Singers who sing in an "affected" voice

Gloria Estefan, especially when she sings in English.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt talks in an affected voice--does that count?

I don't know if anyone would remember, but the lead singer of a mid-80's group called Vitamin Z ("Burning Flame") came across as incredibly affected and pretentious.

Celine Dion, when she sings in English. I could do without the chest pounding too.

Adele!

The late Amy Winehouse. I know Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan and Billie Holiday were her influences, but she always sound like someone doing a SNL parody of Dame Shirley Bassey.

Jewel

Natalie Merchant

Joss stone

Corinne Bailey Rae

[quote]Natalie Merchant

In her 90s hit "Wonder", when she sings "...steal the glory of my story", she rolls her r's. It's absurd.

All British/Irish/Scottish/Welsh singers who try to sound either Southern or African American. This could be a thread on its own.

Cornpone country singers.

I enjoy music from most any genre, but the oftentimes fake twang, not to mention conservative beliefs and cheesy homilies, of this type of music turns my stomach.

This lady. Bitch stole my face.

YO! Try to catch riding me dirty!

I give you... Chloe Lattanzi

Sting owns this thread

Rod Stewart, with his American Songbook albums tries to sound like he's from Birmingham; not Birmingham, England - Birmingham, Alabama.

Emmy Lou Harris, Mark Lindsay, Ke$ha, Pavarotti, Elvis, Tina Turner, David Crosby, Richard Marx, Joni Mitchell, Johnny Cash, Elton John, Peter Noone, Billie Holliday, Michael Jackson, Alex Chilton, Adam Levine, Mick Jagger, Van Morrison, Peter Gabriel, Justin Bieber.

Why not just list those who don't: Jack Jones. Steve Lawrence.

R18 doesn't know what "affected" means..

Hisssssssssss!

Lorde

Lama Del Rey Josh Stone

in some songs, Lady Gaga.

David Bowie

Vadge in some songs

Lily Allen. Sings like she talks like some poor East End Cockney. Actually she comes from plenty of money (her father's a successful actor), and she talks with a normal, English middle class accent.

that fake talentless cunt Lana Del Rey

mediocre talent & poser extraordinaire Jussy TimberFake

acceptable talent & poser extraordinaire Robin Thief

R25, are you still in junior high school? Grow up, you are not funny.

Fully educated rappers who do the fake ghetto thing.

R26 what is the problem? R25 is being truthful. All those 3 are big phonies.

Barbra, very overrated!

Well. Liza Minnelli OWNS this thread.

Ditto her wretched mother.

"Jussy Tiimberfake" is how five year olds talk. Grown men don't talk that way.

There's this British teen-singer called 'Birdy', who has an extremely affected singing voice.

R32, I hope she gets drafted in the next war!

Linda Lavin

Just wondering, because I don't know that much about him, but isn't Eminem (sp?) doing a fake Detroit ghetto thing? Like Timberlake?

Annie Lennox. Is that why she's had to have vocal nodules removed?

R35 I got cousins from where Eminem is from. Don't think it's fake. They sound just like him. And no, I do not mean that as a compliment. Maybe failing 9th grade 3 times did it to him.

Add to list: Keith Urban and Daniel Beddingfield. I thought Daniel was a woman, when I first heard Gotta Get Thru This, on the radio.

R37, so did I.

That Jena Gina Geena girl from American Idol.

No, R35. Eminem has what we call a "thick Detroit accent." It's genuine. He's not from the lily-white suburbs like Kid Rock.

John Cougar Mellandouche, or whatever he's calling himself now.

And surprised no one has mentioned Prince yet.

R18: Pavarotti,Johnny Cash,Billie Holliday & Elton John? I think you're dead wrong on those & some of the others. But especially on Pavarotti.

Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20

Yma Sumac

If that Detroit accent is real, it's ugly as shit. This from a non-American, when we hear it it's like metal. The voice sounds like metal.

Tiny Tim

Timberlake has a natural southern accent. He is from rural Tenn. His hardass act was fake but the so-called "black" accent is not.

And yeah, his struggle falsetto is affected, it's the least successful of his several singing voices. But his lower register throaty singing is hot as hell.

Ricky Lee Jones. Her voice screams "I am such a hipster...I am so coooooooool."

Well, I'm from Detroit and I can assure you that it is very common. It's generally considered a black accent ("thick Detroit" is code for "talking black") but lots of white folks from Detroit talk that way as well. Plus we all (no matter what color) tend to nasalize our vowels (is that a word?).

kd lang is the opposite of affected on most of her stuff. Perhaps in a few of her earliest country homages.

Threads like this bug the shit out of me.

If everyone was "unaffected," the world of entertainment would be as boring as the "real" world.

It's called showbiz, you philistines.

Thank you, R50. The OP sets up a false category with no definition or sensible qualities, and then asks for contributions. I suppose it means, "Tell me who you don't like," and of course around here that's how a thread gets started.

Christ.

That is, even though you (R50) have bought into it in a way, by accepting that there is some sort of meaning behind "unaffected" here. After all, the naturalistic pretenses that would accompany an "unaffected" performance in any genre would strike any intelligent audience as the height of affectedness.

So allowing that the OP is a lummox and moving on is the only response.

[quote]Eminem has what we call a "thick Detroit accent." It's genuine. He's not from the lily-white suburbs like Kid Rock.

Eminem's definitely not a spoiled rich kid like Kid Rock, but his connection to Detroit proper is slightly exaggerated. He mostly grew up in the blue collar suburb of Warren, just north of the 8 Mile Road border. His mother bought a house on the Detroit side when Marshall was 16. That's the one pictured on his album covers. He describes it as his "childhood" home, but he only spent a couple of his late teen years there.

His accent is most likely partly affected. I'm from a similar blue collar Detroit suburb and only white kids who are seriously into hip hop and/or poseurs talk the way he does.

Jack White grew up in working class Southwest Detroit and attended Cass Tech, the same public high school for the academically gifted that Diana Ross attended. He doesn't speak with Eminem's "blaccent" at all, but sounds the same as most white people from the area.

Tanya Tagaq

Stephen Hawking

Marcel Marceau

oh please. Timberlake sings and talks in a VERY affected voice. His natural voice is the gayvoice we've heard a few times from him. I'm sure when he's getting his back blown out while bottoming for tracks or movie roles he lets his gayvoice out more.

He is from rural Tennessee but no, his natural accent isn't "black". Listen to the rest of his family and you'll hear that's not how he was raised. He like all the others is a POSER. His "Suit & Tie" and "Dead & Gone" vocals in particular are nothing but affected.

Don't even get me started on his struggle falsetto or struggle vocals in general.

Ref Justin Timberlake & his accent...

You do NOT want to go down this road of equating a southern accent with a "blackcent". They are NOT the same thing.

Celine sings beautifully en Francais. The Quebecois vocal style has a very nasal sound, and the vocal mask placement is different and specific. The voice mask is understood or trained differently by all great singers and of course the anatomy and ability and taste of singers vary. Celine has the most spectacularly pretty and agile soprano voice, like her style or not.

Dolly Parton sings exactly as she speaks. She has a very pure and simple singing voice that happens to be beautiful. Gladys Knight is similar. Most good pop singers voices evoke their speaking voice. But trills, runs, ornaments, rasp, head and hollow voice echo sounds or pure power belts are not affectations if they are added to the natural sound. Or like Streisand or Sinatra, who are more Bel Canto singers with beautiful legato - a concentration on the beauty of the sound above all, the never ending musical phrases. These are vocal skills. Whitney and Sarah Vaughan had too many natural gifts to bother mentioning their small bad habits. When you are that gifted, you play with your voice and its power over people regardless of your repertoire. Callas. Vandross. Houston. Fitzgerald. Gabriel.

But there is personal style. Both Joni Mitchell and Neil Young could sing more traditionally in tune when they started out, but they have a flat and sharp style of singing that came later in their careers. They get what they are doing, it is their sound. Most blues singers sing a bit sharp, but just on the edge. Part of the style. Think Nina Simone or BB King. Steve Perry or Robert Plant would not be caught dead singing flat, because they wanted to pierce the atmosphere with their sound, and you cant do that flat or with foggy ornamentation. Most of the great country singers put a sharp edge on it too.

Many alt pop, rock and folk singers skate on the edge of flat singing. It can add a propulsion to the music as in early Dylan, or dirty gravitas like Johnny Cash or just plain old drug rock texture like Jagger or his ex Marianne. But it can just be bad singing like Liz Phair and Kurt Cobain, Lana last Ray. Singing flat is forgivable, but is unforgivable as an affectation.

A FAKE or affected sound is more like Gwen Stephanie or early Tom Waits, middle Alanis Morissette or all of Elaine Page. I hate to say it, but Bowie too. The natural voice can be given an accent or a false tone and vocal placement that can be sustained over a career. Done well, it is what some of the most highly trained classical singers do everyday. Done poorly you get fake country or Arcade Fire and Jennifer Hudson.

Roy Orbison, Adam Lambert, Jewel, Chris Isaak, Winehouse, Cyndi Lauper, Michael Jackson and even Cher sing within the reality of their voices, with some affectations.

Madonna was a series of seismic mutations on vocal affectations, but that is her art. She did it well. She just cant sing.

Springsteen is not affected. Nope. Call it something else. Bonnie Raitt. Dionne Warwick. George Michael. Al Green. Diana Ross. Kelly Clarkson. Ray LaMontagne. Just call them great.

Iris Dement sings with an outsized twang for someone who grew up in California, but then her parents were from Arkansas. I love her anyway, and My Life is one of the greatest albums ever:

R57, for some reason your post also made me think of Shelby Lynne. I find her very affected.

She was interviewed along with her sister on NPR some time over the last couple of years and I was cringing listening to her affected southern drawl that would get very 'suthun' one minute and then completely disappear the next minute.

She had an awful, turbulent childhood so I feel kind of bad being critical, but I have a hard time listening to her 'persona' even though she's very talented.

Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention) probably had the least affected singing voice. I wish more modern popular singers would take her as an example.

[quote]Celine sings beautifully en Francais.

But it turns into a big honking sound when she sings in English.

Lene Lovich and her 1980 "new wave" accent. She was also a Detroiter.

R52, I agree that not all Detroiters talk like Eminem. I'm from Detroit and I don't. And most of the people I grew up with don't either (white, black or other). We were in a professional, middle class neighborhood in the northwest part of the city. I have, however, met lots of people from Detroit who DO sound just like Eminem. My point was that I don't think his accent is "affected". I think it's legitimate; that the people he was raised around talk like he does.

On a semi-related note, there was a fascinating article about a year ago about the how the accent in our area has changed, and how different a Detroiter sounds than a Windsorite. I'll have to see if I can find a link.

Argh. I don't know how to link the article on my iPad. Technology is hard!

Anyway, google "Northern Cities Vowel Shift" and you should find a Slate article by. Rob Mifsud. That's what I'm talking about in r62.

[quote]Listen to the rest of his family and you'll hear that's not how he was raised

Lol, bitch please, like you know anything about how his family sounds. None of those hillbillies are on tape anywhere, just his mother who's been a pro for decades like him. You're relying on your fertile imagination like usual.

Rick Astley. His voice makes my flesh crawl. His producer should make him clear his throat before each take.

Thanks, R62/R63, I'll check that article out.

I went to U of D so I know your area well. There's definitely more class variety within the city than a lot of people know about.

[quote]Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention) probably had the least affected singing voice. I wish more modern popular singers would take her as an example.

That's a good point about Sandy. I wonder if it had anything to do with her inability to sing American non-folk music convincingly. She was incredibly soulful, yet she her covers of country, R&R and bluesier stuff sound a bit silly.

Alanis Morissette

Taylor Swift

Moms Mabley. Baba-Booey

Sarah MacLachlan does that '90's Cranberries yodelly thang to death. You're not Sinead O'Connor, sweetums.

Leisl Obrecht, shatzis!

that fake, tribal yodel thing, along with pervasive vocal fry, makes my skin crawl

lmao @ TimberFake stan defenders trying to prove he doesn't put on an affected accent when he tries singing r&b/r&b-pop. That bottom is 1 big ol' loose phony.

Lulz back atcha hater, Timberlake will snatch Janet's man just like he took yours haha

Streisand and Celine Dion..both sing (?) in a screaming voice..scream, scream.. I shut the radio off. I heard Streisand sing "One Enchanted Evening" and it was one long scream passing for singing.

R75, girl? You in danger now!!!

I'm with you R59.

Shitney troll owns this thread, or woulda if she wasn't so pressed trying to bash Timberlake

JENNIFER NETTLES FROM SUGARLAND....MAKES MY EARS BLEED!

Mandy Patinkin. I want to strangle him.

R6, say what you want about Amy Winehouse but you need to get a set of working ears. Winehouse and Bassey sound NOTHING alike. Not in a million years.

This covers every affected voice, even the ones you haven't yet thought of.

Lana Del Rey

THANK YOU R16!!!

Brett from Suede: tortured dramatic junkie street hustler. And it was great.

I guess it's his persona that makes him so enduring, but I can only take Bruce Springsteen is tiny doses. I cannot imagine going to his concert for a whole night of that caterwauling!

Cindy Lauper can sing in an affected voice, but for the most part she really just sounds like that, and is really great live.

Nate Ruess, lead singer of Fun, sounds like Tracy Chapman. In fact, the first time I heard "We Are Young," I thought Chapman had come out with a new single.

Wouldn't Christina Aguilera fall in this category? Beautiful voice, but I always thought she overdoes the vocal runs in some of her songs.

R88, YES!!!

Over ten years ago, I was in a store and they were playing Christmas music. Suddenly, Aguilera comes on singing what was supposed to be "Jingle Bells." If not for the lyrics, I wouldn't have known what it was. She really overdoes it with the riffing.

I think a perfect example would be her singing "At Last" at Etta James' funeral. Talk about overdoing it.

Jeezus!

R90, Jesus! Also, not sure if you should be singing "At Last" at a funeral. :-/

Etta James didn't like Beyonce's version of "At Last", and though I'm not a Beyonce fan, I think she did a respectable job.

If there had been a zombie apocalypse at the moment Xtina was "singing", I'm sure Etta James would've climbed outta that casket and punched her right in the throat... then ate her.

All those people who sing in Adele's nasal accent. Weird, dudes. Stop it.

Shakira

Too many to mention OP.

Tooootally Shakira! Also: Billy Joe Armstrong and Cat Power X 10000!

[quote]Etta James didn't like Beyonce's version of "At Last", and though I'm not a Beyonce fan, I think she did a respectable job.Wrt

NO, Etta was right. One of the joys of Etta's version is the feeling she puts into literally every word, and you HEAR every word. She makes your soul sing.

Beyonce's version makes your soul hurt. Her diction is soooo fucking BAD because of her lazy tongue. And her Southern speaking accent is no excuse; I'm from one state over and all the time hear heavy-accented people sing like angels. I demonstrated Beyonce's macerated version to my siblings when we watched her sing it at Obama's first Inaugural ball; now they can't unhear it. SO we have a running joke, randomly singing "Alas, mah love haz cuum alon'..." to each other.

Beyonce and her acolytes are ruining pop music vocals, just as Lil' Wayne and his influence have destroyed rap/hip-hop vocals. There's an entire generation of young singers who have great voices and horrific, lazy diction. You can understand *maybe* every third or fourth word they sing. And rap/hip hoop is the same. Think of legends like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kool Mo Dee, Public Enemy/Ice Cube/Dr. Dre, MC Lyte, or Snoop. Oh, and believe it or not, especially Ice T! You can hear every word they rapped.

Why? Because lyrics used to be important. WORDS used to be important.

Lainie Kazan owns all these bitches!

Bradley fucking Cooper doing that damn "Shallow" song. Fake ass gravelly voice. Cringe.

I love her, but Vanessa Williams.

Lawrence Welk's lovely Champagne Lady, the beautiful, incomparable Norma Zimmer! Why, I listen to Norma Zimmer and marvel at her heart-felt styling and phrasing. I drown myself in my beer while repeatedly saying "Sang it, Norma. Sang that song, baby. Sang it, girl....."

[quote]This lady. Bitch stole my face.

JAN TERRI! Hysterical. Who bankrolled her career? She looks like a human troll doll.

I actually think a real singer could have had hit with that song.

[quote]JAN TERRI! Hysterical. Who bankrolled her career?

Her 'music video' is credited for release under JT Records, so I guess Jan Terri did it!

Claudine Longet

Cat Stevens has an affected voice.

Christina Aguilera - copies black gospel and R&B singers

Tori Fucking Amos is way too old for that Pwecious Widdle Girl voice, and I'm saying this as a fan. Also, I'm down with a yodel or trill here and there, but hers get to be a bit much.

I haven't read through all the replies, but dear God, Cher is the owner of this thread in every way possible. There's not a more affected singing voice on the planet than her's.

Nobody likes falsettos except for Freddie Mercury. I hate when singers try and imitate him and use a falsetto: Mika always sounds like an idiot when he does it.

any indie hipster singer who does THAT voice. you know

Ariana Grande

R24 puts his finger on what I dislike so much about modern country. I'm not on the Cultural Appropriation Police Force and if an Australian or British artist--or a banker's daughter from a wealthy Pennsylvania county--appreciate this genre and want to work in it, more power to them. We don't all have to be coal miners' daughters (or sons).

But the current climate for "authenticity" seems to spark a need to overcompensate to a ridiculous degree with over-the-top "country" accents and a parade of songs about trucks and tractors and good old boys indulging in what some songwriter from Highland Park thinks rednecks get up to out on that mythical Fishing Hole on the Red Dirt Road. I myself really do come from working poor Texas ranch folk but I don't talk like Billy Bob Bubba, and though I do drive a truck it's not "sexy," it's practical.

Additionally, after 9-11, songwriting veered into the Patriotism Olympics to heights that were just embarrassing. I appreciate the dedication of singers like Trace Adkins and Toby Keith to entertaining military personnel in Afghanistan, and neither of them ever claimed entertaining the troops was akin to BEING one of the troops. No doubt they were moved by the experience, but the resulting songs sometimes wandered into cringe territory for me. Artists who really were in the military like Jamey Johnson and Craig Morgan have a more nuanced view of those things, just as artists who really did grow up poor and country aren't endlessly, defensively singing about it.

Trace Adkins is a homophobic piece of shit

[quote]that fake talentless cunt Lana Del Rey

This bitch is the absolute WORST!

I didn’t know there was a current climate of authenticity at all - I’m Gen X and authenticity was super important to us but now a days it’s all about ‘my brand”, blah blah

Lorde sounds like special needs child with a cold.

All of the "gruff whispery" guys.

I hate OP.

Most of those "affected" singers are great artists. We like them because they ARE different.

Jack White.

You can call Emmylou Harris affected but her version of Wayfaring Stranger is the best I've ever heard, especially in contrast with White's Coffeehouse Emo version. Also, if you've ever heard her talk, her singing voice sounds a lot like her speaking voice.

Joanna Newsom, Sprout and the bean. I like it though .

Alvin & the Chipmunks own this thread.

Why are you all looking at me?

Natalie Merchant and Shakira are the worst offenders.

R115, please, you lived through the era of Milli Vanilli, none of this authenticity nonsense

This is for the elder gays: What was up with Sammy Davis, Anthony Newly and Paul Williams? Did they all have the same vocal coach? All had the same kind of weird (accent? infection?) thing going on, in which they reinvented words and formed new vowels and long, drawn-out phrases. For instance: “HARM-AH-NU-OWWWW” instead of “harmony.” Since I can’t post vids of all three, THIS:

All of the Eddie Vedder copycats, like the lead singer of Creed and a host of other '90s band frontmen that I can't remember right now.