Popular songs with pitchy vocals
- Thread starter hcaulfield
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Chili
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Steenamaroo
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hcaulfield
New member
Anybody else have any good examples of "good" songs with out of tune vocals? Good replies so far!
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
Anything by the Pogues with Shane McGowan
Charlie Messing
New member
pitchy vocals and such
I agree about Bowie. Peppers too. And when I first heard "Leaving Las Vegas" I thought, "Man, she must be good looking!" Yep, she was/is.
I was going to say - ever hear Dylan's Xmas album??? Ever hear him sing with harmonies before? Does auto-tune exist? I doubt that album
could exist without it.
I agree about Bowie. Peppers too. And when I first heard "Leaving Las Vegas" I thought, "Man, she must be good looking!" Yep, she was/is.
I was going to say - ever hear Dylan's Xmas album??? Ever hear him sing with harmonies before? Does auto-tune exist? I doubt that album
could exist without it.
VomitHatSteve
Hat STYLE. Not contents.
You live in the south; you're allowed to use y'all as the plural second person.
fritsthegirl
Taste of home
I can't think of any pitchy tunes, except for my own, but they're hardly popular. I was hoping Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinead might be pitchy. So I had a listen. But that Irish lass has got a pretty perfect voice. I've got a big girl crush on her. Do you think her voice was pitch corrected? How, and can you even tell if a voice has been worked with pitch correction?
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
I don't know about "popular" but anything with a Sid Vicious vocal. An antelope's farts or a hippo giving birth in captivity are more in tune to his songs than him.
The process to capture Sid's vocals were a waste of electricity ! But at least a few engineers made some money for that session.
Probably my favourite single of the 90s. I have never noticed any out of tuneness.
I'm often fascinated when people say "this one or that one is out of tune". I go away and listen to examples and I just can't hear it and I'm a stickler for being in tune. I've upset many a singer for pushing them and not accepting 'almost there' or wiping their vocal because it was fractionally out.
The example of Bowie throws up an interesting one for me, that is, how some singers can have such magnificent voices on many songs and questionable pitch on less difficult ones. You'd think that someone who could hit the notes on "Life on Mars" with such beautiful melodic precision would have no trouble on far less demanding songs.
Punk was really the genre that said "being in tune is irrelevant" on a broad scale. There had been out of tuneys before but they were few and far between. Even the heavy metal singer shouters of the late 60s and 70s were primarily singers that knew that vocals gave songs that extra edge and worked at staying in tune.
Without punk opening that door, I doubt whether hip hop would have become the dominant genre it went on to become, so all you punks that hate rap, appreciate the irony !
In all the stuff I've heard of Dylan's, I've never found him out of tune. And it's not just because I'm into Indian music with all it's quarter tones and meands either. I think he had a rough voice, no doubt, but not out of tune.
Neil Young, on the other hand, was sometimes so out of tune that I wondered if he was actually listening to the music ! I think though, that he'd shredded his voice in those gigs early on by giving his all too quickly.
As for their guitar playing, I guess they were simplistic, not virtuoso. Dylan especially played what needed to be played to back what he wanted to say. But both them and others like them were well served by those that played with them as the overall package was more than just them.
Steenamaroo
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That's a bad example though because we all know Dylan didn't sing on that record.
It was whoever did the voice of Cartman in the easily episodes of South Park.
Jesus, that's an awful album.
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I really do. Always have. I don't like rap in any way shape or form, but I do give a nod of respect to the earliest days of rap because it was black people's punk rock. It was NYC's black music of the street, much like punk was NYC's white music of the street 10 years earlier.all you punks that hate rap, appreciate the irony !
hcaulfield
New member
I don't think she used pitch correction. She doesn't really need to.
I just meant when he sustains the notes like "maybe" "save me" and "after all" you can hear drifting in his pitch.
grimtraveller
If only for a moment.....
Would you say there was a similarity in melismas and what you refer to as 'drifting in pitch' ?
hcaulfield
New member
Not quite. I just simply meant it sounds like his drift wobbles a bit when sustaining those notes. Which is not a bad thing, It's just something I could always hear. 3:13-3:14 in the video is where I hear it most.
That's the best kind of pitchy vocals right there.
JG96
Active member
gecko zzed
Grumpy Mod
John Otway