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

[(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.