This week my disposition has become a lot better than it has been lately. That’s a good thing, because if it had gotten any worse, I’d have needed a chainsaw and a lawyer. So, to celebrate my rising mood I loaded my car’s CD changer with Sammy Hagar CDs and now I drive my 30-minute commute in 25 minutes. Every yeah! and whoo! is shouted along by me. This is worrying other drivers visibly, but that’s their problem.
Then I got to thinking, a week ago I’d’ve have smashed these CDs to smithereens for all that cheesy crap. And then I realised I’ve got more vocalists on CD who have “trademarks” that would condemn them to the same fate. Mood-dependant cheesity. My list of Singer’s Cheesy Trademarks.
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[li]David Coverdale[/li]What is the problem with this guy? Have you ever heard him take a breath? Inhaling air, for a normal person, takes something like one second. Make it two if you’re yawning. Dave just keeps on inhaling. Yeah, he grew up in the sixties all right. When the air starts flowing his way, loose sheets and small children disappear. You think I’m exaggerating? Listen to the unplugged version of Soldiers of Fortune on the album Starkers in Tokyo. See? (Hear?) Told ya. And don’t get me started on his use of the word baby.
[li]Ronnie James Dio[/li]Hmmm-hm-hm-hm-hmmm. Yeah, yeah. And as Henry Rollins once said, every RJD album has at least one, usually three, Evil woman, LOOK OUT! songs. Great for when you just broke up with your girlfriend. In almost 25 years Ronnie has released two albums where he does not mention rainbows in one form or another.
When asked when he would stop using his rainbow references, Ronnie said he’d do that when David Coverdale stopped using the word baby…
[li]Sammy Hagar.[/li]This guy just has to have a Yeah! and Whoo! in every other song. Or end a song in a scream a full minute long. Variations on the theme abound: Oh yeah! Here we go! All right now! The epitome: Little White Lie (track 1 on Marching to Mars) contains six consecutive **YEAH!**s.
[li]Glenn Hughes[/li]Glenn shouts. Glenn yells. Glenn screeches. An alphabet to adequately transcribe his vocal ejaculations has yet to be invented. Example, from Madeleine on Addiction: “(some random syllables) tragedy, now tell me who’s the fool. You take one step closer to the (phone or door, I forget). WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” You know why everybody says he’s the best rock singer ever? Because he is of course, but also because if you said otherwise, he’d shout you to death.
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So, do you have any vocalists with “trademarks” you just love? And hate when you’re down?
I was making some Rainbow and Dio tapes from my roommates collection the other day. Lyrically, this guy was a no-talent hack who repeated phrases constantly.
“Can’t you see what I mean” and “Lost and never found” and other hackneyed phrases appear in at least a half a dozen songs.
-Rob Zombie seems to have some very strong emotions for the word ‘Yea’ also. Listen to…well, any of his songs. Ongoing joke between me and my friends a few years ago:
My friend: Do you like White Zombie?
Me: Yea
Theres also a rapper that thinks he is rhyming just by putting ‘yea’ at the end of every line. Who the hell is this guy? Anybody know who I’m talking about?
Wow - somebody beat me to naming the human air raid siren. Brucie kicks ass.
Peter Steele from Type O does the inhaling thing too.
James Hetfield has been completely annoying and redundant since TBA, every other line is yeah-YEAH.
Phil Anselmo (Pantera + too many others to name) is known for his drunken rants between songs. He says this is so Vinnie can catch some air between songs but sometimes I wonder.
Klaus Meine from the Scorpions and his overusage of the word “crazy” and his rising end questions: "We are ze Scorpions from Chermanyyyyy? Are you going to go craazy wiz us toniiiteeee? You ready for some crazy rock-n-roll? You want us to play ‘Speedy’s Coming’? (ok, that last one’s a pipe dream for me, heh heh)
Tom G. Warrior always leaves little doubt as to how he sounds during his more intimate encounters: “Uh! Oh! Yeah! OOH!”
And add Paul Stanley to the list of “YEAH!!” and “WHOO!” abusers…stobbit, Paul. Really.
I ought to drag out that old issue of Kerrang! magazine where someone submitted the ultimate tracklists for Whitesnake and Dio albums. It went sort of like this: Whitesnake: Standing in the Shadow of your Love in the Heartbreak of Midnight, Here I go Standing In the Shadow of your Love, Sliding in the Broken Heart of Midnight, etc.
Dio: Evil Rainbow Dragon Heart, Holy Children of the Dragon, Dark Rainbow of the Heart of Holy Dragon Children, and so forth. But it was funnier than that…
Though I like them both, Mellencamp says “yeah” at least two dozen times in “Pink Houses,” and Springsteen seemingly always addresses his songs to the mysterious “mister.” Usually it’s “Well, mister…”