I’ve been thinking about music again. I tend to like male singers only if they have strange voices (ie. speech impediments, lisps, falsetto, whatever) whereas female singers with these characteristics just annoy me. That is, the women have to be good singers, and the men, preferably not. Not sure why these distinctions. But for proof, here’s a partial list:
- Isaac “Not the Canadian colonial war hero” Brock (Modest Mouse) – extreme lisp
- David Gedge (The Wedding Present) – strangled sounding
- Black Francis/Frank Black (Pixies) – screams, barking noises
- Britt Daniel (Spoon) – gravelly
- Billy Bragg – outrageous accent
- Elliott Smith – almost a falsetto
- Stephin Merritt (Magnetic Fields) – just not very good
- Steve Malkmus (Pavement) – lazy, off-key
- Iggy Pop (The Stooges) – sneering, half-spoken
- Thom Yorke (Radiohead) – falsetto, strangled, paralyzed
- Martin Tielli (Rheostatics) – often falsetto
- Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo) – robotic, just plain weird
- Fred Schneider (B-52’s) – loopy accent
- Shane McGowan (Pogues) – drunken, strangled, slurring