I love all different kinds of vocalists.
Regarding one particular thing that hits me right where I live:
I have slowly begun to realize that there is a commonality and a through line that connects a bunch of female-led songs that have jumped out at me and drew me in over the years.
It seems that there is a certain kind of unaffected vocal, just a woman’s natural voice, that appeals to me in a way that can be difficult to describe.
It’s not exclusive to female vocals.
The male falsetto, a la The Beach Boys or Stylistics can really get to me in much the same way.
And again, this is not to dismiss or reject other kinds of female vocals.
Walk with me as I explore this further. If, by the end of it, you don’t see any connection whatsoever between these songs and artists, but end up enjoying some killer tracks, then all is not lost.
“More, More, More”
Andrea True Connection
(1976)
A while back at the mothership: a younger commenter who was hearing this song for the first time passed it off as lesser tier disco that not surprisingly wasn’t as big or memorable as some of the other widely known songs of the genre. To the uninitiated, this may sound like nothing special, but the fact is, it’s nothing less than an iconic representation of the zeitgeist of the time.
Listen, if a hardcore porn star with no professional singing experience and a no-frills voice breezing her way through a chorus of “More, more, more, how do you like it, how do you like it” all the way to #4 on the charts isn’t the very heart and soul of disco, then tell me what is?
Donna Summer’s not so subtle “Love to Love You Baby” a year earlier, you say? Fair enough.
“Heart of Glass”
Blondie
(1978)
It’s safe to say that Debbie Harry is known to sing in a variety of styles, many of them quite gritty, but the first time I heard her was in the opening lines of “Heart of Glass.”
It’s this clear, high voice dishing out nearly unintelligible lines about having her heart smashed into a million pieces in a cool, relaxed manner, accompanied by a thumping dance beat.
It was different than anything I’d heard, and I was instantly drawn to it.
Sometime later, at the tail end of junior high, we took a class trip to a beach somewhere in Wisconsin. I remember getting off the bus and hearing this song and Debbie’s slacker siren vocals blasting from a jukebox, as we walked into an empty pavilion. Somehow, that moment is 8th grade to me, plain and simple.
“Cruel Summer”
Bananarama
(1983)
Just three women singing the melody of the song together. As if they randomly started singing along to whatever music was playing at a house party and someone was like, hey that sounds decent. You should record that.
Songs about summer are typically upbeat and fun, and the track here is banging, but the lyrics describe feeling alone and deserted amidst an oppressive, dry heat hanging over everything.
The gals navigate the incongruence by sticking together and keeping it understated, with just a hint of angst. No one gets infected with theater kid energy or tries to break out of the pack as the lead singer. Perfect.
“My Boyfriend’s Back”
The Angels
(1963)
Back in the early 90s, on the day of my birthday, I was sitting in my classroom at the Catholic school where I taught, after school was officially out for the summer. Three girls who had just graduated walked in unexpectedly, handed me a homemade card and stood there shyly singing “Your Birthday’s Back” to the tune of “My Boyfriend’s Back”.
After an awkward pause, they quickly left. It was touching, and I remember it sounding exactly the way three junior high girls would sound.
The actual recording of “My Boyfriend’s Back” isn’t much different. The verses sound like playground taunts, a la “Nyah nah nah nah nah.” Nothing more than a girl and her pals, in the most unthreatening way possible, celebrating the fact that the jerk that tried to ruin her reputation is about to get the snot beat out of him. Unrelated, future heavy metal icon Ronnie James Dio plays trumpet on this song.
“Victrola”
Veruca Salt
(1994)
When I first heard this song I was incredulous. Distorted guitars intermittently chugging and snarling, with two high-pitched innocent sounding voices expressing their adoration for an ancient record player, puncturing through the sludgy mix like junior high refugees from the local church youth choir.
Those sounds did not belong together, which is exactly why it worked. Other bands have gone with a similar contrast, but few with a chasm between the two quite like this. A whole new world of possibilities as to what rock could sound like had just opened up.
“Toxic” – leaked version with pre- auto tuned vocals
Britney Spears
(2003)
I find Britney to be one of the most misunderstood singers in pop history. If I hear one more person say “she can’t really sing”, I’m going to punch an inanimate object. It’s going to be a soft surface with a lot of give, like a couch, so that I don’t hurt myself, but it will be with just as much anger as if I had broken my hand from putting a hole in a wall.
Britney’s very first hit, “…Baby One More Time” was recorded when she was 17 years old.
She totally sells the song with a powerful vocal delivery, filled with all of the tortured emotion you could ever want. She more than convincingly plays the part of a desperate teen waiting for the object of her undying love (obsession?) to call her, as that call never quite comes.
The key to identifying the power of her voice is that it all comes from a lower range. If she were in a choir, she would be an alto. I have sung “…Baby One More Time” at karaoke and was able to do so comfortably in her range for almost every note, something I can rarely do on a female-led song. Someone who does not have power in the upper range is not a lesser singer. It just means that if they are going to belt something out, it’s going to be in the lower regions.
In the song “Toxic”, Britney is covering a range of nearly two octaves. (If you are aware that Mariah Carey has a five-octave range, two octaves may not sound like a lot, but I assure you that it is.)
The highest note is an F5, which is way beyond alto range.
In this leaked version, before auto tune and whatever else was used to get the final sheen on her vocal, you can hear what is happening. Her lower range lines, such as “I’m addicted to you, don’t you know that you’re toxic” at (3:00-3:05) are fierce and powerful, right in her sweet spot, and don’t really need anything added at all.
On the high pre-chorus lines “Too high, can’t come down. Losin’ my head, spinnin’ ‘round and round” (0:40-0:47)), she’s singing it softly, and she’s basically hitting it, but it doesn’t have that confident spot-on pop-singer “nailed it” perfection to it.
…And I love it. It perfectly exudes a vulnerability and a loss of control that is necessary to convey just how much she is under this person’s spell, even though she knows it’s bad for her. I wish they had left it like that, but in pop music in 2003, that wasn’t going to happen.
“I’ll Be Your Mirror”
The Velvet Underground, Nico
(1967)
It’s not like Nico had never sung before this; she had. It’s just that her unschooled, childlike vocals (if a child could sing an octave lower than any child has ever sung), and earnest tone come across as totally pure and authentic.
Lou Reed’s lyrics, a simple, yet poignant testament to how someone who truly loves you can help you see the good in yourself, find the perfect instrument in her voice.
The album was not well-received at the time. I would imagine Warhol came across as batty for thinking that this band and a partially deaf German fashion model were two entities that belonged together, but the union could not ring any truer here.
“Wordy Rappinghood”
Tom Tom Club
(1981)
“Genius of Love” is Tom Tom Club’s most successful and best-known song in the U.S., and the female vocals on it certainly fit the profile here. However, it was “Wordy Rappinghood”, which charted in the U.K., but only on the dance charts here, that grabbed my attention more so, albeit recently.
As the title promises, it does feature Tina Weymouth rapping, but more like a slightly deranged librarian.
She and her sisters occasionally break out into a high-pitched semblance of a hook line (“What are words worth), as well as the children’s song “A Ram Sam Sam”, but none of it sounds like professional singing. It’s just women having fun and being themselves over a monster, if somewhat unsettling dance groove, and its offbeat sense of humor pulled me in right away.
“School Days”
The Runaways
(1977)
Joan Jett would become a bona fide rock star after the breakup of the Runaways. Here, she’s still finding her voice. She has a slight rasp here and there, but she mostly sounds like a girl singing in a matter-of-fact manner about what her life has been like as a teenager:
One who didn’t have much use for school and is now fully entrenched in a thrilling but very adult scene with no limits or supervision, where the danger of completely going under lurks.
This authenticity, along with just the fact that this band was rocking out in a time when girls previously had virtually no voice or presence in that arena, gets to me.
“It’s Unanimous”
Stiffed
(2005)
Channeling punk, 80s new wave and reggae, it wouldn’t appear that a soft, airy feminine voice would fit the sound of this band, but that is exactly what is happening here and it’s totally working.
When I hear it, everything is right in the world for just a moment.
Stiffed only recorded one full-length album. But lead singer Santigold would achieve greater success as a solo artist, wearing some of the same influences on her sleeve.
“Spoon”
Cibo Matto
(1999)
Cibo Matto was basically two Japanese women transplanted to New York City. Almost all of the songs off their first album are about food, and their name roughly translates to “Food Madness” in Italian, so they would have had my attention anyway.
When I heard this track in particular, it took me to a magical place. You have this slick, mesmerizing groove popping out of the speakers for starters. These high, ethereal vocals come floating in on the verse, singing about a missing spoon, but somehow sounding like it’s both mystical and an existential crisis. They then shift to the hypnotic chorus that keeps repeating like a gently funky mantra.
No idea what any of it means, but yes, a thousand times, yes.
“Ginger”
Hello Mary
(2020)
Three girls playing heavy rock, but with normal girl voices. Yeah, it fits. An heir apparent to 90s alt-rock, in these days when rock is supposed to be long dead, this band grabbed me the minute I heard it. Still listening.
“bloodstream”
Soccer Mommy
(2020)
Indie singer-songwriter Sophie Allison is Soccer Mommy. I’m running out of ways to describe the sound I’m reaching for in this article, but trust me, this is it. If anything here today resonates with you and you haven’t heard this artist, go find her.
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I believe I understand the sound you’re reaching for. If I am not wrong, then “6 Underground” by Sneaker Pimps also counts? Or “Mouth” by Merril Bainbridge?
What about “I Love You Always Forever” by Donna Lewis? Is that too affected?
Broadly speaking, I support the notion of plain, natural, unadorned singing. Powerhouses are of course impressive, and autotune sometimes works. But there’s something to be said of relatable, approachable vocals.
More than anything though, I advocate for variety in popular music. That’s one thing that seems to be on the decline–hopefully temporarily. I hope to one day hear the squeaks and pops of singers like Charlie XCX. #BringBackTimbre
Also #UseLessCompression
“6 Underground” came very close to making this list, so I believe you do get what’s happening here. “Mouth” I haven’t heard, but listening now, I would say it fits. The Donna Lewis song is in the ballpark, and possibly on the field.
I too am all for variety in popular music, and my listening choices would certainly reflect it. Today was a chance to connect some dots on some songs and singers that I previously hadn’t connected.
There’s some great songs here but you had to go and ruin it by bringing up I Love You Always Forever.
It’s got a nursery rhyme sing-sing quality to the chorus especially that still makes me cringe when I hear it.
I’m off to wash my ears out with some Blondie.
Really? I loved the hushed delivery. It’s not too far from Kate Bush. And I’m no enemy of singsong tweeness. Elven parents need an outlet too!
Woah…I love that song. And I recall that even Tom Breihan gave “I Love You Always Forever” a 10!
I’ll have to take a listen to the lower half, but based on the upper half, I’d use “unaffected” to describe the attitude they have in common. Interesting take here, RB, and I look forward to listening to the songs I haven’t heard before.
I’m not 100% sure I’m getting the connection here, but if I am, I would nominate Astrud Gilberto’s amateur-sounding, but classic “The Girl from Ipenema” as fitting your criteria.
Was VERY close to making the list, Link. Last second omission.
I love a lot of these artists, especially Blondie and Cibo Matto. The first Blondie album is still my favorite of theirs, and Cibo Matto had me as soon as I heard “Know Your Chicken.” I was lucky enough to see them when they toured about ten years ago. So much fun!
The Britney Spears track is much more interesting, to my ears anyway, than the finished product. Less is more, y’know?
I’m not familiar with Stiffed or Hello Mary, and I know very little Soccer Mommy. Guess I have to go do some listening. In the meantime, may I recommend the “Gling-Gló” album by Björk Guðmundsdóttir & tríó Guðmundar Ingólfssonar? Yes, that Björk, but it’s Jazz. They do a version of “Oh My Papa” but in Icelandic.
Björk came to mind for this article, but a just bit outside of the continuum, at least what I’m familiar with. She has an unconventional, down-to-earth style, but she’s definitely going for it at the same time. Listening to Gling-Gló now. Not sure if it fits the continuum, but I really like it either way. Such a cool interesting approach to jazz. One-of-a-kind, this gal is.
That’s the first time I’ve heard the phrase “down-to-earth” associated with Björk, but she’s definitely one-of-a-kind.
Her fungal album really gets deep into the soil.
I heard the mix is a bit muddy.
Yes, but it’s some good shiitake.