Sad - Lisa Gerrard (Dead Can Dance)
Sad - Brendan Perry (Dead Can Dance)

are you sure

it is contained anger, not down right screaming one (like on clash city rockers, for example, speaking of the same singer).

no.

it bothers me a little that no one has mentioned robert smith for sad...
partcularly on songs like homesick and same deep water as you.

i fucking hate the cure

First vocalist that came to mind was Dennis Lyxzen from Refused, and Matt from the Bronx.

Proof: www.myspace.com/thebronx

I'm done telling you that I'm in love
What I have will never be enough
Come on baby go live life on your own!

nico does have a sadness about her voice. good call, as well as elizabeth fraser. i prefer sad or lazy over angry.
hope sandoval is capable of sounding sad.

sandy denny was reflective and nostalgic.

i love her.

The lack of mention of Jeff Mangum bothers me. He's great for anger and sadness, especially at the same time.

j Bannon (angry/furious)
nina simone (sad)
diamanda galas (both)

Melancholy: Ian McCulloch (Echo & the Bunnymen)

You are fucking wrong...

ILL MISS YOUUUUUUUU DU DU DU DU DU DU DU DUUUUDIDIDIDIDID DU DU DU DU DU DUDUDUDUDIDIDIDIDIDIIIIII

slint rules just too fucking much.


althougt the vocals on the other songs sound rather more poetic than sad.

also:

ian curtis
robert smith (obvious choice)
matt talbot - hum. equally sad they are confusing, mind blowing and take you to a whole different world.
you're so beautifull - adorable's homeboy chorus. not really sad, but yeah
slowdive - think avalyn 1
some jeff magnum
some neil young - like thrasher. its not really sad sad but i really like it.
smiths - morrisey

i agree on mr angry steve albini. its like, the most recognizable and one of the coolest voices ever.

whoever sings for CODIENE

they have the ultimate voice for complete earthshattering depression

I have a very different sense of humour to most of you, it would seem.

ANYWAY.

Ian Curtis and Lou Reed can't sing. They do not being able to sing very well, but the inability to hold a note (cf Frank Sinatra, Dido) isn't melancholy.

Annoyingly, I think Marras is right - there's rarely a voice, in itself, which conveys anything (it's a combination of melody and arrangement, surely?) but Diamanda's is perfect.

There's something brilliantly annoying about Jandek and David Tibet's voices.

And to close I'd like to say that there's something very, very upsetting about the Carter Family, regardless of the content of the song.

the singer of crass is pretty angry and he is not afraid to show it...

favorite punk rock vocalists:

alan vega
richard hell
james chance
lydia
ian curtis
nick cave
iggy
mark e. smith
jad fair
h.r.
ian mackaye
dave from mdc
rollins
ian svenonious
bruce loose
jeff wiefenbach

kathleen hanna
the singer of heroin
steve ignorant
ian mackaye
ian svenonious
henry rollins
tobi vail
al larsen (some velvet sidewalk)
calvin johnson

I don't get the Sinatra reference.

Good call on Nico. That voice is pain personified in a pagan (the religious meaning) sound. If the combined voices of Nico and Diamanda Galas were to morph into one single whole and made to sing what goes on into the human psyche in an official way, the sky would be a permanent shade of grey and the water from the well would almost always be tempeted to poison us, instead of quenching our thirst. Two unique singers that make my soul feel dirty inside like no other.

cat power anyone?

Actually, these are both brilliant examples too. David Tibet's voice is one step short of sounding fully annoying because of the fact that he uses the old trick of going for a ''recited'' intonation to his semi-singing. Lou Reed made an entire career out of that, with various degrees of success or failure. Jandek, in my not so humble opinion, is better than Reed and Tibet at using that trick. In fact his voice is perfectly suited to the entirely ridiculous* music that it sits upon.

* I trust you to understand my use of the adjective above in this context.

GOOD call!

"Two Cigarettes In An Ashtray" haunts me to no end. Actually, so does "Crazy", but not as much as Willie Nelson's version.

Angry: Chris Bailey (The Saints).

Frank Sinatra cannot hold a note; his voice is always (bearing in mind I like Sinatra and have several albums of his) flat. This isn't necessarily a bad thing - he is 'tonally wayward' though. If you can hear it, you won't stop hearing him being flat. It's a bit like when you listen to the van Halen solo Beat it and you notice that he is all over the show in these horrifically dissonant intervals (I think there's pitch-shifting involved). Until you've heard it, you don't notice it, when you do it's a different song forever.

I hope everyone is pulling out their copy of Beat it at this point.

Dido does the same trick, plus there's no body to her voice whatsoever. I can't stand her, but I don't think this immediately makes her awful. Stina Nordestraum [sp?] has no body to her voice, but she's amazing.

On the other hand, there's someone like Shane McGowan, whose timbre is as shoddy as a tar-gargler's, but his pitch is spot on.

I have observations on voice/ they are not prescriptions.

Oh yes indeed. Two entirely different singers, but they get to the same parts of the brain (the 'this is too painful I AM IN LOVE gGggRRGHHHhhshsh' bit). Nico's another example of what I'm gashing on about above - although her voice is a bit closer to minor-key plainsong.

Marras - have you heard any Hildgaard von Bingen? I think you'll love it, I'll up some for you if you haven't.


Yes, quite. The first time I heard C93 I thought it was a joke; I listened to them over and over because I thought it was the worst thing I'd ever heard. And then something flipped and I love them now - probably something to do with familiation?

Jandek is a better example of ridiculous, or surreal, than a million comedy ska-punk groups. Nail = Head.

will oldham can bring grown men to tears "im drinkinnnng agann", im surprised i forgot him

Tim Rogers has a very honest voice, which is especially important for depicting sadness or any other emotion.

I don't think that I've ever seen the name, even though it sounds vaguely familiar, or perhaps I'm thinking of somebody else. Some sounds would be more than welcome, thank you.

truth, lots of truth.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=2I2HTL3I
var fo = new FlashObject("gui/ar_r.swf", "", "30", "10", 7, "#ffffff"); fo.addParam("wmode", "transparent"); fo.write();
Hildegaard von Bingen for y'all. I'm not sure how you lot will take it, but I assure you it's amazing.