a brief history of the recessive vocal

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

so instead of making use of my time intelligently or enjoyably, i was playin SOUVLAKI-TETRIS this mornin and listenin to UMMAGUMMA -- and as usual stuck on what an f.awful singer r.waters is, that his shtick is a distrust of emotive effectivness, and it occurred to me that there's a history in pop of the self-consciously characterless vocal, which operates by a kind of passive-aggressive second-guessing ("you admire this uninflected mumble as ART because it is not mere RECEIVED TECHNIQUE playing on your UNEXAMINED INSTINCTS... or some such)

it seems to me it's a feature "why indie is dislikable", and conversely an (haha unacknowledged) reason why r&b and pop divas receive so much kneejerk dislike from indie quarters (as if "being able to sing" = "suborned by THE MAN")

anyway what struck me as odd is that it's NOT a mainstream rock characteristic as of the 60s, 70s or even 80s -- vocal style characterful to the point of being gratingly dislikeable was the rule, and waters was really anomalous in his day

so A: was this the root of his prog credentials? did he make virtue of a necessity? (i'm not a syd fan but he belongs squarely in the post-dylan tradition of expressivity out of anti-technique technique... which is a very different thing)
and B: who does watersism start with? (cheeky burchill-baiting answer: julie london)

footnote: UK punk was notoriously suspicious of the borrowed expressivity of soul and blues in the white voice, but much less so of the borrowed expressivity of folk or country; in fact it pushed off into the exploration of modern urban cousins of folk and country, so it was in the dylan-tradition even when it was actively hostile to borrowed dylanisms

Comments

nu-year lack of resolution :\

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

(ps i seem to be completely incapable of organising my thoughts this year so far -- i have no idea if what i'm taking about is clear)

[(Anonymous)]

I don't like you at all. You are not only ugly, but so evil. I would say sico.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

hurrah!

[(Anonymous)]

I will write a book about you, how nuts you are.
I have wasted more than six years. I have lost a job, because of you. I will sue you, Lewis Pinalut.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

!!!

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

I got this too!! WTF!! Hurrah?!

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i think it is someone spamming all LJ posts to declare rage at l3wis pin4ult

[koganbot]

It is someone who is not recessive, though anonymity undercuts the expressiveness somewhat.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

Yes (s)he's been doing this for months now.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

*collapses laughing*

I'm only sorry this distracted - albeit humorously - from your excellent question.

IAW your interpretation of UK punk, but where does this leave early US punk? There was a pretty huge diversity of vocal styles there. And is David Byrne an early disciple of Roger Waters?? (self-consciously mannered rather than entirely expressionless, but getting there).

some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

screamed rage <-- a lot of US punk?
bellowed sneer <-- j.rotten, stranglers
anti-tonal muezzin howl <-- x-ray spex, PiL
anti-sexual girlvoice <-- siouxsie
rigorous deadpan <-- eg wire [MIGHT be an ancestor of what i'm getting at]
choppy-jittery <-- clash, X, early buzzcocks
herky-jerky quirky <--- this wd be early byrne, i think (hence not derived from waters-ism)
faux girltot <-- honey bane

(i didn't especially mean to imply punk (us or uk) was one-note in its delivery style, that's certainly not how i hear it)

also: i think what i mean to the "dylan tradition" is less SOUNDING like dylan (tho obv there was a lot of this) than feeling free (indeed somewhat impelled) to develop high idiosyncracy as yr signature

other possible ancestors of the recessive vocal gene:
ENO <--- only just thought of this
john cale (when not yelling)
robert wyatt
ivor cutler

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[koganbot]

Doug Yule!

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[koganbot]

Thurston Moore

faux recessive vocals: Ray Davies

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

thurston definitely! tho i don't think he cuts it as a founding father of the genre

ray davies not quite, at least in my book: but i think i'll have to clarify the definition to explain why -- he's not a loud or a bluesy or a white-soul singer at all, but his style is highly expressive, even if it operates via restraint

(certainly it seems a bit odd to be calling him faux-recessive if the recessive manner hadn't previously been established as 1965) (which we haven't yet proved it had)

(this actually grew out of yr comment on LCD soundsystem's singer)

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[koganbot]

Davies could have started the recessive genre while not being recessive himself by inspiring a whole bunch of awful imitators to actually be recessive. (Just as I would say that the Kinks and the Velvet Underground are founding fathers of college rock owing to the hundreds of college-radio bands who imitated them badly.)

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[koganbot]

I'd say that sometimes Ray is saturated in bluesiness - listen to the way he sings "Dead End Street" - but he's got a light touch on the blues tones. (I wouldn't be surprised if he's a Hoagy Carmichael fan.) Ray farmed out blues screamers like "Milkcow Blues" to his brother.

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[koganbot]

Would Morrissey as faux recessive?

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think maybe he started that way and gradually retreated into actual recession? One of the big influences on early/Smiths-era Morrissey are singers who were big in the interregnum between rock'n'roll and the Beatles - British Elvis imitators like Tommy Steele and (especially) yodelling novelties like Frank Ifield. So he's positioning himself as away from rock, unable to tap into the sexuality and authentic self-expression of bluesiness: in effect he's pulling the recessiveness trick on rock 'technique' as it had evolved. But he's not a shy or non-aggressive singer.

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes, i think of morrissey as a fairly flamboyant singer (especially in the context of indie): he pulls the passive-aggressive trick in lots of other ways -- or rather, the characters in his songs do -- but as a melody writer and tune-line embellisher he's pretty generous

Re: some punk voicings (list NOT exhaustive)

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

Yes, what Wire turned into is what I'm getting at, not in a critical way but as a sort of muse about the way this vocal style you're referencing came about. I definitely think there's a sharp difference in the way UK punk reacted to vocals, which in some areas led to greater homogeneity (for example, I see Honey Bane as being a young and female version of More Of The Same ie sneery uncouth Sarf London, but with a softer delivery).

If you're talking about the Dylan Tradition as idiosyncracy, then (especially with Eno on one end and punk on the other) surely - as with so much else - Bowie is hugely important? Plus, he *was* very Dylan-influenced in his early days.

Could one ever have an exhaustive punk list? Someone somewhere would insist that you were a complete idiot who had forgotten something totally essential :¬)

(Now you've got me thinking about the extensive reference section at the back of 'England's Dreaming').

[anatol-merklich.livejournal.com]

Some female-sung indie (maybe esp old-school, the Would-Be-Goods popped into my head) seems to take its cue from sixties stuff like eg Françoise Hardy, ie not mumbling at all, but also not projecting much emotion, rather plain & straightforward -- does this fit anywhere into what you're talking about?

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

This v. good point and I think it is related to what dubdobdee said, insofar as there is a certain apology in "indie" vocals; where rock vocals can just be bad and not give a sh1t, indie is ever so 'umble about intruding on your musical world with what it nonetheless of course believes to be an earth-shaking masterpiece. Especially in the case of frontmen/women (who tend to be the vocalist) who must be self-effacing genii or whatever.

Of course, thisn't true of all indie at all (a lot is unashamedly cocky but I suppose that is when the indie/rock line thins?) but hrmm, the indie-as-a-genre-indie I think it quite possibly is a lot of the time.

I don't know if that made any sense.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Seems to me that in the folk explosion in the '60s that female-led English bands like the New Seekers (and Joan Baez) seemed to cover the trad folk songs with very little emotion in their voice.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

yes there is definitely a quasi-folk girl-hippy founding aspect to this:

--with eg francois hardy it's as much shyness-as-allure as anything (and to be fair i think some of what eg the pastels were after was the same; at least at the start it was an anti-male-bravado move)
--baez is pretty high-end technique, filed under technique-masks-emotion rather than lack-of-technique-muffles-emotion
--with the new seekers -- and also maybe the pre-beatles kiddipop wave -- i think there's more a "nervousness of passion" operating (which is an element in what i'm talking about certainly, but not a recessive or passive-aggressive one yet)

[(Anonymous)]

In their first big interview with the Melody Maker (1988), Kevin Shields talked about how Suzanne Vega was his favourite singer, and the difference between mid-60s Roger Daltry (hesitant – good) and 70s Daltry (over–projecting – bad). From what I remember, it was pertinent to all this, but unfortunately, despite the tedious MBV-worship still rife, I can't find that interview on the internet.

[koganbot]

Baez = lack of emotion muffles emotion, but I think you're right: lack of emotion and recessiveness are different concepts, and her (not all that competent, IMO) high-end technique is in your face with its chops. I find Whitney Houston cold but I'd never call her recessive.

Of course indie guys like Barr and Panda Bear and half a million others are in your face with their recessiveness.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

The conventional wisdom was the indie voice came from the Velvets (remembering that Lou Reed sings rather than speak-sings on the Velvets stuff) plus usually incompetent stabs at being the Byrds (who were emotionally low-key much of the time). I think Françoise Hardy is a decent call, too.

Re: the Man – maybe it is just age, but I do think there were positions it was legitimate to take in 1985 that are rubbish today (which is to say: let's continue to decry The View).

[blue-russian.livejournal.com]

My own shtick is often not looking too deep, and I will employ it again here. :) I still think a lot of indie is "necessity as virtue" -- people do the best they can with the voices they have, and part of the "wall" that was broken through by punk was vocal stylings as well. Listeners' ears were prepared to accept virtually anything from vocalists by that point. And to that extent indie is not giving a shit too, not just being humble/faux-humble. "This is as well as I can sing and that's okay."

Where does Lou Reed fit into all this? Admittedly highly stylized, but at the same time I think there's some link there.

[mcarratala.livejournal.com]

Yes and but...
Yes, certainly in the 80s and in the early 90s English indie bands not only featured singers who couldn't sing, but folk who couldn't play their instruments (esp the drummers! oh, the drummers! Boy, were they awful...)
BUT: N as V hardens into ideology, and becomes fetishised on the Pastels/Beat Happening axis. At the same time, scorn is heaped on what is perceived as technique-for-technique's sake – say Level 42 or Whitney.
David Cavanagh's Creation book is good on all of that...
What I still can't get my head around is how Pete Doherty, who embodies all the bad bits and none of the 1980s indie, ends up getting hailed as a genius in the 00s...
And finally, I have no idea what, if anything, the Floyd have to do with this.

[cis.livejournal.com]

I don't think the recessive vocal really is "doing the best [one] can with the voice [one] has" -- there isn't really a correlation between how good your voice is, how well you can hold a tune, and how much expression you can put into your singing. The problem is that it sounds embarrassing in your own ears. I'm fairly confident that everyone, even the tone deaf, can do a passable parody of, say, the balladeer over-emotive style: but it generally sounds silly, and sounds especially silly from an untrained or weak voice. Theoretically, there's an in-between stage where the voice sounds expressive and not stupid, but it's hard work finding it, and people very often assume that singing with emotion automatically means sounding stupid.

So I don't think it's people accepting their limitations, I think it's people intentionally limiting themselves to a lowest-common-denominator singing style, which is socially the most accepted style for someone with a weak voice, or an untrained voice, or a strong voice that's shy.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I think Waters' 'thing' isn't quite that he distrusts emotive effectiveness but that he is singing from the perspective of someone unable to achieve it: his thing on all the big PF albums isn't "I spurn these effects" but "Because I am afflicted by the world's woes my vocals will be pained, stunted gestures towards effect." - the vocals on "Wish You Were Here", "Mother", "Money" are kind of knowingly broken attempts at rock/soul effect rather than attempts to spurn them. (And on "Great Gig In The Sky" that godawful Bodyform-style yowling from the guest vocalist is I guess meant to represent the ecstasies of whole-soul achieved technique, which as the title suggests is something celestial rather than earthly-achievable).

In other words this is Protestant Rock - so there IS actually an element of distrust in there but it's distrust of effect as a false claim rather than emotion as an end in itself.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i always liked the bodyform vocals! surely they are only "godawful" in the "mariah/whitney = talentless" sense!

there is another "protestant" dimension to this (if baptist is part of protestant) -- soul and R&B technique derives from gospel, an aspect of black music rarely well understood or warmed to by rock (perhaps because it's somewhat socially in tension with blues): in gospel, to use yr awesome technique to its amazing limits is to praise your maker for the gifts he gave you; the skill IS the expression

(this is a bit of a huge over-simplification but the idea is SO at odds with rock orthodoxy's veneration of the rawly untrained and the self-taught, at least till you get to metal guitar soloing)

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Surely the bodyform vocals can be godawful in a misapplication of talent sense - clearly Great Gig woman is an OK singer but what seems to be happening is that Waters is saying "just do your thing here" - there's no application, it's a Watersian concept of what "talent"/"technique" is. So those vocals strike me as sounding like what rock thinks Mariah/Whitney style singing sounds like.

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

bah i am now listening to DSotM

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I agree with Tom. But I think Waters did achieve a bit of a breakthrough in the early 80s with "When the Tigers Broke Free" and The Final Cut*, overcoming that distrust of singing with passion when he found a subject that he was actually passionate about.

Unfortunately he didn't really follow it up.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

erm the * was meant to say "second best PF alBUM"

[koganbot]

B-b-but... Ray Charles:

the rock ballad as such is derived from soul music and, in particular, from Ray Charles, whose gospel reading of a country song, "I Can't Stop Loving You" (1962), became the blueprint for generations of rock balladeers. Charles's emotional sincerity was marked by vocal roughness and hesitation (unlike the Italian balladeers), and, if his tempo was slow, it was nevertheless insistent.
--Simon Frith, "Pop Ballad" in the ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA

[koganbot]

You'd be surprised how often Celine Dion goes rough in her lower register. It's part of the basic vocabulary.

off topic

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

I had always assumed that the Bodyform yowl was a hilarious adaptation of an existing pop song (perhaps by Heart?) in the vein of Vitalite until the other day, when for the first time I actually tried to recall how the 'original' went (and ended up humming 'Alone', of course), and had to ask Rick what it was. ILLUSIONS = SHATTERED.

The lass who sang it now does vocal instruction (http://www.stevielange.com/)!

[koganbot]

Neil Young, who is not recessive himself but created a whole bunch of wafts and wavers that were copied by the recessive.

[koganbot]

A question not asked yet on this thread:

Is this recessive stuff bad? Good? I think a lot of us, e.g. me, would vote bad, but by the Boney-Joan Rule there must be some stuff that fits the "recessive" moniker to at t but is GREBT. I'll try to think of one, but Lou Reed wasn't remotely recessive on his best stuff, and as I said Ray was faux recessive, implying a restraint that was actually very aggressive, and not passively so, either. "A whole 'nother way to hate," is how Xhuxk described it.

How did Noel Coward sing? I've never heard him, I don't think.

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

How did Noel Coward sing? I've never heard him, I don't think.

Excellent point!! V v mannered, much more spoken/declaimed than sung (am thinking of stuff like "Don't Let's Be Beastly To The Germans", but that was more 'sung' than many). Could HE be an early example of dubdobdee's recessive gene?

Hmmm