home |
Editorial |
© Peter Mangiaracina
|
Sirens:
I Want To Comfort You
|
|
|
Women’s voices have always had an emotional effect on me, able to instantly transport me into a world of image and feeling. Several years ago when I was in Istanbul, I would go every morning to a market place tucked into a back alley in an open air mall near my hotel. I would sit at an outside table drinking Turkish coffee, strong and bitter, and breathing air faintly redolent of the coal they still used for heat. Women, young and old alike, gathered at the vegetable and fruit stands across the square and gabbed lightheartedly in Turkish as they poked and prodded Mediterranean produce. A meditative calm came over me as I sat there in the plaza, those burbling female voices dancing in my ears like sweet spring water in a mountain brook. It’s one of the strongest, most pleasant memories I have of that trip. As a consequence of my romance with the female voice, much of the music I listen to features female singers. It’s not exclusive, my favorite play lists also contain the testosterone-driven tirades every American boy adores, but having a woman singing to me in the background has always acted like a guardian of my sensibilities, a sometimes delicate, sometimes seductive hand to guide me as I work or play. The emotional textures of a woman’s voice are rich and subtly defined, without the omnipotent male angst which overpowers much masculine rock and roll. Freed from the suffocating tyranny of aggressiveness, their voices are free to express other levels of pain and ecstasy. I’m listening to Kate Bush. Her music documents the stark staring journey of an enamored psychotic, which harmonizes resolutely with personal experience. Love is undeniably a psychosis, and Kate manages to render its trauma in high relief. I wonder where she is now. We haven’t heard from her in a while. Come back Kate. I miss your voice, your longing. I miss your shame. I’m listening to Gwen Stefani (No Doubt). The reaction is purely visceral. In my personal award ceremony, I have voted her the most likely to get groped by me on line at a fried chicken franchise. How she manages to sound like she’s reaching a climax when she sings is of untiringly lurid interest to me. On top of that, she’s good. And so is the band. I’m listening to Shirley Manson (Garbage). This band is clearly the heir of the great and complex progressive rock bands of the past. The music is richly textured. Shirley is a geeky front woman to a pretty much geeked out collection of bald and/or doofy musicians. She doesn’t have a great voice, and her lyrics peek behind a personality that wants to do us harm, but that’s what makes her so interesting to listen to. I’m listening to Kylie, I’m not initially impressed by her vocal range or style. It certainly isn’t a powerful voice, indeed it seems that any moment it will crack or go off key. Several times in concert it has, though the growth in her voice is easily perceived from the Intimate and Live tour up to the KylieFever2002 tour. She stumbles vocally. She strains. She often tries too hard. Oh, but other times, as in the medley of Finer Feelings/Put Yourself in My Place (KylieFever2002 DVD), she reaches a note that would seem impossible, and my heart catches in my throat. But the strength of her voice is not really the issue. What artist hasn’t stumbled vocally in a concert? At the 2002 MTV Europe awards ceremony, Robbie Williams hit such a putrid triplet in his live rendition of “Feel” that he himself winced and I grabbed my little Elvis in excruciating pain. It’s what she does with her voice. Kylie manages to combine a nursery school sing-along sound with a sultry bordello croon. Of all the women I listen to, she is the one who puts me in a trance. When I’m on my running machine aiming torque punches at the budding jowls of George Bush’s jaw line and effectively saving the universe from borderline morons, Kylie is who I listen to. She is the prize. |
