Reviews
 What Happened?
The Lone Sharks
Nine Lives
Steve Winwood
Moneyland
Various Artists
I'm Not There (Original Soundtrack)
Various Artists
Home Before Dark
Neil Diamond
Toby Keith's 35 BIGGEST Hits
Toby Keith
It's A Shame About Ray (Collector's Edition)
The Lemonheads
About a Son
Otis Blue (Collector's Edition)
Otis Redding
Loaded
Wood Brothers
|
Macy Gray
Sometimes, I try to imagine what might have happened if Macy Gray attempted to obtain a recording contract in 1950. Can you imagine just how long she would have lasted before the producer would show her the door? Back then, there just wasn’t much tolerance for anything but pristine and smooth vocal styles; Nat King Cole and Nina Simone were about as smoky and/or sultry as pop music would get. Over time, the listening audience has grown more tolerant and more sophisticated, recognizing that purity is not only unnecessary, but often undesirable. Anybody who ever appreciated Ray Charles (and honestly, how could you not?) already knows that true vocal artistry rests in the singer’s ability to inhabit the lyrics and convey emotion. Recently, though, the art of singing has been reduced to pretentious displays of false, syrupy emotion and technical ability. I can remember a time when melisma used to make me feel something. Now, I just roll my eyes whenever I hear some pseudo-soul singer take five minutes to roll up and down the scales as quickly as they can before finally settling on a note. The influence of gospel and church singing is one of the best things that could have happened to popular music, but it has recently been battered into a formula that is more scientific than sincere. We need to find our way back to expressive vocalizing, and Macy Gray is one of very few contemporary vocalists who have found a new way to do this.
Listen to popular music long enough and you’ll eventually grow desperate to hear something that is both pleasing and original. I figure that I’ve been listening to pop music on an average of five hours a day ever since I was three years old. So, let’s see, that’s…..let me get my calculator……73,000 hours of my life spent listening to one thing or another. Naturally, after a while I start to recognize melodic patterns, predict chord changes, and sense artistic limitations. For example, after hearing two or three songs by the Gin Blossoms, I genuinely liked what I heard, but felt certain they were incapable of surprising me. I am also convinced that Jennifer Lopez will sound exactly the same in ten years as she does now (if she’s even making records by then), and I know that as sure as the sun will rise, N’ Sync’s music will eventually fade into oblivion and be forgotten, no matter what they do.
I crave originality, and that is why I like Macy Gray. The characteristic sounds of her voice that some people find weird or grating are the exact same characteristics that draw me in, because I’ve never heard anyone who sounds quite like her. She is refreshingly original, and after four decades of popular music being put through a mechanized wringer, that’s quite a feat. I know that it is common practice to describe any new artist as a hybrid of sorts – I do it all the time – but Macy Gray is a tough study. Citing Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Sly Stone and Aretha Franklin as some of her favorite artists, her influences are fairly predictable and routine, but her implementation is anything but. Filtered through her own personality and her strangely characteristic voice, something unpredictable results. The best hybrid I can conjure is a train wreck of Joan Armatrading’s style, Joe Cocker’s rasp and Joe Walsh’s slur, or what might have happened if Billie Holliday accidentally grabbed battery acid while reaching for the Listerine.
But let’s presume that you can’t get past her voice. Let’s presume that you’re that type of person who likes, say, Steve Perry, or Mariah Carey, or any other act whose talent is based mostly on technique. Nothing I say will convince you to appreciate Gray’s vocal style, but what about the music? “I Try” is such a well-written song that it awes me. The verses are a near-perfect depiction of intuitive expression, with a chorus that builds slowly from the verses. By the time the key change rolls around at song’s end, the buildup becomes a glorious release of tension, resulting not only from the clever songwriting but also from the high wire act of hearing Gray attempt to make the leap, and just barely reaching it. I must have heard “I Try” fifty times or more, and I still get all tingly at that key change. The songwriting relies on classic, dependable formulas to achieve its effect, but it is Gray’s voice that gives it the breath of life. You might find her style to be strange, but she’s undoubtedly original, and in my book (and this is my book), she’s also extremely talented.
 
|
More Music Reviews
More Movie Reviews
More Book Reviews
More Concert Reviews
See more hits from the 2000's
Powered by Millennium Communications Inc.