Sweep
Group: Members
Posts: 61
Joined: Sep. 2011 |
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Posted: Sep. 01 2012, 20:12 |
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No doubt Mike will choose whoever fits the sound of the music he's written, and I think it's impossible to speculate meaningfully without knowing that. I think his choice of Hayley Westenra for Music of the Spheres shows how aware he is of who's around. He was able to see past all the record company stereotyping and see the potential of a great and undervalued singer in that case.
But having said that, discussions like this are still interesting as a general discussion. I thought the suggestion of Judie Tzuke was a good one, for example. An excellent singer who seems to be on the edges of things rather too much. I'm sure Mike could write something she'd fit in with. Ditto Elton John - I agree with the comments about his superb contribution to Kate Bush's Fifty Words for Snow.
There are some excellent little known singers around - which is ironic when you consider how bad most of the well-known ones are. There are major names who make me cringe as they strain to reach notes they can't get.
Lauren Edman is a name that springs to mind as a little known excellent singer. Beautiful voice, excellent technique, and very creative. Her solo album It's Always The Quiet One came out earlier this year, and she's continuing to work with For Every Story Untold, who have an album due out soon. Indie rock, or something like that (do we have the term `Shoegaze' in this country, or it it just an American piece of genre-naming silliness?), but she can sing anything, including folk and classical, even though she hasn't released anything in those styles.
Charlotte Church continues to be surprising. Her new music is a universe away from what she became known for. Some of her more recent songs are on YouTube (The Rise, How Not To Be Surprised When You're a Ghost, Beautiful Wreck and so on) and she has a four track EP called ONE out on Monday, which is excellent. (The cover is priceless and makes Kate Bush look normal - it's a gatefold sleeve with a still from the filming of her How Not To Be Surprised video.) Her voice is still excellent, despite some silly attempts to discredit her by people who decided they didn't really like her after all when she became herself more publicly. She's developed a really nice deeper tone than she had before. I don't know if she can still do the pure high tones as her current music doesn't work that way, but I wouldn't be surprised. Her technique is far more finely controlled than it was in her earlier career. (I've had the priviledge of watching at close quarters as well as listening.) Mike could certainly get something really good from her with the right music.
Tori Amos could also be interesting.
And former ABBA singer Agnetha Falkskog has also sometimes been mentioned by Mike's fans. I think she'd be an excellent idea, too. Not easy to attract into doing something, but Mike could perhaps do it.
I agree entirely with the comments on vocoders and the overused autotune robotic effect, BTW. Horrible.
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