Is the harp person Joanna Newsom? Agree with you on that front, but disagree when it comes to Dave Gedge. Missed concert or no (yes, I'll go there) I kind of like his voice, with the harder, almost awkwardly angular vocal delivery underscoring the painful themes of lost or unrequited love in some of the Wedding Present's better songs (see: 'Skindiving', off 'Saturnalia')

As for your other questions, Neko Case always elevates a song for me...'soaring' seems to be the best, albeit clichéd way to describe her voice but there's a fullness to it that feels as though it were being carried across a landscape. Her songs are good to begin with though. An example of a bad singer who doesn't ruin a song might be Leonard Cohen, (see: 'Suzanne') . Do so many Pavement songs work in spite of or because of Malkmus' voice? [For sure, their videos suck].

Frank Sinatra certainly made an ordinary song sublime....'Fly me to the moon/Let me play among the stars' is no great poetry but the words sound golden when they come out of his mouth. Chet Baker also lifts many of the jazz standards.

For a more recent example, Sam Beam from Iron & Wine writes some very non-complex, stripped down acoustic songs but his voice envelops you in its warmth, even when the material has recorded on low-fi equipment in his own home, which I believe was the case with 'The Creek Drank the Cradle'. I'd argue that may qualify as lifing the material but I'm guessing what you're looking for are examples where the source material is bad in the first place.

Will keep pondering on that one.

Actually I'm in agreement with Stuart. Listing me as top 5 adds a level of grandeur and legitimacy to what I have in my more lucid moments considered to be simply piss poor singing.

Mike did a great job of feretting out singers that I've always disliked, but, in the case of Richard Thompson, had never admitted to myself that he ruined great songs for me. There are countless when you start to think about it - I've always disliked Adam Dortiz of Counting Crows (the update Van Morisson croon is deeply pretentious) and yes I believe he ruined a few really good songs; that annoying voice from the Wedding Present (Gedge, I think) also took an entire oeuvre off the rails for me; Antony (of the Johnsons is grating) beyond belief, and so was the lead falsetto singer for The Ass Ponys (looking back into the nineties); that singer (name escapes me) with the girly voice who plays the harp. Yes, all of the gravel-voiced morons who ruined grunge; even Bono is a caricature of himself most of the time these days. Neil Diamond of course became pretty ridiculous fairly quickly (sorry Mike and Stu), there are hundreds of others if you start to look back a bit.

Two other questions - how about some bad (technically) singers who strangely don't ruin songs, and even elevate them? What about the singer who, given the quality of his/her voice, makes an ordinary song sublime?

Thanks, Stuart! Now I'll have 'Winona Ryder' in my head all day! I figured you'd be all over Mike for the Richard Thompson selection. Why are you picking fights w/ Herr Doyle?

Mike, some great choices, imo. Not sure if Axel Rose or David Lee Roth annoy the shit out of me more...guess it comes down to whether the former's conscious warbling constitutes a greater crime than the latter's buffoonish yelping? Kudos for singling out Carol Pope, who thankfully hasn't had much airplay since the early 1980s. Derek, I think you've correctly identified 'Black Velvet' by Alannah Myles as the worst Canadian single ever but I think it's more the lyrics than than vocals on which this indictment is based.

Others that spring to mind: the lead singer from the band 'Cake' (at least Fred from the B52s has a sense of camp, this guy aims for ironic detachment while still trolling for gags and the result is that I'm bored and irritated at the same time), James Blunt (only time a human sound put to music prompts the question: is someone torturing or fellating that cat?) Hootie, frontman for Blowfish (no explanation required), the lead singers of nth generation retread grunge bands like Creed, Nickelback, Glueleg, etc., (falls under the category of shooting fish in a barrel) and finally, P.J. Harvey (perhaps some find the devolution into wailing that typifies most of her work to be emotionally powerful...i just find myself wondering why i'm listening to someone wailing).

Time to go back to work....'if you were/Winona Ryder...' damn!

thats a tough one.....
Brian Doyle of the Egolillys is the only one I can think of at the moment....

Great idea - I'm in! The first vocalist on my list is Brian Johnson of AC/DC. I think I'm a bit like a former heavy smoker who developed an intense aversion to cigarettes upon quitting. I used to listen to screaching high-pitched heavy metal vocalists almost exclusively, and now I find it extremely grating. Brian is the most prominent example for me because my son is now listening to a lot of AC/DC, but you could substitute Geddy Lee (in the early years) or any number of others from the genre. My second choice is Axyl Rose. In many ways he could be included in the first category, but I'm listing him separately because he is such an ass. Also, his voice has a certain muppety quality that I find particularly unpleasant. My third choice reminds me that this list is not in order of priority, because Johnny Rotten might be my all-time least favorite. His vocal style of spitting out the lyrics with little or no regard to melody and absolutely no dynamics spawned countless imitators and I detest all of them. I get the social dynamic of the band, and there is undeniable power and energy in the best punk music, but that vocal styling ruins it all for me. Bringing it closer to home, and switching genders for a moment, I'm going to name Carole Pope of Rough Trade as my fourth example of god-awful singers. Her musical footprint is much smaller, but she did invade my otherwise idyllic universtiy years by "smudging the air with her sound" as Leonard Cohen would say. My final choice is a bit different - Richard Thompson is an excellent guitar player and songwriter, and I would like to be a bigger fan, but there is a quality in his voice that puts me off. I can't put my finger on exactly what it is, but something in the timbre of his voice reacts badly with something in my ear.

Just finished reading, Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, a collection of amusing articles about music and pop culture, which were fun to read even when I found myself disagreeing with some of the writer's opinions and observations.

In addition to pieces previously published in various magazines like Spin, The Believer, and NYTimes Magazine, are a few little additional side pieces, one of which poses the following hypothetical question:

"You meet your soul mate. However, there is a catch: Every three years, someone will break both of your soul mate's collarbones with a crescent wrench, and there is only one way you can stop this from happening: You must swallow a pill that will make every song you hear--for the rest of your life--sound as if it's being performed by the band Alice in Chains. When you hear Creedence Clearwater Revival on the radio, it will sound (to your ears) like it's being played by Alice in Chains. If you see Radiohead live, every one of their tunes will sound like it's being covered by Alice in Chains. When you hear a commercial jingle on TV, it will sound like Alice in Chains; if you sing to yourself in the shower, your voice will sound like deceased Alice vocalist Layne Staley performing a capella (but it will only sound this way to you).
Would you swallow the pill?"

Of course, I found this quite funny because I've always loathed Alice in Chains. But it gave me the idea to ask if you could come up with a list of at least 5 singers/bands whose vocal stylings so grate on your nerves that you'd consider consigning the love of your life to tri-annual random violence.

Several of you have expressed a distate for the lead singer of the National, which Stuart and I continue to find irrational to the point of idiocy, so I'll throw that one out to get you started.
We could also come up with a list of favourite vocalists if you really feel you must put a positive spin on things but let's 'go neg' first, shall we?

'Bus Stop' and 'Carrie-Anne' are the extent of my Hollies knowledge so I'll be interested in hearing some other songs at an upcoming meeting.

As for emusic suggestions, some I've downloaded over the last three months include:

• Ida - folky, pretty harmonies, perfect summer Sunday music
• Pete & the Pirates - bad band name but great jangly pop songs
• Headlights - kind of derivative but if you like Elliot Smith, Belle &Seb, similar music, you'll likely find this collection of songs enjoyable

Am contemplating getting the new My Morning Jacket disc, 'Evil Urges'. Reviews are all over the place and I'm not digging what I'm hearing on my first few listens of some sample tracks so I'm not sure. I'll likely get it anyway, given that on emusic, it will cost me all of $3.

Any other emusic folks out there have any recent download suggestions? Or shall I assume you're hitting the refresh button on the Taylor Swift album which, inexplicably, has yet to appear any lower than #3 on the emusic charts for the past year and a half.

Hey Kylie, Azureus is fantastic.  I had tried it a few weeks back based on some feedback I had read, but was unable to get past the "Vuze" front end, until I read your article, which had some really clear steps on how o navigate through it.  So now I'm back in the torrent swing of things. 

I owe you one pal.

Just downloaded the entire 60's discography of the Hollies - not to everyone's tastes, likely, but a couple of real gems, which I will feature at our next CD Club.... which incidentally Marc has promised to host soon.

Any hot tips on filling out my emusic order for the month? I just picked up a couple of great old Clifford Jordan CDs (jazz sax) from the early 60's.

 

Vinyl sales up?

Azureus looks to be the best, based on a quick glance of reviews online. For a good laugh, read through the bullet pointed list of features and pretend to nod approvingly.

Kyle, impressive. ANy insight into a bit torrent lcient that works on a Mac OSX? They are mostly built for PCs, and I've had a hell of a time making one work on my Mac. I finally was able to have some success with a provider called Bit Rocket, but it's unstable and has to be re-launched multiple times every time I use it etc etc.

I'm not a network administrator so I'm not sure about all the terminology and advice listed here, but it might be a good start for torrent optimization.

As for discovering new stuff, I've added some a set of links to the right under the title of 'Streams & Downloads" which might help.

Hype Machine contains links to music blogs as well as daily playlists from contributors with a good mix of old and new tracks, as well as remixes and mashups. Stereogum offers a combination of free mp3s and mixed compilation downloads as well as streams, news and video.
Fingertips is a great website that features new mp3s and a service that will email you a weekly list of picks for the cost of zero. The previously spotted (kudos, Derek) Muxtape, which allows anybody to upload a weekly playlist; the list will only stay up for one week at a time, i guess due to copyright concerns.

Also, if anybody doesn't/hasn't listened to the most recent NPR All Songs Considered podcast, where a panel of music writers discuss the 'soundtracks' of different generations, I recommend that you do so. It's an interesting discussion and touches on some conversations that we've all had at one point, either here or offline.

Okay, no more links for today. Go back to watching Euro soccer updates.

I've gone as deep as I can go on the subject Mike. I'm so not technically minded. I generally just delete torrents that are taking too long and try for another source - it's not perfect though. I'd be interested in hearing more from anyone who's further on in the torrent evolution chain.

As a consolation, I have a CD of Andrew Cash's Hi which I can lend you.

Thanks for all of the helpful advice. I've completed the CD part of my digitization project, and embarked on the tapes. Of the first 10 or so albums I tried to find, the only one I have not yet located is Andrew Cash's "Hi". In some cases I was able to download an album or a set of albums in an evening, but in other cases the progress is extremely slow - several have yet to complete. Does anybody have any good advice on how to locate faster sources, or otherwise optimize this lengthy process?

A good torrent client to download and use is utorrent. There are various torrent search sites that you can use to find the music but I find just typing in the name of the band with the word 'torrent' in google usually gets me to screens with enough options. You have to install the torrent client first before the downloads will work and they tend to be a little slower to start than limewire but you can set up a bunch of them, leave the computer on and they'll eventually all download. Unlike limewire or other file sharing programs, you have to wait until the download is 100% complete....if it craps out, those song files you see on your computer are only partial files and won't be playable (unless incoherent mixed up versions of your favourite songs do it for you). Hope this helps.

Hi Mike, a number of us over here have been downloading (illegally) using "bit torrent", which enables you to grab full albums, and often full discographies of artists, with relative ease.   Honestly, I'm pretty surprised that a web savvy guy like you is hearing this from a webmoron like myself.

Basically to use bit torrent you have to download some bit torrent software into your PC, of which there are numerous available 0n the web (I use one called bit lord), and then visit one or more of the plethora of download sites (again, many many available, I tend to use isohunt, torrentz - which is a compendium of a bunch of sites), and start finding music.  You'll figure it out in about ten minutes max.

I've been using the sites for a couple of years, after Derek let me know about it, and it has kind of changed my life in terms of finding old music.  Personally I don't use it for new music but everyone has different degrees of morality about these things, and I would never suggest that mine is right or wrong.

 

Thanks Kyle. Disappointing, but not surprising. Let me turn to the group here for advice. What I'm trying to do is go all-digital with my music. I just put hardwood flooring in my living room, so I had to move all the furniture out. At the moment, that includes a TV with surround sound system as well as a stereo with CD, cassette, tuner, amp and speakers. It seems wasteful to have 2 different amps and speakers in the same room - and the CDs and tapes take up a ton of space as well. So I bought a Squeezebox Duet, which allows me to stream music from my computer through the surround sound system, and I can avoid putting the CDs, tapes and stereo back in the room. I'm almost finished ripping all of my CDs, but I don't want to try to capture my 500 or so tapes - the sound would not be as good, and the process would be prohibitively manual and clumsy. Since I already have all of this music on tape, I don't have any ethical problem downloading it for free if I can find it, but a quick test with Limewire makes me leery - it seems quite difficult to find entire albums, and even in my brief test I downloaded 2 viruses. That's why I was excited to find a site that sells songs for 15 cents each, but I'm now leery of that option as well. Any suggestions?


Thanks,


Mike

re: soudike....this appears to be one of many russian mp3 websites that are able to sell music so low because they're not really legit, in the sense that none of the money they rake in goes to the artists. i've never used any of these sites myself, mostly for fears of what could be done to my credit card but i do have a friend who has used sites like these in the past and she hasn't had any problems with overcharging or fraud. here's a review of soudike at mp3victim, a site which reviews these types of mp3 sites. they're recommending avoidance, given the lack of email response from the customer service department. hope this helps.

Do any of you have any experience with soundike.com? I stumbled across it today. It seems to be a commerical site for buying and downloading music at very reasonable rates. For example, here is Sgt. Pepper for $1.56 or $0.15 per song. It appears to be mp3 format at a bitrate of 320 (which is reasonably good quality, I think). They seem to have a relatively extensive catalog - more targetted at the mainstream than emusic.com.

My "if it seems to good to be true then it probably is" sense is tingling. Anybody have any information about the service?

Going back to the discussion abotu the changes in the music industry, I recently read an article that had a different take on the record company woes (actually it was an ebook, and a very interesting one, I thought. It's free, and you can get it here). It said that the real reason the record companies are struggling isn't the loss of sales to downloading, but rather the increased competition due to the disappearance of scarcity. The basic argument is that under the old business model, there was limited shelf space and so consumers had a limited range of choice when it came to spending their music budget. On the Internet, however, no such scarcity exists. So the field of choices for consumers is expanding exponentially, including not only the traditional major label stuff, but also the entire historical catelog of major label stuff as well as a huge array of indepent label material. On the web, it is never necessary to take something off the shelf to make room for something else. So the big releases by the major lables will still sell well, but they are now competing with a much larger selection of current and historical choices, and so their sales naturally decline. I'm about half way through this book, and I'm finding it extremely interesting, and full of cool websites that I should probably have already known about. It's just one more of an increasing number of things that make me feel old!