amazed if the Nashville album didn't.
Josh Rouse
Also extensively available on e-music. (Jeez, they should pay me) Subtitulo is also good, being when he re-located to Spain, with vague moorish ovetones seeping thru'. One for the iberian idyll, for which someone is seeking tunes. And for Archie and all the spanish contingent. (Hi, Madrid)
Subtitulo
Hi Retropath
My problem with Subtitulo is that the quiet town he spends his time hymning, Altea, is, apart from a pleasant unspoilt old part, much like the rest of the coast - a concrete sprawl filled with big bellied pissed tourists. Could never get that out of my head when I listened.
The new one however, Country Mouse, City house, despite duff title is a gem.
I could not agree more
...with the nice Chilean gentlemen. The era of great singers seems to have passed, with a few exceptions, most modern singers are strangely flat and vocally uninteresting. Maybe , in the old days, singers had to sing to be heard whereas technology has allowed people who wouldn´t ordinarily pass muster to , well, ahm,.. pass muster.
I still dont think I can agree Archie...
I love singers from previous years but I also find modern singers both move me and sing very well to my ears
Julie Feeney: ACHING
Antony And The Johnsons: Hope theres someone
There'll always be exceptions
Just as my claim that Ipswich was not an exciting town can be countered by someone pointing out that gigs there this year include visits from Jason Donovan and Status Quo, a few names of decent contemporary singers can always be tossed out. But Antony, solid a singer though he is, still isn't Al Green, is he - while to my mind that Julie Feeney clip doesn't counter my claim; it illustrates it perfectly.
Shackoon to his goo, I suppose.
Jason & Status?
Damn, missed them again..........
Jason Quo
Now there's a mashup waiting to happen.
Quick, Archie, catch this before foul is cried.
Antony and the Johnsons, Knockin' On Heaven's Door (orig. Bob Dylan)
I wasn't convinced by the boy Hegarty until I heard this.
(Bugger, didn't work: anyway, its on Wed July 2nd's www.coverlaydown.blogspot.com )
Gotcha
I've had him tagged as a Good Thing for a while now. I was talking more trends and general catalogues rather than specific cases. Of course people can still sing, and a few of them even make records, against all odds.
Antony Hegarty
I'm probably not his greatest fan, but you just can't argue with this...........
The Ting Tings
Whilst very much shouty, shouty for the majority of the record, when Katie White "sings", boy she can sing! (Traffic Light)
fashion
There ARE people who can sing doing well out there. I think styles of singing simply come and go in and out of fashion. There's obviously a trend for white British women singing very capable retro soul at the moment, (and I'm sure many times more non-white women singing brilliantly in less rock-magazine-appealing genres). With male singers, you've got plenty of sad angel voices like Antony and all the Jeff Buckley/Thom Yorke-alikes, or post-Neil Young-sters like Fleet Foxes, Bon Iver, Mercury Rev blah blah blah. What you DON'T hear these days is a good, deeper, 'more macho' bluesy rock voice like '60s/70s singers had, Paul Rogers, David Coverdale, Lowell George, Rod (in a lighter version thereof) etc etc. - maybe they'll come back into fashion again. Maybe it's still there, only mutated, in the likes of Mark Lanegan, Nick Cave or whoever. In the 80s, loads of white boys tried singing like Marvin Gaye. Now it's (at it's worst) neutered whininess. Who knows what'll come next? (PS for a great 'proper' vocal, just out, the new Peter Gabriel song from the film 'Wall-E', no, really, is great!)
Another favourite of the moment....Aqualung
Not sure it supports or challenges the thread but I just wanted to share it
One more
because (a) it came on after Aqualung, (b) I love the drumming (please note Mr H!), (c) again, i just want to share it...
Stateless - Prism #1