…You’ve all heard those bands. The ones with the whiny singers that either: (a) add to the appeal, or (b) make the music unlistenable.
Take The Cure for instance. Would they really have been as successful if they didn’t have Robert Smith singing? No other band sounds quite like them. And while they don’t appeal to everyone, old Bob is at least amusing, if not otherwise entertaining.
Or Counting Crows. Adam Duritz is one of the whinyest bastards in music today. Some of their songs are annoying as hell (especially when he’s doing that whiny ‘yeeaah’ thing). Would they be any better if there were somebody else singing?
One band that I can’t stand is Soul Asylum. Dave Pirner’s voice is one of the most grating, obnoxious, wailing insults to music ever. I thank jeebus they died out in the 90’s.
How about Celine Dion (and a few other choice Canadian female vocalists )? Mind-numbing, full-throated warbling carefully calculated to sell records to innocents without the access to real quality music.
Well anyway, while this looks almost like a pit rant, I really just wanna get an idea of who some of your favorite (or least favorite) whiners are.
You cover a lot of emo/pop-punk bands there, and Saves the Day probably takes the cake (I think that’s an expression). In small doses, StD songs can be alright, and his voice is just “unique,” but after more than a few tunes, it gets old. At least, for me.
“Mornin’, ever’one. Okay, who’s Digs gonna have WHIIIIIIIIIIININ’ on the old boom box today?”
I guess I asked for it. In the many years til she was Jenny WhoINoLongerWorkWith, I grew from a Jackson Whiny Bowne fan to a Tom Whiny Petty fan to a Don Whiny Henley fan. Now I listen to Adam ReallyWhiny Duritz, Jeb Loy GravellyYetWhiny Nichols and Ryan SometimesWhiny Adams.
I have tried and tried and tried to develop an appreciation for Jimmy Dale Gilmore since I hear how great a songwriter he is, but it cannot be done - at least not by me.
I’ve learned to recognize his voice the instant I hear it from listening to The World Cafe and when Don Imus was playing the hell out of that damn Flatlanders CD.
Standin in the station I got no destination
I’m wavin my heart good-buuuuuy!
The worst part is that the whiney bastard is all over Radio@AOL, about the only way I get to hear any decent music lately. So I quickly vote,“Hate It” to do my small part to try to cut down on his getting played, all the while knowing it’s pointless and click “Sinatra Style” figuring it’s safe there.
And BTW, could someone tell critics darling Gillian Welch that no matter how many slow and supposedly “achingly beautiful” songs she sings it will not transport her back in time to become an out of work, but still noble, Okie tragedy case trapped in the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression? So shut up, cheer up, or go the hell away already.
This morning on the way to work, I heard the whiniest Godf-diddly-damned song I’ve ever heard in my life. Some guy who sounded about 18 singing about his dad:
*
I’m sorry I can’t be perfect
Now I just try hard to make you proud
It hurts when you disapprove all along*
Supertramp is the first band that comes to mind. I remember thinking how weird they sounded at first. But I love their music now. I managed to survive the non-stop playing of “The Logical Song” in the 70s. Probably a driving force behind my abandonment of top 40 radio.
I feel the same way about both Counting Crows and Train - They both have good songs, and they both have intolerable songs. I hate that “meet virginia” song, but I quite like “Drops of Jupiter”. I hate that “one more day up in the canyon” song by the 'Crows, but I kinda like the cover they did of “Big Yellow Taxi” (the version without the stupid “bop,bop,bop” background singer).
How about Frankie Valli? That guy sucks like a black hole.
See that’s why I like Train somewhat, I heard songs like “I Am” and “Free” on the radio before “Meet Virginia” became a hit. Plus I used to get them mixed up with another group called Mr. Henry who had a similar sound but were from closer to home. So I knew they had a little more to them even though they are MOR. Although, with every album they seem to be headed down the slow road to adult contemporary hell and turning into the next version of Collective Soul.
“Rush” My high school boyfriend loved Rush and would insist I listen to the “incredible lyrics,” but I couldn’t get past Getty Lee’s shrill voice. I may have missed some really profound, beautiful lyrics due to that wretched voice.
Then there’s Neal Young. I can’t believe this guy made it as a singer. His voice is just so nasally and unappealing. It’s like listening to Fran Drescher sing. “Go to live on…Sugar mountain.” Please do that, Neal.
See Coldfire - that’s just it: there’s two kinds of whiny (a different taxonomy than elfkin stated; there’s Quality of Voice Whiny (QVWhiney) and Lyrics and Attitude Whiny (LAWhiny) - okay, maybe elfkin did allude to this, but it bears a little further exploration.
Neil Young is the epitome of QVWhiny - he could be singing about raping a pillaging and any other alpha-male activity and still sound like he lost his milk money on the way to school. I mean even “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World” sounds wimpy. Geddy Lee is in this category - sings great stuff, but has a whiny timbre to his voice…
Someone like, oh, Morrissey is more LAWhiny - I don’t personally find his voice whiny in timbre - but his inflections and, og knows, his lyrics, are whiny in the extreme…
Now, when you have someone who is both QV and LAWhiny, then they must die. Adam Duritz - ecchhh. My personal lowpoint for whininess, however is Sting in “King of Pain”.
(Strangely enough, I find the Who’s “Behind Blue Eyes” - a similarly over-the-top self-pity song as KoP - wonderful; probably because Daltrey is the antithesis of QVWhiny…)
Carraba, on the other hand, is both QOVwhiny and LAWhiny, as a matter of fact, probably the quintessential “whiny”. But I still like him: I don’t like classic rock whiners that just sing like that because that’s their voice. I dont dislike em either but I dont buy every Neil Young CD just to have it.
I was also going to mention Saves the Day: there are a lot of indie bands that sound a lot like that, punk* mixed with a certain whiny sound that is somehow different from Dashboard’s own brand of whine. I can stick in any StD CD and just pretend I’m listening to early 90’s college radio
*not pop-punk, as some others have suggested, for despite being medium-upbeat in tempo and key, a lot of StD songs are unpredictable in their formats, so I think that moves them out of “pop”.
)? Mind-numbing, full-throated warbling carefully calculated to sell records to innocents without the access to real quality music.