Soul vs Technique

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I hope he won't mind me quoting him, but I read an interesting assertion in Alex's review of the new Mariah album (today's Guardian):

"Carey's voice has been mocked, bizarrely, as being a triumph of technique over soul - an argument that fails to comprehend that technique and soul are intertwined, that technique primarily exists as a means to convey emotion".

I thought this would be a good discussion to have here - it's a point I quite strongly disagree with (generally, not specifically with relation to Mariah), but I'll wait to see if anyone is interested in commenting before launching into it.

Comments

[dubdobdee.livejournal.com]

i think the point lex is making -- in ref the gospel side of the R&B tradition -- is fairly uncontroversial (though it's rather compressed there, and a bit obscured under his use of the word "soul"): within the gospel aesthetic, to unfold yr awesome technique in its virtuosity is to give appropriate thanks for it, to your maker who blessed you with it... in other words, the key emotion in gospel being religious, your revelling in it in itsd fullness is precisely appropriate

this is an aesthetic very sharply at odds with rock's come-as-you-are vocal aesthetic -- which derives primarily from dylan's refiguring of folk styles, and somewhat from white euro misgrasp of blues technique

it's also more complicated by the shift from religious to secular (gospel --> soul) where i think tensions and contradictions flood in (but they are also part of the point: the expressive excitement, if you like) (this tension is probably most obvious with gay disco passion divas, where the submissiveness to the lord has become a submissive to sexual desire)

[datura800.livejournal.com]

I think the word 'soul' certainly confused the point, but he clarifies it with 'conveying emotion' and the criticisms which he is referring to are in the vein of 'she is a brilliant technical singer but utterly bland in terms of conveying the emotions of the song'. Your latter paragraph is quite interesting in terms of the Mariah album, as she is at many times on it a 'gay disco passion diva'.

[anthonyeaston.livejournal.com]

it's not submissive--the scandal of soul, and the gay divas, is that its the exact opposite, what was once a tool for the lord, is now a work into and unto itself--the pleasure unmoored, unsubmissive, is where the shift occured.