Male EuroDisco Singers

[markydefad]

Why do they sound soooo weird? All those Italo disco & even some Lime (!!!!) :P records where the men try to sing in English and have that weird, raspy wanna-be Rod Stewart or something voices??? Is there something incompatible in Euros trying to sing rock? Are they trying to be "soulful"???? I seem to recall that many records of the early 80's Italian invasion were flipped for the instrumental side cause the vocals were tooo painful for listening.

Anyone else notice this strange phenomenon??? :o

[QUINNY]

More disturbing has been the trend over the past few years for everybody, but everybody, to sing 17 syllables where 2 or 3 well sung ones would do. All in the name of sounding more 'soulful'. Bah!! :P :roll:
I'm more than happy to say that I never bought many Italian disco gems. Yeah, I probably missed out........not? What was I doing? Where was my head? Where were my ears?

[BrunoRepublic]

More disturbing has been the trend over the past few years for everybody, but everybody, to sing 17 syllables where 2 or 3 well sung ones would do. All in the name of sounding more 'soulful'. Bah!! :P :roll:

Is hell freezing over? I think I just agreed with Quinny on something... :o

[markydefad]

Think like the guy in Aqua (among lotsa others)..."c'mon Barbie, let's go party"!!! (It's an odd rapsy, guttural absolutely EUROPEAN voice singing in English that sounds very strange to my ears.) I'm just wondering if the Euros are "affecting" this voice or they would sing like that in their native language as well. Does this make sense? I can't believe that all Europeans would normally sing sooooo badly!!!!!

Where does that type of "singing" come from? Are they trying to sound like American "rockers" or what? There must be an explanation, but only a European could give me the answer. Does it sound "off" to your ears as well? Is it because these were producers trying to "sing" or what???? :o

[NickNack]

I know where you're coming from Marky. The owner of Decadance used to automatically flip those imports and play the instrumental, knowing most of us would be gagging if he tried to sell the vocal side. Most of mine are marked "ok" or "good" on the vocal side but "hot" or "very nice" on the instrumental.

As for all that excessive moaning and groaning, sliding up and down over syllables in what is supposed to be a "soulful" quality... pleeeze! If they had a soul it probably ran away for salvation from ear-splitting trauma. Wasn't it just a few years ago the male singers were giving you that 'wounded dog' sound, coming in slightly off key, attempting to bring... what? Nausea --- they succeeded!

[QUINNY]

Think like the guy in Aqua (among lotsa others)..."c'mon Barbie, let's go party"!!! (It's an odd rapsy, guttural absolutely EUROPEAN voice singing in English that sounds very strange to my ears.) I'm just wondering if the Euros are "affecting" this voice or they would sing like that in their native language as well. Does this make sense? I can't believe that all Europeans would normally sing sooooo badly!!!!!

Where does that type of "singing" come from? Are they trying to sound like American "rockers" or what? There must be an explanation, but only a European could give me the answer. Does it sound "off" to your ears as well? Is it because these were producers trying to "sing" or what???? :o

Marky: Try singing in a foreign language. It ain't easy and I guess the necessity of having to sing in English makes life hard for my Euro friends. You're just hearing the guttural sound of native speakers attempting to brush up on their English pronunciation. I guess it possibly doesn't sound quite so bad to us as we generally have more exposure to these languages and people speaking English from these countries.
Yeah, they can over do things, quite often.

Graham: I've never assumed that I could never agree with you on something.......why the surprise? Anyone would think I was bolshie or something! :o

[nrgbeat]

[quote="QUINNY"]More disturbing has been the trend over the past few years for everybody, but everybody, to sing 17 syllables where 2 or 3 well sung ones would do. All in the name of sounding more 'soulful'.

Yeah, like Ruben Studdard.

[markydefad]

The worst offender in the "17 syllables when 2 or 3 would do" is Miss Mariah Carey, IMHO. She often holds her hand out as she deliberately calibrates her notes and moves her hand up and down to, seemingly, indicate their placement on the musical scale. I swear I've seen her do this!!!!

Can you say "cal-cu-lated", boys & girls???? :evil:

But, now, after a decade plus of this, whenever you watch "Showtime At The Apollo" every singer does this same over-singing" much to the delight of the audience. The more notes --the more applause. :roll:

That's why seeing Norah Jones perform was such a breath of fresh air. She simply sings the song, without any phony artifice.

[K-Bee]

Think like the guy in Aqua (among lotsa others)..."c'mon Barbie, let's go party"!!! (It's an odd rapsy, guttural absolutely EUROPEAN voice singing in English that sounds very strange to my ears.) I'm just wondering if the Euros are "affecting" this voice or they would sing like that in their native language as well. Does this make sense? I can't believe that all Europeans would normally sing sooooo badly!!

Marky,
the Auqa guy's name is René Dif and i totally agree with you. His accent is absolutely terrible. Just another dane trying to sound like an american. needless to say it definetely didn't work out this time! :lol:. English is of course not my native language, but even I could hear that something was definetely wrong :lol:
However, commercially it worked out very well. Barbie Girl is the biggest international hit ever to come out of my home country (laid back's "white horse" was another one). Nevertheless, i'm just very saddened by the fact that it's "artists" like this who keep on putting Denmark on the music map. We got so much good jazz stuff going on over here but nobody seems to care about it :( . Sometimes I wish we could go back to the 60s when Copenhagen was the jazz capitol of Europe and people like Ben Webster and Dexter Gordon lived over here.

[Com King]

Think like the guy in Aqua (among lotsa others)..."c'mon Barbie, let's go party"!!! (It's an odd rapsy, guttural absolutely EUROPEAN voice singing in English that sounds very strange to my ears.) I'm just wondering if the Euros are "affecting" this voice or they would sing like that in their native language as well. Does this make sense? I can't believe that all Europeans would normally sing sooooo badly!!!!!

Marky I think Aqua is made to be caricatural. They don't try to be percieved as a serious group.

Besides this point, Aqua isn't music, it's a product made to be worldwide sold because it's funny, and because this god damn female singer looks just like the real barbie ... :D

[markydefad]

Aqua is just an example off the top of my head. I guess you could say that guy is a caricature, BUT I also remember lotsa Italian records with very weak vocals. Now I know Italians can sing...so I've often wondered why the vocals were so poor on otherwise nice records.

Nicky seems to recall the same phenomenon. In the early 1980's when all that Il Disc stuff was released....they rarely played the vocals, at least in SF.

The lead singers seemed vaguely off pitch and affecting a gruff, rough unpleasant voice. :roll:

[Giovanni]

BUT I also remember lotsa Italian records with very weak vocals. Now I know Italians can sing...so I've often wondered why the vocals were so poor on otherwise nice records

Marky, if you take a look at the thread about italo-disco you will understand why.... almost all the italians who released italo disco in the early 80s were not professional singers but mostly djs. moreover the vast majority of them couldn't speak english and didn't know what the words were meaning

[markydefad]

Thanks for that info Giovanni. I speculated that these vocalists might actually have been producers or djs attempting to "sing"...so I guess you've confirmed that.