To be irritated by these girly, weak, breathy voiced singers lately?

[somethingsnotrighthere]

It seems to be on adverts, the bloody Lidl one is the worst, it ends with a really weak "All these little thiiiings" and it drives me crackers!

Some singers are like this too, Ellie Goulding for example.

Can anyone else identify with my irritation with this?

Or worsen my irritation with suggestions of equally whiney-voiced singers you have heard?

[Fishandjam]

Actually, yes, Ed Sheeran. What is all the fuss about? A male version of the issue at hand. Now I tend to prefer music that you can mosh along to, so my views may be a little... blinkered, but even my DH (whose tastes musically are much more catholic than mine) thinks he's rubbish.

Maybe I'm just getting old. It's all exemplified for me by the remaking of Do They Know It's Christmas a few years ago. The original was punchy, bouncy and generally brilliant. The cover was - well, flaccid is the only word I can bring to mind. When I were a lass it were all better....

[Bodicea]

Sorry to go against the grain but I prefer those sort of voices to the generic big ballad warblers that dominated for
Such a long time. They all sound the same trying to outdo each other with the amount of vibrato they can get in one note. Annoying!

[LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot]

The Wanted.....fecking hate boy groups.

One Direction make me itch.

Not low or breathy, just really really shit.

[Ilovexmastime]

YANBU, I almost started a thread on this yesterday after hearing the new Lily Allen song.

[Pobblewhohasnotoes]

The Feeling.

Oh this could be a whole new thread!

[LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot]

The Script.......

[Pobblewhohasnotoes]

Can I add whiny bands beginning with 'The'?

The Fray
The Calling (who ironically wrote the Whe-wever you will go song).

[LuciusMalfoyisSmokingHot]

I have a male that does it too, and that is Passenger.

check out how low passenger goes sometimes.

[CinammonGirl]

Oh god the twinings tea advert - "if ah cooooowad then ah woooooad" pronounce the words properly! And another vote for Diana The Claw Vickers, she gives me the rage!

[ArbitraryUsername]

I think on the lidl advert they purposefully wanted it to sound like 'all those lidl things'.

I'm absolutely with you all on the hating breathy, faux vulnerable shite. It is just the current fashion in pop music (so it will go away, but it'll be replaced by some other abomination).

[ZebraZeebra]

It's all in the ear of the beholder though, isn't it

Completely agree with everything about the awful, breathy, respiratory murdering of original songs. But I could never, ever agree with anything that suggests Amy Winehouse wasn't an absolutely original, incredible talent of her time - and others, probably. I'll never forgive Lily bloody Allen for taking the piss out of Amy years ago on Jools Holland. Lily WISHES she was as good as Amy.

The best from Lily Allen was the Katy Brand spoof: Hi, I'm Lily Allen...!

[WrenNatsworthy]

Cool, it was the vitriol that annoyed me. I get passionate about people covering songs and annihilating them just as much as the next person. Don't get me started on Emma Bunton ruining The Sundays, but you know, no-one deserves to die or anything :o

[Fishandjam]

There's a difference between sweet (but strong) voices a la Bush, Amos et al, and the stuff this thread has been about. But I agree that some of the language has been well OTT.

[WrenNatsworthy]

I don't know much about Diana Vickers, is she only able to sing in one way, is that the only way she sounds good ( to her fans I mean)?

[WrenNatsworthy]

Not liking someone else's voice is perfectly fine. But there's been some pretty violent language used on this thread which is unnecessary.

I don't like Texas, they bore me senseless. I don' t like Charelene Spiteri's voice. It doesn't make want to ' flay her alive' to quote someone on this thread. It was that sort of thing that irritated me.

The record industry is male dominated and aimed at young people. Undisputed.

I don't think that you can lay the blame for that at the feet of women who choose to sing sweetly, or whose voices are naturally that way. Kate Bush, Tori Amos. Naturally sweet voices. Both kick ass women.

[Fishandjam]

wrennatsworthy, I think you're being a tad unfair. If someone's only allowed to criticise another's singing voice if they're a singer themselves, why not extend that to other walks of life? So you can only criticise, ooh, a painter and decorator if you're in the same trade?

Also, I don't see why dissing a female's voice is somehow letting down the sisterhood. (Though for the record, I also dislike the voices of Michael Stipe, Ronan Keating, and the singer from Kings Of Leon. Just a personal thing, I appreciate that it makes me a philistine to tons of other folk!)

What I don't like about the current crop of breathy ickle girl singing voices is the disservice I think it does to women. I've been on the planet 40 years and I think we're going backwards in so many ways on female emancipation. More than ever, I feel that women are required to conform to a saccharine, airbrushed, uber-feminine, helpless, compliant template where even having short hair is enough to attract accusations of lesbianism (yes, that's happened to me). Just look at all the shite around cupcakes, for example. To me, the breathy ickle girl singers are just part of that problem.

Rant over (and believe me, I'd have gone on longer if I wasn't posting from my phone!)

[mrsmalcolmreynolds]

If you want a good female cover of Ruby Tuesday check out Joan Baez. Now there is a non-breathy, non-"ten notes where one will do" singer, and she can write a bit too.

[WrenNatsworthy]

Back 2 days later to defend myself :o

I don't care that Kylie was 'putting it on', when she recorded 'Confide in me'. That track was genius. Music is noises put together. Changing a singing style is like changing an instrument to make a different sound. I happen to like that particular sound.

To Pan. You misunderstood me. I love Melanie's Ruby Tuesday. I adore Minnie Ripperton. I was using them both to illustrate a point, that breathy singing is a style as old as the hills.

Another poster got angry with me about that, because she said ' if I haven't noticed the saturation of the style I'm going round with my ears jammed shut'.
I listen to 6 music at home, last FM, use spotify, YouTube. I have a voracious appetite for music and seek it out. I don't watch x factor or listen to radio 1 much, but I dip in and out of both of those places occasionally to see what ' the kids' might be listening to.

Currently I love Amanda Palmer, First Aid Kit, The Staves, Taylor Swift, Lennon and Maisy, Bat for Lashes... I won't go on.

I love female singers of all kinds, and though it ain't all my cup of tea, I applaud ANY woman that gets up on stage and tries to entertain.

I hate how downright nasty some women become when dissing other women's voices.
How many of you are singers or performers yourselves?

[maudpringle]

Can't stand Katie Melau voice at all, dreadful songs too but her other half is damn hot

[peppersaunt]

Yay! I'm not a grumpy old (40-something) lady! What I hate is the audible nose breathing. Think it's down to the auto-tune?

[ProfondoRosso]

Oh Lord, Plate, the XX. I used to work in quite a classy shop and they played the XX non stop. It's bleedin' advert music! And they played Noah and the Whale. That made me want to nut someone.

[Eliza22]

Diana Vickers was on Never Mind The Buzzcocks this week. We had NO IDEA who she was till the credits rolled. She came across as utterly stupid (not a word I like). All giggly and didn't know her own lyrics and just... Silly. I remember her on X Factor, being just the same. Miss Vickers is a (baffling) advert for going a long, long way on a teeny-tiny bit of talent. Landed on her feet, that one!

[Aarow]

YANBU.

One Direction is getting on my nerves

(Tbf, they DO kind of fit the whole description).

[PlateSpinningAtAllTimes]

Ooh! Ooh! I've thought of another one- the XX (male and female singers) - really, really quiet, understated, pathetic vocals. And yet they get loads of critical acclaim. I don't get it- they do the melodic equivalent of whispering the whole way through every song. Real teeth itching stuff.
Agreed re. Noah and the Whale. Awful.