You are dismissively lumping all female vocalists into a single category -- "soppy crap"? Wow. That's a pretty extreme philosophy.
FYI, I'm not a fan of D. Krall, either, but that doesn't impel me to ignore all female singers. Far from it.
Where are the front men? (Rant)
I've been in a slump for a while trying to find new music. I use Qobuz and it does an abysmal job of suggesting music for me. So I browse their playlists.
Today I ran through their "Ones to Watch in 2025", mostly in the pop, rock, indie, Americana, R&B and soul categories. Probably listened to 50 or 60 songs....or parts of them.
I noticed across all the genres mentioned above that there was the absolute lack of male singers with good or interesting voices. This was for two reasons. The first is that the male singers I heard weren't interesting. The second is that of those 50-60 songs I'd say at least 75% had female lead singers.
I have nothing against female singers but amongst the ones I listened to most of them sounded identical. Its this sort of breathless, emo sounding, slightly slurred, slightly little girl inflection often with a touch of L.A. or Detroit ghetto affectation. Song after song after song across all those genres. (Jazz seems to be spared from this blight).
I don't know who started this trend among female singers. Courtney Burnett (who I find entertaining at times) maybe? Hannah Reid of London Grammar (not as bad as most of these but still)? Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star) further back? I don't mind a smattering of it but it seems like its all you can hear from female vocalists these days.
So where are the front men? Where are the guys with big voices, great range and dynamics? Charisma, swagger, stage presence? A thing of the past maybe?
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@stuartk That is not the way I took it. He did make a generalization about a lot of the material that female vocalists sing but then he goes on to list a number of female vocalists that he likes. So it doesn't seem to me that he is saying that about all female vocalists. And just so that I'm not misunderstood as well, my beef is with the corp of popular female vocalists of the last 10-15 years. I wouldn't use the term "soppy crap" but I might use the term "predictable pablum". By the way, Aretha Franklin is also on my list of favorite female vocalists. |
I'm certainly not above making mistakes. I don't agree that "generally", female vocalists have lousy material, though, if by "generally" he meant most female vocalists. I liked B. Howard with A. Shakes, too . . . and Allison Russell when she was with Birds of Chicago and Maya Di Vitry when she was with Stray Birds and Lindsay Lou when she was with the Flatbellys. Is there a theme, here? I just happened to prefer their work with the groups listed for stylistic reasons. Is Lake Street Dive "popular"? Rachael price is, by any measure a terrific vocalist who started out as a Jazz singer. Their material is a bit too Pop for me, but very well done. Did anyone mention Marty Stuart ? He certainly qualifies as an excellent front man, but (here we go again) not Rock. Anyway, I hope you've gotten a few useful suggestions from this thread. |
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