eglamkowski's Journal: music

I really hate singers who feel the need to use a lot of "ooh" and "aah" and "yeah" and "la la la" in their lyrics. If you are opening your mouth, make sure what comes out is real, genuine, bona fide actual word. Not a sound, not a syllable, a word.

I listen to a LOT of international music - mexican, cuban, brazilian, hawaiian and other polynesian, chinese, japanese, korean, german, russian, italian, gaelic and many others. This is not a huge problem in these other countries - when they open their mouths to sing, a real word comes out, not some crappy and lame attempt at "feeling". It seems to be endemic only to english singers.
Give it a rest already. If you can't make a good song without resorting to such nonsense every time, you need to go back and reevaluate your singing strategy.

Or better yet, learn to play some other wind instrument (trumpet, flute, sax, oboe, bassoon, recorder, left handed sewer flute, anything!) and avoid the temptation all together.

um...ya sure?

[tuxette]

This is not a huge problem in these other countries - when they open their mouths to sing, a real word comes out, not some crappy and lame attempt at "feeling".

You're 100% about this? I mean, those words you think you're listening to could be the relevant language's word for "ooh" and "la la la" ;-)

Have you heard Lappish joiking at all? :-)

response, take two

[blinder]

Well, I thought I posted this, ding dang slashdot, errr... or maybe it was me. i dunno...

anyway, my original response went something like:

"unless of course oohs and aahhs are sung by Sarah Shannon (ex-Velocity Girl). She can sing anything and you just feel lucky and blessed to have heard it."

Anyway, if someone would ask who's my favorite female vocalist -- that's easy, Sarah Shannon. I mean good grief, it doesn't get closer to perfection to my ears.

Yeah

[Sloppy]

Yeah, all the sounds should be intelligent words, like Led Zeppelin used to sing: "Baby, baby, baby..."

unless they're doing it on purpose

[turg]

I agree that "oooh" and "aah" etc. are usually annoying filler, but I don't think it applies to all non-word singing. I enjoy scat singing or how Liz Fraser from Cocteau Twins sang (all nonsense words). In these cases, the singer is using the human voice as another instrument like the guitar or piano, etc. (as opposed to running out of things to say)

Re:unless they're doing it on purpose

[eglamkowski]

Yeah, scat is unique in that regard and can be quite enjoyable if done well. Of course, it's hard to do well...

Louis Armstrong is my favorite scat singer, but I don't listen to a whole lot of it.

vocals without words

[subgeek]

i agree that using syllables because they needed filler sounds between words should be avoided. sometimes it's good to hear the sound the human voice makes without trying to make words out of it. orbital is good for that. so are tibetan monks singing tuva.

songwriting

[briandk]

perhaps the songwriting has degenerated so much that oohs and ahhs are the only thing that sell. If that is the case it is truly sad