SO... Madonna's voice on record. TRIGGER WARNING: Personal opinions may offend some die-hard Madonna fans.
I feel like her voice was just right for the first 20ish years of her career. She could be plucky, commanding, romantic, tender, she sounded as though she believed every word, and that gave her singing a resonance that a lot of more technically gifted vocalists didn't have. Even after the vocal training that identification with the lyric was still there. Listen to her resolve on You'll See when she sings, "you think that you are strong, I have truth on my side" etc. Or the jubilation on the song Ray Of Light, the way she almost approximates nervous, fumbling body language on X-Static Process. Despite what critics say, she was a glorious actress, but one whose greatest roles happened in her songs!
Then something began to happen where her voice began to be more layered, more treated, more processed, more auto-tuned. It's the musical equivalent of an old movie queen resorting to softer and softer camera lenses as she ages, resisting the march of time every way she can. And so a lot of that immediacy and feeling starts getting lost in the last decade or so of her work, never mind that she's never sounded less engaged with what she's singing.
Look at a song like Falling Free. Her vocals are so coated and so over-produced, and the editing on the vocals in the final minute or so of the song is absolutely inexcusable. There are some stories out there about Madonna having a cold that day, and how the album process was rushed, etc. Okay, fine. Bottom line though is that the song should NOT have been released in that state. It could have and should have been her finest vocal performance this decade.
I'm not saying it never happens anymore, just that the moments have gotten fewer and further between where she just sounds natural and warm and human on record. For *me* even when there is a good vocal lurking in a song, it's covered by so much production gauze and reverb sometimes.
I still love her of course, and she still delivers bops, but I wish that remove weren't there so much.
SO... Madonna's voice on record. TRIGGER WARNING: Personal opinions may offend some die-hard Madonna fans.
I feel like her voice was just right for the first 20ish years of her career. She could be plucky, commanding, romantic, tender, she sounded as though she believed every word, and that gave her singing a resonance that a lot of more technically gifted vocalists didn't have. Even after the vocal training that identification with the lyric was still there. Listen to her resolve on You'll See when she sings, "you think that you are strong, I have truth on my side" etc. Or the jubilation on the song Ray Of Light, the way she almost approximates nervous, fumbling body language on X-Static Process. Despite what critics say, she was a glorious actress, but one whose greatest roles happened in her songs!
Then something began to happen where her voice began to be more layered, more treated, more processed, more auto-tuned. It's the musical equivalent of an old movie queen resorting to softer and softer camera lenses as she ages, resisting the march of time every way she can. And so a lot of that immediacy and feeling starts getting lost in the last decade or so of her work, never mind that she's never sounded less engaged with what she's singing.
Look at a song like Falling Free. Her vocals are so coated and so over-produced, and the editing on the vocals in the final minute or so of the song is absolutely inexcusable. There are some stories out there about Madonna having a cold that day, and how the album process was rushed, etc. Okay, fine. Bottom line though is that the song should NOT have been released in that state. It could have and should have been her finest vocal performance this decade.
I'm not saying it never happens anymore, just that the moments have gotten fewer and further between where she just sounds natural and warm and human on record. For *me* even when there is a good vocal lurking in a song, it's covered by so much production gauze and reverb sometimes.
I still love her of course, and she still delivers bops, but I wish that remove weren't there so much.
IMO her voice lost that "unique touch" after Evita. Ever since ROL she began to sound very stone cold and became less and less emotive as the years went by.
It's gonna take a while sis. I started stanning in 2006 but didn't really get into her 80's albums till 2012 I feel like as I get older I become more tolerant to the dated 80's sound...
and Like A Prayer is now my all-time favorite record.
can't wait to start listening to 80's Madonna in 2021 then!
SO... Madonna's voice on record. TRIGGER WARNING: Personal opinions may offend some die-hard Madonna fans.
I feel like her voice was just right for the first 20ish years of her career. She could be plucky, commanding, romantic, tender, she sounded as though she believed every word, and that gave her singing a resonance that a lot of more technically gifted vocalists didn't have. Even after the vocal training that identification with the lyric was still there. Listen to her resolve on You'll See when she sings, "you think that you are strong, I have truth on my side" etc. Or the jubilation on the song Ray Of Light, the way she almost approximates nervous, fumbling body language on X-Static Process. Despite what critics say, she was a glorious actress, but one whose greatest roles happened in her songs!
Then something began to happen where her voice began to be more layered, more treated, more processed, more auto-tuned. It's the musical equivalent of an old movie queen resorting to softer and softer camera lenses as she ages, resisting the march of time every way she can. And so a lot of that immediacy and feeling starts getting lost in the last decade or so of her work, never mind that she's never sounded less engaged with what she's singing.
Look at a song like Falling Free. Her vocals are so coated and so over-produced, and the editing on the vocals in the final minute or so of the song is absolutely inexcusable. There are some stories out there about Madonna having a cold that day, and how the album process was rushed, etc. Okay, fine. Bottom line though is that the song should NOT have been released in that state. It could have and should have been her finest vocal performance this decade.
I'm not saying it never happens anymore, just that the moments have gotten fewer and further between where she just sounds natural and warm and human on record. For *me* even when there is a good vocal lurking in a song, it's covered by so much production gauze and reverb sometimes.
I still love her of course, and she still delivers bops, but I wish that remove weren't there so much.
growing up in the 2000's, I only liked the Madonna of that time, especially American Life singles, the only older song that I liked (and heard) was Into The Groove! Too bad MTV didn't play Frozen at the time, I might have became M stan since then (I was only a fan, there's a big difference!)
So I'm pretty mad @ myself for something I did the other night. I was sitting up in my bed drinking a water bottle and I was pissed off about something, so I closed the bottle and threw it across my room in pitch black and it somehow ended up hitting my Madonna CD and broke the case...
SO... Madonna's voice on record. TRIGGER WARNING: Personal opinions may offend some die-hard Madonna fans.
I feel like her voice was just right for the first 20ish years of her career. She could be plucky, commanding, romantic, tender, she sounded as though she believed every word, and that gave her singing a resonance that a lot of more technically gifted vocalists didn't have. Even after the vocal training that identification with the lyric was still there. Listen to her resolve on You'll See when she sings, "you think that you are strong, I have truth on my side" etc. Or the jubilation on the song Ray Of Light, the way she almost approximates nervous, fumbling body language on X-Static Process. Despite what critics say, she was a glorious actress, but one whose greatest roles happened in her songs!
Then something began to happen where her voice began to be more layered, more treated, more processed, more auto-tuned. It's the musical equivalent of an old movie queen resorting to softer and softer camera lenses as she ages, resisting the march of time every way she can. And so a lot of that immediacy and feeling starts getting lost in the last decade or so of her work, never mind that she's never sounded less engaged with what she's singing.
Look at a song like Falling Free. Her vocals are so coated and so over-produced, and the editing on the vocals in the final minute or so of the song is absolutely inexcusable. There are some stories out there about Madonna having a cold that day, and how the album process was rushed, etc. Okay, fine. Bottom line though is that the song should NOT have been released in that state. It could have and should have been her finest vocal performance this decade.
I'm not saying it never happens anymore, just that the moments have gotten fewer and further between where she just sounds natural and warm and human on record. For *me* even when there is a good vocal lurking in a song, it's covered by so much production gauze and reverb sometimes.
I still love her of course, and she still delivers bops, but I wish that remove weren't there so much.
All I see is some predictable and cheap attempt to drag Hard Grammy while pretending it's not directed at it.
Like a Prayer
Vogue
Justify My Love - I think this trinity coming from Madonna's most prolific era ,encompasses the essence of her .
You have controversy ,good lyrics,fashion, dance Music and sex .
A one-two-three punch .
Love To Tell - not my favorite but I think of this as the mother of all her ballads. Timeless lyrics ,raw and emotional voice ,great arrangement :a classic !
Hung Up - a modern classic. To show how powerful she still was after decades in the business .
@Humoresque:i agree with almost everything.
But,I think the ballads on Rebel Heart (kind of) represent a return to form.
Messiah,especially.
I mean,they're still obviously far from the way she used to sing before 1996 and we should not expect to sing that way ever again as she obviously won't but she sounds emotional in a way we haven't heard since ,probably,Time Stood Still.
One little correction :She recorded You'll See before the vocal coaching .
Like a Prayer
Vogue
Justify My Love - I think this trinity coming from Madonna's most prolific era ,encompasses the essence of her .
You have controversy ,good lyrics,fashion, dance Music and sex .
A one-two-three punch .
Love To Tell - not my favorite but I think of this as the mother of all her ballads. Timeless lyrics ,raw and emotional voice ,great arrangement :a classic !
Hung Up - a modern classic. To show how powerful she still was after decades in the business .
These are all great, iconic, classic songs, but let's say you're talking to someone and they go, "I know the hits, I know Like A Virgin and Vogue and Music, show me five songs that I *don't* know that may make me think of her in a new light." What would you show them?
@Humoresque:i agree with almost everything.
But,I think the ballads on Rebel Heart (kind of) represent a return to form.
Messiah,especially.
I mean,they're still obviously far from the way she used to sing before 1996 and we should not expect to sing that way ever again as she obviously won't but she sounds emotional in a way we haven't heard since ,probably,Time Stood Still. One little correction :She recorded You'll See before the vocal coaching .
I would love to finally lock down the dates on recording You'll See and when she began vocal training for Evita... because the singer on You'll See is NOT the singer on Bedtime Stories. I always suspected that You'll See was recorded at least at the early stages of her vocal training because certain elements of her singing and her phrasing already have changed from just a year before its release.
According to Wikipedia (so we'll do what we want with that), the recording of You'll See took place in September of 1995, and the recording of the Evita album began just a month later. I would imagine that she would have been well into training by the time she sat down to do the Something To Remember songs, and changes are already evident to my ears at least.
I feel like as I get older I become more tolerant to the dated 80's sound...
