There are FOUR eminem songs in the top 10 US itunes. FOUR!
Disgusting, no taste. Billboard is predicting his album will sell between 700k-750k too. Pretty much inline with his previous albums despite the fact every impression
i've seen on gaf
has torn it to shreds.
In other news, perra may actually drop out the top ten for the first time in months
There are FOUR eminem songs in the top 10 US itunes. FOUR!
Disgusting, no taste. Billboard is predicting his album will sell between 700k-750k too. Pretty much inline with his previous albums despite the fact every impression
There are FOUR eminem songs in the top 10 US itunes. FOUR!
Disgusting, no taste. Billboard is predicting his album will sell between 700k-750k too. Pretty much inline with his previous albums despite the fact every impression
i've seen on gaf
has torn it to shreds.
In other news, perra may actually drop out the top ten for the first time in months
There's something to be said for reading descriptions.
The climax video lists the song titles, and the virtuosity video also lists song titles with time stamps!
True. Different singers have different capabilities of vocal abuse. I just imagine that if there's is evidence of straining, it would be more difficult to recover as time went on, whereas in the video you posted of Jussi Bjorling where, despite his alcoholism, doesn't have any signs of vocal damage or strain. So it's a bit of uneven territory for me in determining how one strains if it's so subtle that my ears can't detect it. There was a reason why I stopped watching Regine's performances and if I can detect strain, it'll be less like hammering the final nail into a coffin and more like shooting her off into space. I'm honestly halfway leaning against not wanting to because I really don't care for her singing *however*, it really bugs me that i can't hear it so I'm probably going to do it anyway. lol
I don't think that it's subtle, exactly. I think it's more that you listened to her when your ear wasn't as good, and you're more used to listening for more obvious issues. Listen to her singing compared with Mariah on the same song here. She's a mess.
And more on how different singers respond to vocal abuse (either through issues with technique or through smoking, drug use, or drinking) in a moment.
Well, I'm mostly going by memory concerning how she sings and as far as I can, she's always belted with the same level of intensity and style (either by choice or because it's expected of her). I don't recall her ever having any capability of stylistically changing her tone for any artistic effect, which is why I'm confident that my tailor-made-for-Regine theory may yield results
Your description reminds me - Regine is a classic "loud" singer, actually. I've posted this excerpt in relation to Christina, but it applies to Regine, as well:
Cornelius Reid said:
'LOUD' vs. 'BIG' TONE
In any discussion of tonal volume a very real distinction should always be made between a 'big' tone, or one that is well resonated, and a 'loud' tone, which is nothing but noise. 'Loud' singing is both inartistic and injurious to the voice and is to be avoided at all costs. A 'big' tone is the very essence of musical quality and indicates that the tone is being well resonated. As a sound phenomenon the two are direct opposites, both as to cause and effect.
The reaction of the vocal response to these two qualities is interesting to observe. With the 'big' tone the scale of intensity is always smooth and even throughout the entire range of the voice. Singing of this kind is marked by a notable absence of struggle and effort, while the vocal compass is usually ample for the performance of moderately difficult music at least.
When the technique is 'noisy' all this is changed. The scale of intensity becomes decidedly unbalanced. Most of the volume is concentrated in the upper middle part of the voice range and often attains a degree of power that can only be matched by the unpleasantness of the quality. The highest tones of the voice, together with a large segment of the lower portion of the range, will be weak and entirely out of proportion to the rest of the voice. To force either weakened area without making a fundamental change in both the mental and physical approach only leads to throatiness of the most extreme kind.
In addition to the handicap imposed by the vocal deficiencies already mentioned, the 'noisy' singing is compelled to make other sacrifices that further detract from his performance. All ability to 'color' the vowels and to create atmosphere and mood is necessarily surrendered to a boisterous and aggressive style without artistic merit. When a voice is 'noisy' all efforts at interpretation are circumscribed by the limited resources at the singer's command. Because of the excessive 'drive' and 'push' needed to support tones of this type, hoarseness due to strain frequently develops and the voice becomes rough and uneven.
She embodies these qualities. Mariah herself does not possess a big tone*, even though her tone is produced properly, so perhaps a better point of comparison is with Whitney. Do you hear the qualities of a "loud" tone when listening to Regine? Do you hear the qualities of a "big" tone when listening to Whitney? You can also hear her issues with her anemic lower register in this video.
I admit that the first instinct is to point to the last paragraph of that excerpt and say, "Well it doesn't appear that her voice has developed a rough and uneven quality." But I don't think you can use that to dismiss the presence of her strain. As you said, different voices respond in different ways to vocal abuse; some voices are simply more resilient than others. For instance, while Christina's damage is certainly apparent now, she still was maintaining her tonal quality as late as 2006. She had quite a bit of vocal abuse before that time, and I don't think the effects were apparent for some time. Mariah engaged in vocal abuse in her overuse of airy vocals and whispering, both of which irritate the vocal chords. She managed to go seven years - from her professional debut - singing like this, along with prior damage from nodules and smoking, with little indication that it was affecting her voice aside from perhaps a loss of vocal weight after 1994. Aretha was a chain smoker - 10 packs a day! - and she struggled with alcoholism. It's no accident her voice sounds as dried out as it does now, but she still had much of her tonal quality in the mid-1970s, almost a decade and a half after her professional debut. Whitney was well-known for being a regular smoker herself, and yet it wasn't until almost 1993 that she started showing the beginnings of issues because of this, this is after over 400 concert tour dates, and the beginnings of her drug abuse problems. Jessica Simpson has simply abominable technique - or has since she lost her mind and decided that sounding pretty good wasn't worth it - and yet she's maintained much of her tonal quality.
So when you say, "Well, she's sung like this for twenty years and her voice hasn't completely fallen apart," it doesn't register as a good counterpoint with me. There are other singers who have had worse issues who lasted longer, and singers with less serious issues whose voices experienced difficulties much earlier. It simply isn't a reliable way of determining whether strain is present (and if you wait until damage appears to decide if strain is present, it's a bit late!), or whether someone is singing correctly. The quality of their tonal production is; in some cases it takes more practice hearing - some stuff I still don't hear myself (particularly when talking about opera singing, where the bar is already so high that even most "bad" opera singers actually do plenty of things right, even if not to the exacting standards of the genre.)
*
I think by "big" Reid really means "well resonated" and not necessarily the size of the voice. You have to do a lot of parsing of words when reading these things. If he simply means "well-resonated," then the contrast with Mariah works as well
I've watched OMIT hundreds of times and I don't know why I never noticed that she doesn't do it there but still produces that same effect. For some reason I've stored that jaw-effect as her default technique. Touche!
There are more than a few clips where she doesn't jaw. The In Return performance that Leona linked to earlier today is also a good example; when she produces vibrato in head voice here, she also isn't not jawing to produce it.
I think the reason she does it in spite of her ability to produce it naturally is because of her musical background; there's a reason that it is often referred to as "gospel jaw." I think it's just something she picked up on, and still did on occasion even though it wasn't really necessary for her.
I've already listened to Bambina and Caruso and Bambina especially is rather beautiful. No belting or intense climax, just very simple melody with a lovely tone. She actually reminds me a lot of Celine there. I'm still going through the other videos.
What's that? I didn't have enough links before? Allow me to oblige you:
S'En Aller, Le roi est une femme, Rio, Croire (That's right: Eurovision), Wonderful Life, I Guess I Loved You, and any of the covers in Every Woman In Me (only available from her website, English only album; the complete album is on YT). Close To You is one of my favorites, though. The only complete album I have listened to of hers is Nue, and I recommend it strongly (several songs I've mentioned so far are on it). It's just about perfect.
Did you know that she also writes most of her own material? And I'm sure you've noticed she sounds just as flawless in 2013 as she did in 1988! Incidentally, SoHyang is 35, herself.
