Can't Sing But They Still Gets The Money

I've listened to all kinds of music over the course of my lifetime and about the only real skill that I'd managed to develop is the ability to differentiate between good vocalizing and bad vocalizing. While the background of being a not-so-serious musician (played clarinet in grades 5-11) help me develop the knowledge of keeping the beat, it did not prepare me for being able to appreciate the good, the bad and the ugly of singing.

While certain genres lend themselves to good singing (country pop, pop & rock), other genres just about demand that you go above and beyond (soul, americana, singer/songwriter and true R&B). And there are those others that don't really require you to carry a tune, but simply have the ability not to make yourself look like a complete idiot (rap and certain kinds of metal).

Today's post will focus on a few "musicians" and styles that in my opinion have irritated me so bad that the second they come on the radio, I will listen to a foreign language station until they go away.

True statement: my wife has personally witnessed me yelling NO! at the radio and switching it to salsa/meringue music.

1} Fred Durst. Fred Durst was the lead vocalist in Limp Bizkit, a pseudo rap/rock band that flourished in the mid 90's. His vocals remind of a cross between a cat and a actress from a slasher flick. No matter what kind of tough guy persona he took on or how pseudo muscular his music was, the second he opened his mouth, I would just want to reach through the radio and slap some smartness into him.

2} Dave Mustaine. I cannot give an honest opinion of what he sounds like without offending my blog reader's sense of propriety, but suffice to say that whatever revolting combination of human noise you can put together, would pretty much describe his singing. Of his guitar playing I have no opinion, simply because I haven't been able to listen to any Megadeth song for longer than five seconds without changing the channel. All I can say is that this "musician" should never be allowed in the vicinity of a microphone ever again.

3} Marilyn Manson. Another singer whose voice leaves me at a loss for inoffensive words to describe, as he sings in the same moronic style as Dave Mustaine. He probably was decent at one point but unlike Alice Cooper, when he morphed into a caricature, his singing only gets worse.

One of the worst singing styles that bugs the crap out of me is talk-sing. Talk-sing is when the singer in question is more known for performing/composing than for singing, so they talk their way through the song. Examples of this type of singing would be Tom Waits and Lou Reed.

Another one that drives me nuts is monotone singing. Monotone is when the singer has almost no vocal range, so they choose to sing everything in one or two notes. The problem with this is that it instantly detracts from appreciating the music, as the listener focuses exclusively on the irritating vocals.

Some examples of this would be a small percentage of mid-90's small indie bands like Modest Mouse (I have the album that is featured on this website, and in my opinion, it sucks) and The Halo Benders, who felt that their appeal was geared more towards the lyric/music than actually being able to properly sing the lyrics.

One last example of vocal stylings I detest, is scat. While I like jazz and jazz vocalists, I cannot stand or tolerate scat. To me, stringing a bunch of nonsensical syllables together and putting it to a beat tells me that you're too lazy to either sit down and let the band play for another few minutes or you're too lazy to end a song at a logical point.

These are just a few examples of musicians/singing styles that simply irritate the crap out of me.

Do you have any that bug you? Do you have an opinion of what I wrote here? Fess up, I can take it.