How many times over the years have you said, “This band would be so
much better without the vocals”? I for one have uttered those words too
fucking often. Good bands are

often sabotaged by weak/annoying singers, whose grating, nauseating,
mewling (etc.) tones are like turds in otherwise inviting sonic punch
bowls.

Vocalists whom I’d like to see permanently muzzled come in varying
shades of awfulness, of course. What follows is a rogues’ gallery of
front-bastards I would like to see STFU (in no particular
order—they are all equally despicable).

1. The castrato heavy-metal wailer. Dude, I know this
is your method of projecting “soul” and/or “anguish” and/or
“badassitude,” but you sound like a bitch (the canine kind) that needs
to be put out of her misery. May I do the honors?

2. The death-metal Cookie Monster growler. Okay, we
get it: You are beyond a shadow of a doubt the scariest, most cutthroat
motherfucker in the universe—or so you think. In reality, you’re
a cartoonish laughingstock. Your lyrics could be Dante-esque or
Shakespearean for all we know, but nobody in this world (or likely in
the next one) can decipher them. Let the music do the important job of
making listeners void their bowels in fear. You, you’re ruining the
desired effect, clown.

3. The Robert Smith emulator. For decades, I’ve
wanted to slice the tongue out of the Cure manchild’s mouth.
Unfortunately, the whiny Brit’s laughing gear remains intact, and he’s
spawned legions of imitators who think blobby Bobby is the ultimate
figurehead of misunderstood youth. So even when the Cure go on one of
their many hiatuses, dozens of sad pseudo-goths rush in to fill the
always-on-the-verge-of-crying void. I would love to give these bleating
poseurs a real reason to weep.

4. The well-off, suburban American punk who tries to
sound like a circa 1977 English yob with clogged sinuses. Your
parents are rich and you have no genuine strife in your life, but
somehow your existence sucks (maybe one of the wheels of your
skateboard is perpetually wobbly or the convenience store ran out of
your brand of cigarettes). You got nothing substantial against which to
rebel. Yet you fancy yourself as the reincarnation of Sham 69’s Jimmy
Pursey and the Cockney Rejects’ Stinky Turner. Maybe you should enlist
in the marines, so you’ll really have something against which to
rail.

5. The unassuming white boy who squeezes out that
constipated bovine yowl with squinty-eyed intensity. Again,
straining
vocal cords ≠ soul. Striving to revive Bad Company’s
Paul Rodgers’s lascivious blues belting is not a clever idea,
especially if you have dubious sex appeal. Ingest some laxatives and
stay at least 20 feet from all microphones.

6. Joanna Newsom. Not all unique voices are
necessarily good. While Newsom should be commended for her
idiosyncratic music, her so-very-precious vocal stylings possess the
power to instill in ordinarily pacifistic listeners (like yours truly)
homicidal urges. Keep on harpin’, Joanna, but, please, zip your
piehole.

7. The honky who adopts Jamaican patois. This is
simply dreadful (rim shot), and all perpetrators should be yanked
offstage posthaste with one of those old vaudeville hooks and be denied
ganja privileges for the rest of their green-yellow-red-beanied
days.

8. The oleaginous male neo-soul/R&B singer who
inevitably draws adjectives like “shmoove.” His ballads are like 10
pounds of ick in a five-pound bag and his lyrics are stultifyingly
trite. Singers of this ilk deserve a lifetime of
cock-blocking.

9. The oleaginous female neo-soul/R&B singer who
inevitably draws descriptors like “diva” and who overuses melisma. Your effortful emoting just screams “high maintenance” and your
ululating showboating is tedious. You need more time in the lab with
Aretha Franklin, Lyn Collins, and Dusty Springfield’s ’60s
recordings.

10. The Ian Curtis–alike. Most of us can agree
that Joy Division were one of the most important and inspirational
bands of all time. The tormented, doomed pipes of their frontman
complemented the music with a scary aptness. These morose Mancunians
set the bar astronomically high for a certain brand of angst-plagued
post-punk; tragically, most mortals trying to match JD are destined to
fail. This may sound overly reverent, but those trying to cop Ian
Curtis’s mannerisms are guilty of sacrilege. They will never truly get
the hang of it.

11. The Dirty South rapper with a mouthful of gravel. A little of this über-macho vowel gargling goes a long
way—toward driving me insane. (I’m a lousy crunk, I guess.) This
steez might be more tolerable if these alpha males had anything
interesting to say, but it’s all ogling strippers in da club while
imbibing strong liquor and flaunting the spoils of their rampant
consumerism. Roll over Chuck D. and tell Rakim the news.

12. Dave Segal. This fool struggles to attain a
monotone. Even Lee Hazlewood and Leonard Cohen songs are
beyond his range. Dull, dull, dull! recommended

Dave Segal is a journalist and DJ living in Seattle. He has been writing about music since 1983. His stuff has appeared in Gale Research’s literary criticism series of reference books, Creem (when...

45 replies on “Microphone Fiends”

  3. I DO NOT agree that Joy Division is one of the most important bands of all time. Curtis simply did himself in before he and his already redundant band a chance to suck as they aged.

  4. you live in the city that spawned Eddie Vedder.

    that is the end of this story.

    He unwittingly created an entire ERA of the absolute worst of the worst.

    how is this absent from your “scathing” list?

    he is THE WORST villain in this category. the worst.

    everything else you listed (besides your “shockingly irreverant” j. newsom bomb) was old hat like, years ago. and not news.

    are you huffing paint right now?

  5. @why?
    5. The unassuming white boy who squeezes out that constipated bovine yowl with squinty-eyed intensity.

    What part of that very Vedder-esque description can’t you decipher?

    We are still plagued by all of these kinds of vocalists. It may not be “news” according to your lofty standards, but it is an evergreen source of irritation.

  7. So what, lineout is trying to be Blender/Buddyhead/a million other “edgy commentary” blogs?

    Follow-up question: I thought the “I can’t understand that this dude is screaming/yelling! He SUCKS!” attack was only used by my teenaged sister. What’s up?

    And related to that: Is there anyone at The Stranger who gives a shit about hardcore? I know Grandy can probably tell me about his HUGE Fugazi collection and Seling might say “Yeah I saw Botch once” but I’m beginning to wonder if you guys recognize that there’s more to punk rock than Jawbreaker (no offense toward Jawbreaker intended) and your once-every-six-months acknowledgement of a local band (Bow + Arrow was a while ago; you guys might be due).

  11. The most egregrious recent offender of this is Islands. I don’t know why it was ok somehow for The Unicorns, but I strained to hear around the annnoying vocals and focus on the amazing instrumentals all Neumos-show long. Then, Islands made their album un-buyable by making the vocals so domineering and loud throughout. Damn shame for a band that boasts double violas and a whole bunch of kick-ass otherwise.

  13. Hey Dave,

    Just wondering what, if any, coverage you guys have done on “the chosen people” bombing women and children in Gaza?

    Saw some great footage on NBC Nightly of UN workers discovering a group of children who were klinging to their dead mothers for 4 DAYS while Israeli troops kept UN Aid Workers at bay.

    Even the International Red Cross is saying Israel is fucking shit up bad.

    Your thoughts?

    Oh, wait. You’re writing an article about singers.

  14. Jack:

    Try to wrap your head around this concept: We write about music in the music section.

    Take your misguided self-righteousness elsewhere, future Nobel Prize winner.

  16. that dude from Modest Mouse need to SHUT THE FK UP!!!!!!!!

    an ex girlfriend mine is a big fan of that garbage. I was forced to listen to it and always used to say the music would sound pretty good if that dude would just SHUT THE FK UP!

    p.s. how Modest Mouse were music scene darlings just baffles the shit out my feeble music loving mind. that voice could make somebody kill

  17. Yes, you’re right Dave, Joanna Newsom should “zip her pie hole” and thereby deprive the world of some of the most unique, vivid and beautiful lyrics ever conceived. Ms. Newsom’s voice may be an acquired taste, but you cannot deny her talent for painting extraordinary pictures with her words. Maybe you should listen to “Ys” from beginning to end and consider revising your little top 10 list.

  18. Andy Samberg (ha):

    I listened to Ys in its entirety 4x when it came out, because people whom I respect kept on saying it was the greatest thing since blowjobs. Despite Newsom’s “extraordinary” word pictures, I remain to this day traumatized by the experience.

  19. I could understand the (pretty weak) Newsom dig if you’ve only heard the debut, but Ys really isn’t any “weirder” or more jarring than your average female indie singer.

  22. You forgot the “I wanna prove to the world I’m a large-hearted latter day hippie who opposes ‘western imperialism & exploitation’ and capitalism (except for when it comes to getting my damn royalties!”

    Bono, I’m looking at you, chump.

  24. This is exactly the type of shit that made me stop reading The Stranger: worthless, unabashed, holier-than-thou shit-talking. Anyone with an ounce of writing experience knows how easy it is to write negatively, and how much more difficult it is to articulate how or why an artist or piece of art is successful. It’s a real shame that The Stranger spends so much time jerking itself off in the comfort of the former category. Nice use of oleaginous, though.

  27. Paul B:

    I spend about 99.7% of my allotted editorial space “articulat[ing] how or why an artist or piece of art is successful.”

    Are you new here?

  28. I’m just unsure what purpose this article serves. The reason I gave up on The Stranger about two years ago is that so often the articles (and therefore, I felt, the paper itself) had negative, hipper-than-thou, this-band-is-shit-and-so-are-you-if-you-don’t-agree-with-us mindsets. What is gained from such negativity, is what I’d like to know.

  29. I think most people who are responding find themselves personally insulted that their favorite band may have been mentioned. Whether or not you may agree with what the writer is saying, the fact is that there are many very popular bands out there, whom some find their lyricists voices annoying. I love Morrissey, but I can understand how some people hate his voice. The first band that comes to my mind is Archers of Loaf… I think their music is great, but the minute he starts singing, it’s over for me. And then there’s Rush…

  30. This list could go on and on. You could write a book about this. There are many more singers that need to shut the hell up. I just hope I’m not one of them.

  31. What about Kimya Dawson and her monotonous, off-key, arythmic spoken-drivel-over-an-acoustic-guitar slop? Listening to one of her albums is like reading a book with no punctuation, capitalization, and a paragraph break every few pages with “fart,” “butt,” or “pee” thrown in to make it “silly.”

  34. Ian Curtis’ vocals were the only SHIT thing about the band. And you should’ve listed “Robert Plant” by name. The horrible wank.

  36. Dear Dave,
    Some people are just jealous that they can’t sum up the painful idiocracy of today’s vocalists.

    I for one and glad you said it. I was tired of just hearing myself complain 😉

  39. I’m gonna have to show a little Seattle pride here and remind Why? (@4) that Eddie Vedder isn’t from Seattle, he moved there in his late-20’s from Southern California to be in a band.

  40. Joanna’s voice may be annoying to some, but it at least feels genuine which is why I love it so much. There is an honesty that untrained voices can emote that is missing when people who have good technique sing. This is why it sucks when the Three Tenors sing pop music. This is why Celine Dion sucks. This is also why Jeff Mangum and David Byrne and Win Butler are great.

    By that rationale Robert Smith should be considered great but because he’s constantly affecting his voice in melodramatic ways I don’t believe him most of the time. However, when he tones it down on songs like “Pictures of You” I think it’s quite beautiful.

  41. cat power rip off. baby boomers trying to sound like rural bluesmen. or woody guthrie. rappers w fake nyc accents. rockers w fake contry accents. brits trying to sound like busta or nas.

  42. No, Jen, that’s not what he’s saying at all.
    Do you get more off your chest if you get to rant publicly? Maybe I should become a journalist.

  45. sigh, rather then complaining about the music scene like the typical angst driven, sackless, androgynous weaklings that have so saddly become associated with the pacific northwest music scene, why dont you all go out and make a difference in that thing called music. in real life. not on the internet…

    p.s. for what its worth, i agree with the article. and i dont really like pearl jam, but hey, no one bats 1000, and theyve given us some good tunes, not to mention their laed singer has avoided o.d.’ing on heroine, the bane of the famous seattlite.

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