I liked this style the first time I heard it back in the late 1990’s when I saw Erin McKeown live. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmAde0kLYVs
Now I hear so many women sing like this that I can’t tell them apart and it drives me batshit nuts. I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Just listen to this travesty: Stream Help (Beatles Cover with Ally Subak) by musings | Listen online for free on SoundCloud
It shouldn’t be legal to do this to the Beatles.
That’s so bad, it’s a parody, not a cover version.
Yeah it really would be perfect parody of this style of singing, but unfortunately it has been made unironically. I heard it and it was last straw for me, prompting me to Google “indie girl singing,” which led me here. Had to share.
Ha ha, yes, Elephantfarts. Share the hate!
I also got to this forum via a google search - a search for “annoying style of singing” got me to this thread, and it was exactly what I was trying to figure out! I think I’ve sort of noticed it for years, but tonight my wife is listening to “the voice” and hearing one of the contestants made it click. I too associate it with Grey’s Anatomy. Not only does that show feature these kinds of singers, the contrived writing seems a good match with this affected singing style.
I absolutely love that people share my hate. 
I especially love that people are irritated enough to Google “what the hell is this annoying shit called anyway?” Makes my smile
People here have (unnecessary) attitude about bumping old threads, but every time I see this one bumped, I think with glee “YES! Another hater.”
That is an obscene profanation of a piece of actual music.
And of course there’s a ukelele involved.
Wait, what? Green Day started in Berkeley CA, and Armstrong’s vocals sound very much urban-Californian to me (though a different strain than Moon Zappa’s older LA take). A slacker-California accent. What here is “midwestern”?
I can see “waify” used to describe this vocal style. It strikes me that they’re not belting a song out, they’re singing at a speaking volume and letting the microphone do the work, which may not be a wonderful thing. But on the other hand, the vocals sound clean, they’re not over processed or auto-tuned or compressed. You’ll never hear Britney Spears singing into a clean mic.
I’m not crazy about the popping up a 5th or so in the middle of a measure for one note and then dropping back down to where they were before, but I guess that’s just the style.
My head just exploded from the awfulness.
Slowly rocking the volume pot on the lead singer’s mike for a lousy tremolo effect? Didn’t Tommy James and the Shondells teach everyone about tremolo on lead vocals?
Holy shit. I’m so glad people are noticing this fucking coy, misophonia-inducing STD of a vocal style. I started picking up on it about 7 years ago. My girlfriend and I call it the “sick cat” voice. The “Help” cover on soundcloud might be the best (worst) example I’ve ever heard, so props to whoever found that.
It kind of gained steam via Cat Power and (to a lesser degree) Erin McKeown, who’ve been mentioned, and fucking Colin Meloy from the Decemberists. The worst offenders I’ve found are Laura Gibson, Keaton Henson and Lorde. Lorde is a little different from the breathy, wispy style we’re mostly talking about, but she does a lot of the same ass-raping of vowels, and it has nothing to do with being Australian.
It drives me insane to see shit like that Get Lucky cover (posted above) getting widespread acclaim. I’m thinking “NOBODY THINKS THIS STYLE IS COMPLETE BULLSHIT OR EVEN NOTICES THE TREND?”
I know I’m late to the party, but I have a few names to contribute.
Colin Meloy - Crane Wife 2
Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes - Mother
Goldbloc feat. Solei - Days Are Dreaming
Kate Davis & Postmodern Jukebox - All About That (Upright) Bass
Keaton Henson - To Your Health
Laura Gibson - La Grande
Laura Gibson - Spirited
Lorde - Team
Sylvan Esso - Coffee (great music, but the voice gets to me)
I am king hater of this nasty shit. I could get cancer of the ear canal just thinking about it. Anyone is welcome to hit me back with more hate. If you despise it as much as I do, let’s be friends - Facebook
I kinda hate to say this, because I like both of these singers, but you can hear early iterations of this style in Joni Mitchell and Suzanne Vega. Obviously both of these ladies could actually sing, but they both could and did use a breathy delivery for effect in a fair amount of their output.
So for my two cents on the subject, I think this all got started when some girls that couldn’t really sing decided to amp up the breathiness that they heard in these previous singers. Then when one of these non-singers got popular somewhere along the way, others picked it up and did it intentionally in imitation of the non-singers, not the original singers.
In any case, it should leave town on the next train. Like many of the rest of you, I find so much ‘twee-ness’ exhausting.
Indeed, nothing whatsoever, as she’s from New Zealand.
Though she does more upbeat, dance style tunes, as opposed to slow, folky stuff, I’d like to add Ms. Ellie Goulding to the list.
Next up, let’s talk about singers who sound like braying asses. Rhianna(and Madonna before her) I’m talkin’ to you girl.
Breathy-pretentious-waify-shit
- fauxsoul
- plastic despair pop or P-D-Pop
- annoy-o-sound
- “I am faking it like a whore faking an orgasm” pop,
- whore-tone
Whore-tone, yes!
Man, every time I see this thread bumped, I am filled with glee knowing someone Googled “What the fuck is this bullshit, anyway?” and I rejoice. Rejoice, brothers and sisters. Feel the hate!
I call this style, “silly little girl singing in her bedroom with her eyes closed, wiping her bangs from her eyes and dreaming that shes singing in a coffee shop with a hundred hipster fuckwits hanging on her every word”.