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I was having a discussion recently regarding a mainstream artist and their vocal/musical style. We got to discussing why a large number of contemporary artists are increasingly resorting to vocal gimmicks to get noticed.
I wanted to share my current thinking on this topic, in the hopes it educates and informs some of you to think a bit more intentionally about your own singing, your own pursuit of vocal style, and to inform what you process when listening to other singers.
Just my thoughts…
In my opinion, the issue we have right now is that the market for music is upside-down.
Consider our musical history: most of the great music that sets the backdrop involved more mature singers with a mature sound. As a result, we expect and demand a more mature sound from all singers.
But due to our current culture of celebrating and featuring youth (often at the expense of those with more experience), we are expecting it to come from a demographic of younger singers who are fundamentally immature due to their age, and haven’t been working on their voices long enough to acquire that mature sound.
Look to the past
Like any art form with a rich and varied history, we have an extensive back-catalog of vocal development in the world of singing. The very best singers of decades past inform our sensibilities, to one degree or another. The expectations we place on singers today is inherently built on and derived from the sounds of yesteryear. This means we’ve all grown up hearing a variety of more mature (i.e. older) and developed vocalists. A deeper, fuller, more textured sound, with a deep understanding of style, showing ability coupled with restraint.
In truth, this “mature and developed sound” we expect as listeners can ONLY really come from more seasoned artists that have spent a LONG time working on their voice and refining their craft. Often years and years of focused work and musical development would have gone in before such artists made it into the mainstream. It’s a process that cannot be shortcutted.
But today…
Now, in contrast, our current culture has a preference for younger performers, often for stage aesthetic reasons, but also for appealing to younger generations of music listeners – this is what sells tickets and music in todays market.
However these two things just don’t really come together. You can’t be mature AND young simultaneously, it isn’t possible. It takes TIME and effort to build a voice with great texture and maturity to it. The voice naturally darkens and gains texture over time.
Younger voices tend to be lighter and more vibrant, but lack texture or maturity because they are fundamentally immature. That’s not being harsh about it, that’s literally just the reality of having a younger voice.
The consequences
So, the market wants both a mature-sounding vocal sound from singers, AND has a preference for younger performers than older performers. That leaves young aspiring singers in a quandry.
They’ve not been singing long enough to have developed that maturity, but to get noticed and get a market share, they need to deliver something resembling maturity in their sound. As such – and this is just my opinion – in an effort to deliver the market what it wants, younger singers resort to gimmicks that try to give the illusion of maturity of vocal ability and tone. They try to concoct the best facsimile of stylistic and vocal complexity that they can, given their less developed and less sophisticated singing ability.
For example, excessive riffing, yelling high notes, flipping to a lighter quality in the upper ranges, manipulating their sound and diction away from their natural voice in an effort to gain attention or acclaim for a “unique” sound, weaker musical understanding or restraint, etc. When you’ve spent years listening to more advanced singers, you realise this approach only clutters the voice and gets in the way.
Fundamentally, maturity and vocal development isn’t something you can really fake. If it’s not genuine, it’s just a gimmick.
Caveats
There are of course some younger artists who have started singing very young and put in ENORMOUS amounts of work on their voices and art… but these are a rare minority.
To be clear, the purpose of this article is not to lambast younger or less developed singers, nor to lament the market’s general lack of interest in older singers, but to try to share a few thoughts on the state of things. When you next practice a song or listen to a singer, ask yourself to be brutally frank and honest by asking whether what you are doing is genuine, or whether you’re resorting to tricks to try and rescue/elevate the song.
Learn More: Related Articles
If you want to learn more about vocal style, you may enjoy these related articles:
Style vs Hyper-style: An analysis of Modern Vocal Style
Developing Style: Expansion and Contraction
Learn to riff: why it’s easier than you think
Why singing is like clothing
Double check your musical diet
Styling songs: 3 versions of the same song