The OFFICIAL Mariah Carey thread! [merged]

[Fucker29]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

I don't see how you can think this crap as music... She sounds like a cat in heat in a blender on frappe.

Many people say the same about punk and metal music...that it's just irritating noise, not music.

Everything is music...what may differ is the artistic quality of it.

 

[Crackberry]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

The problem is they're so obsessed with the high-notes, that they miss the nuances that made Aretha tolerable. Aretha would wail, no doubt, but she usually did arpeggios that would fluctuate, she'd start low, go up, sit there for a second, then come back down.

Christina starts high, goes higher, stays there, then goes higher, then goes higher, then goes higher, then goes higher. I don't think she even has a lower register, ALL she does is belt every single fucking word.

Uhhhhhh

 

[Crackberry]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Okay, you found three performances where she doesn't. Of course she's not going to scream through a Nina Simone cover. That's the first time I've ever heard her lower register since Mulan. That's the gorgeous tone that I always tell people she has, minus the few moments where she was clearly out of her element doing subdued when she really wants to scream, that was one of the best vocal performances of this generation.

Unfortunately, most (including me) don't get to hear it, we've already written her off as another pregnant seal squealer, I don't know anyone who denies that she has a problem doing it. In that second video her squal is irritating and contrived. Microwave soul.

You said she doesn't have a lower register. She does. She uses it all the time. Those are just a few clips I found with a few seconds of searching.

Have a wonderful day.

 

[danniflava]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Christina can sing with the best of them.

 

[Fucker29]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Yeah, Christina definately likes to blow...

 

[AngelFromAbove]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Too fuckin much.

It probably would have helped your case if you posted clips where she was singing individual songs from start to finish as opposed to clips where she is riffing. Christina is definitely a singer's singer in terms of abilities, but she can overdo it at times.

 

[Fucker29]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Lol, I'm one of those people. Some people really kill me when they complain about pop music and how it's not "real" music, but they somehow love punk/rock music where there's some guy screaming (yes screaming, there's rarely any actual singing involved) over blaring guitars. We all like what we like I reckon.

I love metal and also like some punk. I was just saying that to put things into perspective for him.

 

[MrWright]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

^It counts for disgrace. He's gunnin hard for Will Smith's Corniest Rapper Alive throne.

Anywho, not so long ago I could fold my legs up to my head like a pretzel. You could ask me to do it now, but dial 9, 1 and keep your finger on the 1.

On a side note, ole girl is killin me with those hand motions. Is there such a thing as total-arm arthritis? And did her voice drop that much that she couldn't hit those 4/5 octave belts at the end?

Her vocal chords are chapped/damaged already. You can hear it in some of her vocal attacks. She has the quality of someone sick (not the nasal quality the vocal one). There's air passing through her chords as she approaches a note that is a surefire sign of either damage or sickness and she's not sick...sooo....

Belting as intensely as most pop singers do nowadays is terribly damaging. (sad to say Christina Aquilera is sure to go soon - already had vocal damage). It's a derivative of blues/jazz vocals but its added alot of coloratura affectations: a combined form dangerously rough on the chords.

So yeah she's losing the upper notes but alot of it has to do with shoving most high notes high in the chest register (all part of pop). Effectively, really modern vocal technique has a longevity of like 10-15 years and your dead. Verrrry sad. Especially since most vocalists peak at like 35-40 and many can at least fake a career till like 50 (in opera especially basses and baritones can have a career and a top one till like 65 - never wear out).

Mariah's a gonner.

 

[MrWright]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

i hope vocal gymnastics will go out of fashion.

The worst vocal gymnastic offenders are:
Celine dion
mariah carey
who else ?

It's been in style since AT LEAST bel canto period. (Listen to Lucia - same thing just in Italian...well it's also sung with support but whatevs).

 

[MrWright]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

The human voice is a frail instrument. Some have longevity but, in general, lots of touring, recording, performing can wear down the voice over a long period of time. People forget Mariah has been doing this for, what, more than a decade?

I've never been to one of her shows, but I imagine she generally goes hard every night, fans wanna hear the high-notes, the belts, the voice just can't sustain under those conditions.

I don't think that's it. It has to do with support. Yma has support (the sound is not that soulful R&B quality that's been popular of late). Combining large vocal leaps with a vocal quality that requires cutting back a lot of the sound for affectation places almost all of the weight on the vocal chords instead of evenly distributing the sound throughout the body (the chest, the back, the abdomen, the legs). What you have is a lot of tension in the vocal quality (that's where they find their vocal sheen) on the vocal chords themselves. It's just downright damaging and doing it over and over again kills. (the touring of course adds to it though)

 

[MrWright]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

You just made me the happiest motherfucker on the planet.

Well as a bass-baritone it makes me happy too.

Oh, and you're right about Christina Aquilera (eavesdropped an interchange). She overdoes it...sadly, I'm a HUGE closet fan (not too outspoken but thinks she has perhaps the best voice in pop in the last 20 years). She however has not tamed it at all. There are these moments of complete brilliance but she wastes it on vocal pyrotechnics that aren't really sincere emotionally or very typical of any of the songs she sings (especially the better ones when she heads back to classics - perhaps the best suited for her voice). Her tone is brilliant but she acts like people like her for her virtuosity. What she needs to get is that her tone is the virtuosity and the ability to underplay is more effective than overdoing.

 

[MrWright]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

^Though Bass-Baritones (especially dramatic) have by far the longest. Baritones of the three (of basses, baritones, and bass-baritones) the least. Though tenors die so early it's not funny (I guess some survive but its atypical).

 

[MrWright]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Well I gotta say I like the resonance of the high register (it feels more fun - it's not that JT sound though it's an uberbelt). Frankly, pop's hard for me (as is most modern broadway). It's just not written for anything but Tenors. Basses and baritones are shafted and the thing is that, while there are the Barry Whites, I'm frankly not Black enough (jk - I mean that whole soul sound) to sing what he sings. I can pyrotechnic it up if I'd like to show off my considerable range but my voice doesn't have as much to work with (guess it leaves me kinda semidoing Jazz which I like to sing more than I'm good at and opera which I'm better at than I like to sing - though I love to listen to it oddly).

 

[Fucker29]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Her vocal chords are chapped/damaged already. You can hear it in some of her vocal attacks. She has the quality of someone sick (not the nasal quality the vocal one). There's air passing through her chords as she approaches a note that is a surefire sign of either damage or sickness and she's not sick...sooo....

Belting as intensely as most pop singers do nowadays is terribly damaging. (sad to say Christina Aquilera is sure to go soon - already had vocal damage). It's a derivative of blues/jazz vocals but its added alot of coloratura affectations: a combined form dangerously rough on the chords.

So yeah she's losing the upper notes but alot of it has to do with shoving most high notes high in the chest register (all part of pop). Effectively, really modern vocal technique has a longevity of like 10-15 years and your dead. Verrrry sad. Especially since most vocalists peak at like 35-40 and many can at least fake a career till like 50 (in opera especially basses and baritones can have a career and a top one till like 65 - never wear out).

Mariah's a gonner.

I adore you!

It's so true. It's one of the things that you could immediately tell that was changing, for the worse, in Mariah's vocal ability, after 1997, was her breath support...wich when lacking affects one's singing. After 1997 her breath support started to really decay...you could hear the immense effort she'd make to "supply" enough air to support the notes. Ever since '97 until around 03/04 her voice was going up and down...sometimes it was in pretty good shape, sometimes ok shape, sometimes really bad shape. But from 2005 until today it's been going downhill non-stop and shows no signs of getting any better.

It's a shame because she had a remarkable gift and a unique tone...I think her mistake was trying to adapt her voice to the music she wanted to make instead of adapting the music to her voice and it's capability at the time.

She should give up on the belting style of singing. She should tone down and explore other musical fields...something like blues or jazz would probably be more suitable to her right now, IMO.

 

[Fucker29]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

I'm not surprised. There are lots of good baritones that we loose early because they try to match their tenor counterparts. Every male pop/r&b singer in the past 2 decades has tried to immitate that Justin Timberlake/ smooth girlish voice and they don't realize that singing that high, especially without training, is like going to the superbowl without a single minute of camp/practice. And I hate that they get the most attention to, guys in the middle get no love. I'm not low enough for the Barry White fans, and I'm not high enough for pop fans who are scared to listen to any guy who doesn't sound like Mickey Mouse.

If nothing else, I like the tone of my voice, I'm doing everything I can do extend my range in the opposite direction, to see how low I can go as opposed to how high.

God I detest JT and that irritating falsetto. It's so annoying...to me, anyway.

 

[Fucker29]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Pretty rare are the cases of belting vocalists who are able to preserve their voices for decades and decades...people like Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin (sure she had her vocal issues but still preserved most of it), Gladys Knight and such.

MrWright...why do you think these vocalists can preserve their voices after 40 and 50 years in the business and people like Mariah, Christina (soon...it has already started to decay), even Celine and such aren't able to preserve their voices for more than 10/15 years? Is it a matter of discipline, biology...what?

 

[MCsNo1Fn]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Mariah's a gonner.

Hold on a minute, bitch. I will slap you. (I mean it with love but Mariah is a LEGEND and though shes not the best she still tops 80% of todays "vocalists"

 

[Fucker29]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

It's all of the above, discipline, physiology, the same reason some guys in their 50s can run circles around guys half their age. Today's pop stars seem to be on the road 24/7, multiple shows, grueling schedules. Today's pop stars are literally using their voices all day long. When they're not performing, they're doing press and interviews. If you're going to be singing constantly on tour, you shouldn't be talking very much before/after performances. The voice can only stand so much use. Older divas worked probably half as much as the new girls do. They toured less, and they didn't have Good Morning America at 9 am, MTV at 12, rehearsal at 3, more interviews til the show at 9, sing for two hours, MORE interviews after the show, etc....

And, you notice that when they perform live, they tone down the vocal performance, not as extravagant. Little nuances can either preserve or damage your voice. I think I even read somewhere that pronunciation can have an effect on the voice, the way you pronounce words and shape your mouth. Don't quote me on that though, but it was a really complicated passage I was reading.

Yeah. That pretty much indicates, to me anyway, how overly commercial and money-directed music is today. "Old school" vocalists seem to be much more interested in their gift and trying to preserve it than the younger generation of vocalists.

For the toning down...Patti has only started doing it since 2005, when she was already 61yo. Until then she's always done the opposite actually...taking up a notch compared to the studio performances, she's restrained in the studio, live she let's loose.
But it was clever for her doing it as soon as she felt her voice starting to change a bit. Now, instead of belting certain notes using the chest register she either uses falsetto or "regular" head voice...in order to spare her chest register, therefore, not forcing the vocal chords. She did what Mariah failed to do so far...she adapted her singing to the condition of her voice and it's current capabilities.

Oh and yeah...the excessiveness of interviews is terrible for one's voice. Talking can be very stressful for your vocal chords.

 

[MrWright]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

Pretty rare are the cases of belting vocalists who are able to preserve their voices for decades and decades...people like Patti LaBelle, Chaka Khan, Aretha Franklin (sure she had her vocal issues but still preserved most of it), Gladys Knight and such.

MrWright...why do you think these vocalists can preserve their voices after 40 and 50 years in the business and people like Mariah, Christina (soon...it has already started to decay), even Celine and such aren't able to preserve their voices for more than 10/15 years? Is it a matter of discipline, biology...what?

There are a few reasons. For one take a mental picture of the aforementioned vocalists followed by the 'our generation' vocalists (they're a lot bigger in general). Body size has a lot to do with how one produces sound (for instance look at Maria Callas' massive drop in weight - most people believe it wrecked her voice...personally, I think it was a mix of a few things but an obvious example). Also the vocal styling is not the same. Currently we have a vocal trend of liking 'lighter' voices. Now Mariah and Celine (both are a bit lighter than Christina which might aid Christina a bit...only a bit though cuz she likes to shread) can produce a lot of sound but the sound itself is rather light (very little steel or bite to it). Effectively, you're seeing small voices trying to be big voices with a vocal technique that is rather damaging. Also, it comes back to the penchant for colorature-like passages. You see stuff like that in the earlier soulful vocalists but it's often reserved for big climaxes in the showstopper numbers. However, with Christina and Mariah especially you see large intervalic leaps and unnecessary...(well I call it vocal masturbation) on even the simplest ballads. To ALWAYS reach for the stratosphere - especially when you are doing it by shoving the chest high - is unbelievably damaging.

Now Chaka Khan, I have noooo clue how she survived because she was famous for having her crew holding two lit cigarettes for immediately as she got off stage to smoke - that would normally kill anyone.

Then there's always the issue that some people just have more durable chords and it's not even anything to do with the way they sing or their voice type - a random rarity of genetics.

 

[MrWright]

Re: Not so long ago Mariah could blow

I adore you!

Well...thank you...