She was before my time, for the most part, but I checked out a CD of hers from the library and while I like the folk music, something seems off about her voice.
Of for sure, she has a beautiful voice, but it doesn’t seem, to my ear, to match the music. It’s like she’s singing way to high for the music.
I thought maybe she was in the wrong key, but I don’t know what a key is and I figured that can’t be it, because they wouldn’t let her keep doing that.
I find it especially noticable on her songs like, “The Times They Are-A Changing” and “Who Knows Where The Time Goes.” But even on “Both Sides Now,” she seems a bit too high for the music.
Well, she’s not singing sharp, which would mean singing out of tune on the high side. And her voice isn’t particularly high, and I don’t hear any odd harmonics like you would hear when someone huffs helium (which makes your voice sound higher when it’s really not).
So the only thing I can think you are talking about is the mixing. Every piece I can find on YouTube of her has an effect on her voice that is not on any of the instruments, and doesn’t blend well with them. Plus she’s always singing much louder than the instruments. Together, this makes her voice stick out “above” everything, making it less pleasant to listen to.
If we aren’t limiting it to her voice, then I can say that the instruments do indeed sound too high, in the sense that they are lacking any real bass register. They also seem to mostly be playing notes higher than she is singing, which again sounds weird. It creates an odd effect that does sound “too high.”
There’s something about the tone of Ms. Collins’ recorded voice that can be off-putting. In person her voice is gorgeous. (heard her in concert twice).
As for her recordings. her “In My Life” album is simply a great album. Give it a listen if you haven’t.
I’m not sure if it was representative of her current voice, but her appearance on Letterman in 2009 was sad. At times her voice sounded like it was about to go out. At the time I chalked it up to years of pushing her voice beyond it’s natural range.
I’ve just listened to “Who Knows Where The Time Goes”, and she sounds in tune to me, not that I’m an expert. She doesn’t tend to sing in a particularly high voice generally, at least compared to some female folk singers.
I’ve heard some singers singing folk songs in what sounds like a classically trained manner, and that often sounds too high even when it isn’t, due to the purity of the tone. Could that be what’s happening here.
As an aside, I’ve never heard her sing “The Times They Are A-Changing”, and I can’t find any reference to her recording it, what album did you get?
She recorded it in 1998 on an orchestral album (mostly remakes of her older material), the tracks from which which have been recycled in various formats. I can’t find any single CD that includes all three of the songs mentioned in the OP, though.
Most musicians lose the top end with age-c.f. Geddy Lee, who no longer can hit those high notes that he used to, which makes for some pretty painful (both meanings) recent concerts.
Yeah, young singers tend to push their range, much to their embarrassment in later years. From the very enjoyable book The Daily Adventures of Mixerman:
You can read a good chunk of the book on-line. The anonymous author writes about recording any album with a “bidding war” band, who he comes to loathe.
My problem with her singing is that she brings an apparent technical perfection (to my untrained ear) without a trace of genuine human feeling. Compare her “Both Sides Now” with Joni Mitchell’s rendition, for example.
I agree with you Sam A. Robrin, EXCEPT for the “In My Life” album mentioned earlier. She was just different, more real in that album. And as I also said previously, she does connect in concert.
So the only thing I can think you are talking about is the mixing. Every piece I can find on YouTube of her has an effect on her voice that is not on any of the instruments, and doesn’t blend well with them. Plus she’s always singing much louder than the instruments. Together, this makes her voice stick out “above” everything, making it less pleasant to listen to.
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Thanks for the replies, I am thinking this must be the reason.
Or it could be just my ears. I hear the same thing quite often with Charlotte Church. Here she is singing “Bridge OVer Troubled Water”
