A kung fu fighter in a disco

Madonna? Killers fella? !!!

The best vocalist he's worked with is Gwen.

It just made me want to listen to Computer Love.

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The main thing the various Killers remixes have done is to convince me that Brandon Flowers actually has a great pop voice.

Madonna, yeah, not the best but she sings with more conviction than Chris M.

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CM sings with too much conviction. Or with the conviction that he has conviction.

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He doesn't on "Talk" - the original "Talk" is such a mess anyway though.

Actually CM's chief distinctive quality as a vocalist (and what makes him the $$$) is how he combines dull Buckley-standard "soaring" with quavering private doubt.

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Actually, that's interesting. How the Buckley thing has becomes so formulaic, where once, I presume, it was sold as goosebumps-up-yr-neck distinctive.

I havent heard any Jeff Buckley.

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Buckley himself is kinda distinctive to all who followed in his footsteps - it was technically quite breathtaking and hampered only by his lack of songwriting ability (it was very rarely used in conjunction with an actual melody). Whereas people like C Martin combine the most irritating aspects of the Buckley voice with too many technical limitations to pull it off.

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I have heard "Hallelujah" and it was completely ghastly.

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Gwen can't sing though! At all! The best vocalist he's worked with is probably Juliet.

I thought JLC's Royksopp remix was kind of retreading old ground - I still love it but it loses a bit of the thrill of previous stuff (cf Rachel Stevens' 'So Good': at the time I said something along the lines of watching a fantastically put together film but already knowing the ending) because it's precisely what is expected of him. I suspect that if I dislike the Coldplay remix it will be more because of the elements of Coldplay left in rather than JLC's own additions.

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Gwen has a great pop voice!

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Like Marilyn Monroe's in Some Like it Hot. Like jelly. Hiccupy. Pouty.

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But not incorporating the ability to sing very many notes.

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It;s an asset for her, tho - she sounds like she's become a pop star through force of will. It also makes her more like the old pre-singing-lessons Madonna.

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Yes I completely agree with this - Gwen's voice is fantastically suited to what she does. But it is not a great voice in the sense of being able to sing!

I remember last week someone on ILM took umbrage when I said that Cat Power had a limited voice - like, I love what she does too, but she has a range of three notes at most!

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I have never heard any Cat Power.

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I think you might like 'Free'.

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Cat Power's alright.

I saw that thread, Lex. People are silly. I prefer Fiona Apple.

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I prefer Fiona too! And Fiona gets much more kneejerk bad press because she was erroneously lumped in with Alanis Morissette at the start of her career.

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Yeah, I've never understood that either. When the Pawn... is a wonderful album far more interesting (sonically, alone, tho the lyrics are great too.) than anything AM has done.

AM is just gash.

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Yeah, Fiona's always been fascinating sonically - the blend of jazz and hip hop and cabaret long before people like Nellie McKay happened. And of course she was Jon Brion's protege LONG before he got indie cred by doing soundtracks to boring films...(which is why I find people who suddenly like Extraordinary Machine but not When The Pawn or even Tidal quite suspicious).

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