Cavalier (Lost Version)
Group: Members
Posts: 598
Joined: Nov. 2010 |
 |
Posted: Nov. 12 2011, 18:42 |
 |
The world of singing accents is a strange one. I'm occasionally struck by just how neutral an artist chooses to be. I've heard songs in French/Spanish/etc. that are by native speakers, so far as I know, which sound as though they could be by someone from Birminghams, England or Alabama. The subtleties elude me, naturally, and when it comes to songs sung in English, my spider-sense has been known to tingle before I learn which nationality is involved. Reversing that, when it turns out they're a proud citizen of Freedonia, I will retroactively inform you that you can tell by the way a word sounds. 
Growing up, ABBA were the most noticeable example of singing in perfect English and talking as though they were members of Bjorn Again. So you discover the boys taught the girls phonetically - does that explain the accents they followed? Beats me.
To confuse the issue further, I give you two singers from the same part of the world whom I would assume don't have to sound alike in the way they sing another language but happen to anyway. As the credits rolled in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers what turned out to be my favourite of the songs Peter Jackson and Howard Shore used began to play. "Bjork - nice one", I thought. Emiliana Torrini it turned out. "Sounds Italian" thinks I. True enough, but at some point her Icelandic heritage was pointed out. Now she doesn't base her career on copying her fellow countrywoman and I had to doublecheck today from my memory ( another artist I don't own! ) but it took very little time to find a word - "place" - that made it sound as though Bjork was standing beside her in the studio.
Incidentally, I may not know the history of all the music in the Rings films but I accuse the current Wikipedia article of a certain amount of bollocks. Searching for Emiliana's Gollum's Song took me there and it may well be that it was conceived for Bjork to perform. Now I can't prove this anymore but I will swear to you that the first time I registered Emiliana Torrini's name was as the credits rolled in the cinema, and whilst I was expecting another name to be credited as the singer. Honestly - who can you trust these days? 
--------------
"Who was that?"
"That was Venger - the force of Evil! I am Dungeon Master - your guide in the realm of Dungeons & Dragons!"
|
]. My question is this: Do you think that some of the songs on Islands are ABBA-like or even ABBA-inspired? To me two songs in particular sound very ABBA-ish, i.e. the two on which Anita Hegerland sings lead, North Point and When The Night's On Fire. It may be because Anita is Norwegian and so, being close to Sweden 
