| ANNOYING SINGERS
The human voice is an amazing instrument, able to communicate meaning, emotion, spirit and essence. As individual as each voice is, there is an equally subjective experience in the ear of the beholder, but there are some singing voices and styles that are more afflictions and inflections, that irritate rather than illuminate, that repel rather than attract. There are easy targets like Celine, Madge and Mariah but there are some irksome sacred cows that deserve a critical kicking along with the tall poppies.
Faux Falsetto.
From Frankie Valli, through The Bee Gees to Sting and Guy Sebastian, the barbed wire on a blackboard shrill tone manages to dilute the emotion of the song and inflate the harsh edge of any melody.
White Rap And Hip Hop Yo! Boys
If anyone other than The Beastie Boys attempts rhyming and rhythm it sounds like an updated black and white minstrel show, yes Fred Durst and Anthony Keidis, I’m dissing you.
The Bullies
Bellowing and blustering, committing assault and battery on any song that becomes victim to their high decibel damage, Jimmy Barnes, John Farnham, Michael Bolton, Chris Cornell and Joe Cocker drain any emotion and subtlety from any song and beat it into bloody submission.
They should be charged with song abuse.
The Batty Aunties
Often dressing like older women raiding the op shop blindfolded and their childhood dress-up hamper, trilling and warbling through any song with demented glee and creepy indifference to melody and meaning. The head trauma sound of Joanna Newsome, the hiccoughing harradine Tori Amos, the sugar plum fairy babbling Bjork and the grand dame of them all, the twee twitterer Kate Bush should only be heard echoing down the hallway of a nursing home for the prematurely demented.
The Idles
Some object to these telly- talent quests claiming that are not legitimate because the contestants have not “paid their dues” playing dirty dives and sweaty shitholes, but that’s just sour grapes. I object to the pumped- up- on- guarana, pumped up by the hysteria of the audiences and judges way that they are encouraged to sing multiple notes when one would do and to squeeze, strangle and wring every genuine emotion out of every word out every lyric. They shoot horses don’t they?
The Manglers
A mouth full of marbles and a tortured wail renders any lyric incomprehensible, the meaning mysterious, when James Reyne gets hold of any song and twists and tortures it into a mis-shapen muddle. He’s been doing shows lately with the over earnest and deadly serious Mark Seymour who sings like someone is standing on his foot, but at least it’s not in his mouth!
The Over - Emoters
Can you all please get out of the way so we can hear the song? The sob, the throb, the quaver and coo of James Blunt and Antony with his Johnsons and Chris Martin’s post-nasal drip whine so overwhelms any musical material with their “Gee look how clever I am” folderol that they could be singing the phone book. Buy a handkerchief and stop showing off!
The Whingers
The whining high decibel snivel of Billy Corghan and Axl Rose sounds like a spoilt brat at a birthday party who missed out on a serve of cake, complaining about being deservedly picked on at school, being given a wedgie and determined to ruin anyone else’s good time because they are NOT happy. I blame their parents. These petulant foot-stamping cry babies should take up thumb sucking so then we couldn’t hear them complain.
And the list could go on …
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