I hate Rufus Wainwright's voice. Or rather, thinking about it, I hate the way he uses his voice. His pinched nasal whine is not in and of itself a bad thing, but the way he holds notes out and uses vibrato emphasizes all of its negatives and none of its positives. Also, for such an emotional song writer, his voice has almost no emotional range, it stretches from "crying in your beer" to "crying while eating ice cream".
Cue Rob Kendt's outrage.... now!
I love you. You are wrong.
Posted by: Abe Goldfarb | October 22, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Grrr...
Posted by: Rob Weinert-Kendt | October 22, 2009 at 11:08 AM
Maybe all that time you spend thinking of ways to demean others could be spent trying not to be a dick.
Posted by: Michael DeAntonio | October 22, 2009 at 11:11 AM
whaaaaaat.
Posted by: theresidentartist.wordpress.com | October 22, 2009 at 04:20 PM
I daresay a man who has the balls to reproduce Miss Garland's legendary concert at the same venue cannot be easily demeaned.
Posted by: cgeye | October 22, 2009 at 05:49 PM
Isaac, my wife would kill you if she heard you say that.
Posted by: Ken | October 23, 2009 at 10:44 AM
Isaac, I support you whole-heartedly here. I can take Mr. Wainwright only in small doses--largely when I'm in a mood to listen to elfen child-men complain. That mood strikes me very rarely.
There was a point at which it seemed like my partner was, for days on end, alternating playing the Garland concert with the Wainwright version. I don't like Garland. I'm not a huge Wainwright fan. It was a period in my life of some not inconsiderable amount of mental anguish.
But at the end of it all, we watched the Wainwright version of the concert. And I must confess, I have rarely been more bored watching something in my life. (The things one endures for love!) Again, I am no great fan of Judy Garland--some have suggested that my Queer Card be revoked for making such a confession. (My partner blames all this on the fact that I hadn't seen the Wizard of Oz 'til I was well into my twenties and didn't fall in love with it. At all. At all. At all.) But present in that cloud of drug-addled, cloying, fading mushy fabulousness which, to me, says "Judy," there is at least a range of human emotion that has depth, color, joy and sorrow.
In his defense, I think Wainwright's aesthetic is heavily influenced by the old standard singers/crooners/Jonathan Schwartz sort of singing. Which is fine and even, in its way, interesting. I just have a limited tolerance for it.
-M
Posted by: Mark S. | October 23, 2009 at 10:49 AM
Mark,
Thanks! you brought up the other bee in my bonnet-- Jonathan Schwartz. That guy plays the same maybe 100 songs in constant rotation, and has for years. Sinatra did not record enough music to warrant that much attention!
I mean, i would love to have a couple of hours of prime real estate on NPR to dwell on my obsessions, I'm sure everyone would, but it's a good thing that I don't, because they'd bore people who aren't me after a few listens. Anyone's obsessions dwelled on for a couple of hours a week, week after week for years get dull after awhile. Schwartz's get dull faster than that. And yet, not only is he still on NPR, they name drop him when they want pledge money!
Posted by: isaac | October 23, 2009 at 12:25 PM
Isaac:
I write more in sorrow than in anger. Seriously, no one can persuade someone to change their taste, and voices are inherently an inarguable matter of taste. Tastes can be acquired, though: Back in college I made the conscious decision to get over my indifference/distaste for the trained classical voice and opera singers, and started listening more intently and openly. I'm sure glad I made the effort, as that opened up a whole world of music to me, some of it now among my favorite.
And I could go down the list of non-classical singers with distinctive or odd voices I had to learn to love and am heartily glad I did: Elvis Costello, Edith Piaf, Bob Dylan, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Richard Thompson, Donald Fagen, Dolly Parton, Lotte Lenya, Ethel Merman, Judy Garland, Geddy Lee, Willie Nelson, Betty Carter, Joni Mitchell, Steve Perry, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I still kind of draw the line at the James Taylor/Jackson Browne cohort (though Taylor's version of "Steamroller Blues" does kick serious ass).
Rufus, I have to say, took no such learning curve; from his first record he was as easy for me to love as k.d. lang or Ella Fitzgerald. I haven't gone near his Garland reconstructions, which indeed sound boring. His own records, with a few exceptions, are quite great enough on their own. If you want to school yourself in the guy's range, you might try "Barcelona" for restraint and "California" for exuberance. No crying into anything there.
Posted by: Rob Weinert-Kendt | October 24, 2009 at 07:57 AM
Rob,
FOr me it's the opposite... I loved Bob Dylan (and tried to sing like him) in the 4th grade. Of the list of difficult singers in your post, almost none of them give me the jibblies. In fact, I loved Tom Waits the first time I heard him. And there are for thornier singers than Rufus that I dig (Nina Simone comes to mind).
There are a few widely-loved singers that I can't really deal with. Tom Yorke is one of them. Rufus is another. With the former, I'm willing to admit it's my problem, but with the latter I just think ya'alls getting hoodwinked.
Posted by: isaac | October 24, 2009 at 10:05 AM
If you've heard "In a Graveyard" and can honestly say that's not a great vocal performance--well, then, there's no accounting for or arguing taste.
Posted by: Rob Weinert-Kendt | October 24, 2009 at 11:39 AM
Rufus has such a wonderful sound. I like him for the same reason I listen to Danzig. (what?) Because its different and oddly put together.
Posted by: Katrina Banaski | June 14, 2012 at 05:20 PM