Vocals

Since I'm bored and think this way pretty near constantly, I thought it would be interesting to break down different categories of vocals in music. Basically, I'm trying to figure out which of my favorite bands have:
A.) Better lyrics than vocals- that is, singers who sing worse than they write;
B.) Better vocals than lyrics- singers who sing better than they write; or
C.) Vocals and lyrics that are about the same. This does not necessarily comprise an elite group, theoretically you could have a terrible singer/songwriter who would fit this category very neatly.

That being said, let's begin.

A.) Better Lyrics Than Vocals

James LaBrie- The lead singer for Dream Theater doesn't have a bad voice, per se, but he isn't exactly Freddie Mercury (who is coming later). He also happens to have a pretty good knack for writing lyrics- he did very well on Dream Theater's best album, Metropolis Part II: Scenes from a Memory, which is more or less the only one of theirs that I can completely recommend. He also has a couple of well-written songs on Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, although I'm fairly sure that Mike Portnoy wrote a good number of those, as the album was his idea and is named after his own experiences with a twelve-step program. I would consider him above average as a pure vocalist, but a solid-to-good songwriter, so he fits this one on the lower end.

Dustin Kensrue- Both a solo artist and the singer and second guitarist of the post-hardcore band Thrice, Kensrue has a very odd vocal style. He has a certain rasping quality that still remains distinct from mere shouting or the vocal shredding common to similar acts, but he does flirt with both. However, like Thrice itself, his body of work is highly variable, ranging from aggressive, intense punkery to soft, lilting understatement. As with LaBrie, he does have a decent voice, but his lyrics (especially if you are, as I am, a Christian) are often very, very, very good. His vocal ability in itself is nothing special, but his lyrics are excellent.

Eddie Argos- Art Brut, an excellent Brit-punk/pop/rock'n'roll band that I previously mentioned in passing, sometimes comes dangerously close to simply being a vehicle for Argos' self-deprecation. To be perfectly frank, his voice is basically just an average, pleasant-sounding one. Were it not for the sheer brilliance and humor of his lyrics, he would be completely unremarkable as a musician. However, his lyrics are that good, and so is Art Brut as a whole. It takes a more careful listening to appreciate the instrumentals, but the words are up-front and hilarious.

Tom Petty- Do I even have to explain this one? He writes catchy lyrics (and catchy songs, as well) despite his irritating, nasal whine. He hovers only a few notches above Tom DeLonge in terms of sheer annoyance.

Bob Dylan- See above.

Paul Simon- Because Art Garfunkel was a better singer and hardly ever wrote lyrics.

B.) Better Vocals Than Lyrics

This one is a surprisingly fruitful one, so I tried to limit myself to just a few choices here.

Freddie Mercury- I told you it was coming. Queen does have some decently written tunes, but who even needs lyrics with a voice like Freddie's? Possibly the best vocalist in rock history, he had an impossibly high tenor, great sustain, and a very smooth delivery. My only knock against him is that his style didn't particularly lend itself to certain genres, including my favorite, blues. In terms of sheer vocal talent, though, he is light-years ahead of practically everybody else.

Robert Plant- Another of my favorite vocalists who doesn't really have a flair for writing. Plant had a voice like a wolf (and not Howlin' Wolf, either) and a banshee shriek that was a perfect fit for the hard, wailing music that Zeppelin reveled in. He also had pretty decent chops as a softer, folky singer, and despite the sheer weirdness and oddball-ity of his sound, he remains one of the most distinctive and accomplished singers of rock music. And- he wrote mostly flat, uninspiring lyrics. Many songs, like "Whole Lotta Love," "How Many More Times," and "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" either borrowed heavily or were direct covers of previous work. Plant's original material, such as "Achilles Last Stand" (which isn't even punctuated correctly), or "What Is and What Should Never Be" devolve into either cliche or meaninglessness with great regularity. His best composition was probably "Thank You," which is a great song, but not much better than passable in its lyrics. Still, he was a bluesman at heart, and the blues and its derivative forms have almost always had more to say with the music than with the lyrics.

Joe Cocker- I love his gritty blues voice, but his best song was written by the Beatles (that would be "With A Little Help From My Friends," a track on which Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page played during his session days). His other most famous tune is "Feelin' Alright," which is decent but nothing exceptional in terms of the lyrics.


C.) Equally Good Lyrics and Vocals

Bono- U2 has neither the best lyrics (Dylan, among others, had better ones) nor the best vocals (Queen and Zeppelin are better in my book) but they do have some of the best of each. Bono has a good, clear tenor and a strong social conscience. Often, he is not the most subtle of songwriters, but there really are some issues that deserve to be addressed with a sledgehammer instead of a tap on the shoulder- for instance, the failure of the UN to support Bishop Desmond Tutu against the apartheid state of South Africa (which Bono addressed in a live cut off of "Rattle and Hum"). Bono probably exemplifies the best of this category: insightful lyrics combined with genuine vocal talent.

John Fogerty- Better-than-average lyrics along with a better-than-average voice, a gritty and distinctively American sound. But his solo career was pretty crappy.

Sting- With The Police, that is. His solo career was awful, and he can't really hit the high notes anymore. I think he was probably about two octaves lower on "Roxanne" when I saw The Police a while back. While, with The Police, he had some creepy-but-interesting compositions about personal life, his solo material sees him dipping into the hippy-environmentalist cliche well far too often.

Umm... that's it, I guess.

The Latest U2, Shaq Hypocrisy, and The Chuck Rule

I bought the latest U2 album, "No Line On the Horizon," yesterday. I was disappointed. I think U2's existence can be divided into three basic parts. U2 1.0 was the 80s post-punk phase characterized by songs like "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "Bullet the Blue Sky," and "New Year's Day," as well as some softer, arena-type atmospheric songs ("Where the Streets Have No Name," "Bad," etc.). 2.0 was the unfortunate 90s experiment with dance pop and electronic music: "Discotheque," et al. 3.0 was the phase of the last two albums. Both "All You Can't Leave Behind" and "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" were somewhat experimental, but they much more closely resembled the albums of 1.0 and were both fairly good. I'd say we are now in a half-stage called U2 3.5 that retains the experimentation of the last two albums, but is experimenting, once again, in a dance pop way, with electronic songs and weird atmospheric effects. A couple of songs have good instrumentals, a couple have good vocals, but no one song really combines the two, and none of them is a real rock song. I was also disappointed to see just how much of a back seat Larry Mullen, Jr.'s drumming took, although I thought that the Edge had some of his better guitar work. Of course, I'm a drummer, music's equivalent of unskilled labor, so I really don't know. It just sounded a bit more technical than he's wont to do. Here's hoping that U2's fourth decade will be more like its first.


Shifting gears, Shaquille O'Neal is slowly becoming a parody of himself. Shaq has long had a pretty cool image: he's articulate, funny (sort of), and just a generally intimidating man. Besides his weird penchant for self-assigned nicknames ("The Big Aristotle") and, of course, Kazaam, he's been fun to watch off-court. But this latest incident with Dwight Howard, Van Gundy, and what might be termed Flopgate has been almost satirical. Shaq first warns against potential floppers- fine, Shaq has a point when it comes to men of lesser stature taking dives against him. But his hurtle to the floor was very plainly just that. Howard barely grazed him with a hip, but Shaq acted more like it was a 'bow to the chest. Van Gundy also made a tool of himself with that post-game rant, but Shaq has since compounded it. His semi-witty tongue has started to sound like a really bad amateur battle rapper. He referred to Van Gundy as "a master of panic"- meaning, exactly, what? The Diesel is generally just acting like an overblown self-caricature, an arrogant manchild with an assumed vocabulary. I don't know what to make of it, especially given that O'Neal has been semi-resurgent with the Suns.



Lastly, we turn to the Chuck Rule. I realize this was relevant about four or five years ago, but I think it merits discussion. The NFL has really been changed as a result of the crackdown on the rule after the Patriots-Colts AFC Championship game in 2004. It used to be that elite receivers could be controlled by physical players in the secondary, just as long as the rule retained some elasticity: a chuck seven to ten yards down field instead of just five gave the corners a little more cushion to watch the route develop before knocking the receiver off of it. It also gave them second opportunities to body up the receiver, meaning that even a big man- think Fitz- could be pushed off of his route. Consider the best receivers today: besides Steve Smith, who's just freakishly quick, most are very big, tall players with good jumping ability- Plax, Fitz, Boldin, Moss, Johnson etc. Even more of the pure down field receivers who are not elite are trending toward height and leap instead of burning speed- think Nate Washington. The smaller, fleeter players of just a few years ago are becoming outdated. Deion Branch, for instance, has accomplished nothing in Seattle, and other spark plug, mighty mite types are becoming rare as number one receivers. Look at Ben Roethlisberger's comments from last off season: despite being gifted with Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes, both above average receivers of moderate proportions, he vocally asked for the Steelers to get him a big receiver. And, lo and behold, Pittsburgh drafted Limas Sweed (who horribly botched that catch against the Ravens, incidentally). Why is this? Because smaller, quicker players were more valuable before, when they could make up lost time after the jam at the line (and about ten yards off of it) with speed. Now, with the jam restricted much more carefully to five yards, big players can get their release and travel relatively unimpeded, making it easier for a big armed passer to just bomb it over their heads. This is how Kurt Warner threw almost every touchdown to Fitzy. This has also resulted in the near-extinction of the true shutdown corner: Champ Bailey is maybe the only one left, and he is fading and overrated, anyway. This is why Asante Samuel has come to be considered so great. People look at his picks and think of them as the sign of a great defender, but many of those come on plays where he jumps a route in an all or nothing gambit. For every route he jumps on and succeeds, there might be three or four that result in his getting burned. And yet teams were falling all over themselves offering him record contracts, because, now, if you can get half of a shutdown defensive back, you pay like your getting the whole thing. Interceptions? $60M. Pass prevention? $45M. That's the new NFL economics.