Is there a name for this hyper-annoying singing style?

Cafe Society
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Another one to register here just because of a Google search. Mine was “I hate indie girl sound”, ha. I recently stumbled upon some article about the rising female musicians of 2016 and 9 out of 10 were singing in that style. Makes me wanna jump out of the window.

What’s worse, this shit is not going to stop. Kids love it. I go to a music school and they put a student’s concert every couple of months, and everyone under the age of 18 seems to perform those little sad songs on acoustic guitar whispering into a microphone in a sad, uber-sugary voice, girls and boys alike. They terrify me.

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Adia Victoria, “Howlin’ Shame”. She can also sing in a more pleasant, blues/rock/funk/soul style.

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Yesterday I heard an abortion that was supposed to be a cover of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are”. I will spare you the horror and not provide a link or the name of the “singer”.

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Yeah, Blake Babies and Juliana Hatfield have kind of an honest, unadorned sound to the singing (I’m not entirely sure how to describe–it lends a certain kind of young, emotional nakedness to the song) but it’s not what I think of when I think of the singing described by the OP, and I don’t find it waify, either. The waify style of singing as described by the OP is hyper-affected and a good bit theatrical (depending on the performer), which is a bit different than what I hear in Blake Babies and Juliana Hatfield, which I find more going for a plain, though consciously girlish, delivery.

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Frente! is definitely an early example – good call! I got into them (especially the song “Labour of Love”) when I visited Hong Kong in 1994 – they were big in their native Australia and not far beyond at the time. Not quite hyper-annoying, but the basic singing style is there.

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Yeah, it’s funny to go back and listen to that song. At the time, it really sounded noticeably “waifish” (is I guess the word we are using). Frente pretty much had that segment of the indie scene nearly all to themselves. But by the standards of where that style has evolved, it sounds now like comparatively straightforward singing.

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I hate that version because it…it just makes me wanna smash the guitar Bluto style. Sorry.

But I love the version for how it showcases New Order’s songwriting - strip all of their layered dance synth-grooviness away, and the song stands up just fine. It holds up under Twee. I respect that.

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No need to apologize. :wink: I don’t like it either. I DO like several of Frente’s original numbers, though – *The Marvin Album *and the Labour of Love EP are worth a listen.

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I think the only thing that can get this super-irritating singing style out of fashion is if someone who uses this form of singing loses some nationally televised talent show or singing competition in front of a large audience* precisely for using this singing style.* That may be the only thing that will do the trick.

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You’re overthinking it - what you are saying is that its popularity will die out. Yep, can’t wait. Same with Autotune as an out-front effect.

I had to wait years for that '80’s clean+chorus guitar tone to fade away; same with Hair-metal’ers who focused on the exactly wrong parts of Eddie Van Halen’s playing. Would you hurry up and sound dated, please?! :wink:

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This needs to stop. I searched for “Please tell me why all girls sing the same. Thank you”, because I’m old and I’m polite. But this is f-ing annoying as hell. For real. Thank you.

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There has to be an honorary male violator here and I nominate the guy who sings in the ads “I’ve been a poor man I’ve been a king, blah blah barf”

He is the winner apparently of a scandinavian “the voice” type show.

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On some songs Suzi Quatro’s yelling could be bothersome.

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Grace Vanderwaal

I immediately thought of this thread and pictured Mean Old Lady having a coronary watching this episode of America’s Got Talent.

The audience ate it up and the judges all drooled over it, even Simon and she got a Golden Buzzer which is like reaching the tallest ladder in Chutes and Ladders game.

This 12 year old does waify, but she also turns into a Irish Lass with the sudden change of accent mid-song. of course, the ukulele is standard.

This type of singing isn’t going anywhere. :smack:

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That was fantastic! (Am I really the only one who uses this thread to get awesome music recommendations?)

BTW, I recognized three of the four judges, but I’m curious as to the identity of the other one (between Howie Mandel and Heidi Klum). Anyone know?

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I do think that kid is pretty incredible and is way ahead of the game for growing into an artist with taste some time, maybe even soon. You can’t blame kids for sounding like others that young. Anyone here have great taste when they were 12?

She reminds me of Bjork a little.

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Another new registration brought in by a Google search: “where did this breathy baby-doll female vocal style come from?”, prompted by Grace Vanderwaal.

I used to like it; I still find it somewhat appealing, but have grown tired of all the wannabees who use the affectation so extremely and self-consciously. CocoRosie, for example.

Several years ago, when it first started emerging in it’s current form, I thought the songs I was hearing were all the same vocalist and I kind of liked it. It was cute and girlish, but sexy in a wholesome, fresh, innocent way. I could understand the animal appeal.

If I may, I think there are a few elements that need to be present to call something the Indie-Pop-Waif sound: intermittent breathiness, a rounding of vowels, and an either natural or affected tween-age voice, combined with a sort of Gelfling cuteness.

I think I know how the style evolved; I wouldn’t want to draw a flow chart, but I think this is where the elements came from. It looks like a revival of “baby-pop”, a sort of which has been going strong in Japan for quite a while with the whole “Lolita” thing.

I believe Melanie Safka (1968) pioneered this particular breed of childlike innocence. Unless you want to count France Gall (1965).

The Cranberries (1993) lent the Irish hard R’s and round vowels, and Björk (1993) added some peculiar Icelandic accents to the emerging sound.

If I had to commit, I’d say the current phenomenon probably started with Björk, and it just snowballed from there, with successive artists imitating and exaggerating it more and more, till you have bizarre chimeras like CocoRosie and Joanna Newsom. There was another woman I heard about 5 or 6 years ago, but I can’t remember her name. Something Italian, maybe. Sang about sunshine or daydreams or such.

Anyway, there’s my $0.02.

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Jesus Christ, you’re not kidding. I somehow missed this post the first time around, so up until just now I was blissfully unaware that men also perpetrate this atrocity.

I’d never heard of Passenger, and just now I happened to be checking out the video for Let Her Go. It starts off promising; I was thinking this might be one of those popular “hidden gems” that everyone else knew about but went under my radar.

Then, at 26 seconds into the song, I ran from the room screaming and lit myself on fire.

NOOOOOOOO!!!

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Hozier is a great singer, even if I giggle a bit at his name. Love the sound of his voice.

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To me, it’s kinda like the folksong fad from many decades ago. I agree…I don’t like it.