Listening to Mercy on the radio, which I like although it is incredibly derivative, I thought Duffy has the texture in her voice of an old woman.
I remember thinking the M People singer sounded like Miss Piggy.
Macy Grey was pure Kermit.

But those great singers from the past like Dusty had incredible depth and texture to their voices.
Is it the engineers or producers? Or the new digital technology?

There's a lot of treble, a bit of middle but no bass.

Just after Duffy, on came Georgie Fame and, though he was not one of my favourites, his voice had great texture and depth.

Then Amy Winehouse, who I think is excellent but, again, it was all treble and screech and no richness or gold in the sound.

Comments?

I think a lot depends on whether the voice is used solely as an instrument in the recording or if we are supposed to feel a personality coming through.
With Macy, what we had was Macy, the person, what we have with a lot of Simon Cowell`s , et al , vocalists is a session instrument that could be swapped about at the front of a recording as easily as a bassist at the other end.

I like to hear accents in the vocalising and it is still missing in the main , although with Duffy, it is there, not as strong as to make it obvious, but enough to give character, I think Amy has this too.
I often wonder and worry where the bench mark is on current up and coming vocals. So many demo recordings or weblinks arrive with the "expected voice" for a product, whilst excellently done in a majority of cases, bring the recording down to average.

I wonder whether the "Guilty Pleasure" TV programme will move us away from this characterless singing or enhance it further as we hear new versions of old songs, hopefully from really one off voices, doing what they can to the best of their ability and being an entertaining human being?

And there flyeth the pig..

Great singers are the exception not the rule... that's probably half the definition of a great singer

We're dealing with an era where the ability to replicate a vocal sound or cram twenty notes into the usual space of one is lauded, not the tone of a voice.

What stood for good singing many years ago was more centred on the tonal charisteristics of a voice, and in particular having a rich voice. Diction and phrasing had far more importance. Phrasing in particular has gone out through the window - am I the only who hates to hear someone breathing in the middle of a word? All of these things render a lyric meaningless and doesn't indicate that a singer is thinking about the words.

The list of culprits is huge...

I'm also sick of Duffy being regarded as in the mould of Dusty. No chance. Her performance last night on the Shockwaves Chart Show was abysmal.

My favourite singer as a teenager was Morrissey who I believe to be totally unique but with a familiar warmth to his voice. Ironically the more idiosyncratic a singer is the more I believe people identify with them - something lost on morons like Cowell or whoever runs the british entry for the eurovision song contest.

Certainly agree with the "derivative" bit - "Time Of The Season" by the Zombies, anyone?

i still sit in amazement thinking how the hell do some of these singers EVER get deals.
Very few great vocalists around these days. in fact VERY FEW GOOD vocalists around.
but then thats just my opinion.

on the subjuct of voices.....
this lady has something really special in my opinion.
it's warm rich and smooth.
blue alert is so cool.
www.myspace.com/officialmadeleinepeyroux