Pixie Lott - is her voice completely natural?

[grab]

Forgot about Lady Gaga - yeah, good performer. Oh, and Beverley Knight too.

Pixie Lott doesn't do it as extensively as Whitney Houston does - more like Mariah Carey back when she wasn't trying to be such a diva. But there's certainly a bit there in the songs I've listened to.

[TheChorltonWheelie]

Forgot about Lady Gaga - yeah, good performer. Oh, and Beverley Knight too.

Pixie Lott doesn't do it as extensively as Whitney Houston does

If it's just about the voice, Beverley is absolutely streets ahead of Pixie/Gaga et al.

[Guest]

Pavarotti, Elvis, Marvin Gaye.......?

...are all dead.

....and they still sound more talented, fresh and alive than anything that's around today.

[hollowsun]

there's an awful lot of cutting-edge production going on in that song

That'll be my chum!

[Jez Corbett]

Must admit I've never really heard her stuff but my curiosity has been sparked by the this thread and I just had a quick skim listen to her songs 'Gravity' and 'Cry Me Out' on YouTube.

Good grief I have never heard so much overuse of pitch correction since T-Pain and his ilk first 'revived' it's overuse a couple of years ago. Is this what ALL mainstream pop sounds like these days? Is this what people think is natural?

Maybe I just haven't heard enough of her music but from those two examples I'm deeply shocked that there appears to be any debate over this issue. It's so full of the nasty metallic artefacts of overuse of pitch correction I find it incredibly distracting.

Just listen to the line "it's time to get over yourself" on this video from 1.02 to 1.07:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0mMPOmtCXI&feature=channel
It sounds practically vocoded.

[Phil O]

Listen to this and then decide if PL is a 'great' singer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsPA1BcGIbA

[Scramble]

Phil O wins by a knockout!

[hollowsun]

I just had a quick skim listen to her songs 'Gravity' and 'Cry Me Out' on YouTube.

Good grief I have never heard so much overuse of pitch correction

Not hearing any HERE and not hearing any on the section your refer to.

[Tui]

Listen to this and then decide if PL is a 'great' singer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsPA1BcGIbA

God, this is dire. She's got poor pitch, timing, phrasing, stamina... In short, she can barely sing.

I pity the presumably mostly young folk who associate this type of performance with "greatness". What are we coming to, honestly. Read the comments:

- "She's stunning "
- "My favorite singer. She's sounds so amazing. Pixie <3"
- "gorgeouse <3 simple as "
- "i love her eye makeup fab performance!"

Her studio recordings are quite obviously autotuned to death, no mystery there.

Alternatively, try some of this for true greatness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSBNi8PCb7Q&feature=related

[Dr Huge Longjohns]

Do you think it's a sign of spending too much time on this forum when you watch a vid like that and are paying more attention to the bass player's rack than to Pixie's vocals (or indeed legs!)? I need to get out more.

[oopfoo]

Do you think it's a sign of spending too much time on this forum when you watch a vid like that and are paying more attention to the bass player's rack than to Pixie's vocals (or indeed legs!)? I need to get out more.

Even worse, I read your comment, watched the vid, and thought,"That bass player's a GUY...he doesn't have a....oh...."

What does THAT mean?

[hollowsun]

Alternatively, try some of this for true greatness:

3 minutes of self-indulgent, pointless, contrived melisma that has spawned a thousand identikit wannabes on the X-Factor. Dolly sings it with more honesty.

Don't get me wrong, Whitney is (was) a fab singer and I loved her earlier stuff (even it it was something of an extended DX7 demo!) but that song came about at a time when she was actually becoming a parody of the character she played in 'The Bodyguard' from whence that song was made famous.

And that performance was from an awards ceremony (I am assuming the annual event that takes place in Monte Carlo ... I forget the name). She had about ten years more experience in that controlled environment singing just one song than young Pixie had in the other vid where she was doing a complete set.

You cannot assume that just because Pixie was less than perfect in the clip you saw that her studio output is "autotuned to death". And if that's the yardstick, then most new bands/artists are pretty shite relying, as they do, on all sorts of studio trickery.

There was an interesting programme here a while back on Radio 2 where they got some of the bright young things to remake some Sgt Peppers songs using the original 4-track equipment. They couldn't (by their own admission) hack it as they are so used to 150 tracks of Protools and comping, time correction, micro-editing, plug-ins and other corrective measures and 'fixing it in the mix' mentality. Some did ok and ISTR Travis made a damned good fist of it.

And about the same time, I saw the Kaiser Chiefs live and they were bloody awful - loose and ragged and all over the shop ... but their 'hit du jour' which was airing on the wireless sounded great - good and tight and punchy.

Go figure.

And before any of us here start pointing fingers of disapproval at whoever may or may not use Autotune, consider what tricks you employ in your own work to make your stuff sound half decent even if that's just pumping up your master with a compressor set to stun to make it sound more exciting than it is!

[Jaylon]

She doesn't have a voice like a great soul singer, but to me it does have a certain charm and is good to listen to. I checked out some of her stuff on youtube. To me it sounds tuned and very produced even the 'acoustic' songs.

I think it would sound better if they didn't try to make her into a big soul voice and went for a more 'lily allen' sound or something that sounds more natural.

[Tui]

I think it would sound better if they didn't try to make her into a big soul voice and went for a more 'lily allen' sound or something that sounds more natural.

It appears the heavily produced sound is exactly what most kids want to hear. They don't know Pixie's voice has been through a myriad of plug-ins. They don't know it, and they don't care either. All they hear is a voice that sounds AMAZING, and consequently they want to buy the album too.

We live in an age of make believe. It's that way with most things. Say, if you offer regular people a choice between a wholesome, organic meal, or a McD hamburger, which are they going to choose?

[hollowsun]

We live in an age of make believe.

In our small part of the music industry, it has ever been thus since the arrival of multi-track. Les Paul and his missus making those amazing early records, recording at half speed so the riffage was blindingly fast at normal playback speed. Even before Autotune, I'd record vocalists slow for some difficult phrases, drop in and out on phrases that weren't quite right... and that's before you even consider vocal comping - recording two or three tracks of vocals and picking the best bits. I've seen that done right down to single words. Then there's ADT to beef the voice up or slap back echo to achieve the same, whatever. Just simple compression of a vocal part to keep dynamics under control so that the vocal sits better in the track is 'processing'. It's been going on for decades. This industry has seen more than its fair share of very dodgy 'singers' and musos and bands who have needed every bit of help in the studio possible to sound listenable. Even classical performances (where the musicianship is unquestionable) splice the best bits of takes together for the best recorded production which has to bear repeated listening. So Autotune is a new toy in the studio toolbox. So what? It's just an easier way of achieving what we used to do in convoluted ways with other studio trickery.

It's that way with most things. Say, if you offer regular people a choice between a wholesome, organic meal, or a McD hamburger, which are they going to choose?

Different people will choose different things and depends on what's on offer. Just because a meal is wholesome and organic doesn't mean it'll be tastier and more enjoyable - it may be disgusting on the palate both in terms of flavour and texture depending on how it's been cooked and prepared and the fact that it was made with wholesome ingredients with no artificial processing or flavourings is irrelevant if it's inedible muck.

[Kevin Nolan]

My own two-penny's worth on the more general debate on the use of production technology opening up on this thread (which I didn’t mean) -

Irrespective of the use of lots of effects/plugins even on a Pixie Lott track, I still believe that songs liked by millions of people have usually shined through for good reasons, however much they may be produced and however much we may hate them as individuals. "Cry me out", for example, is a damn good song and sung beautifully. I personally think Pixie Lott has a very special voice, and those little cute bending of the notes, words and phrases sound incredibly well and soulfully - I certainly fall for them!( OK - you can tell I'm in love!! )

On a separate point, I have to say that I did find the entire Pixie Lott album a little over-produced, a little too clean, and all a little fatiguing (which I blame squarely at the mastering engineers and producers). Individual songs on the album are great, but all together they do NOT make for a pleasing listening experience and I think that's true of a lot of albums these days. I know that's a whole other couple of debates - loudness wars - itune tracks versus albums and so on; but in this instance I believe the entire Pixie Lott album, as a sole product, does an injustice to her talent and soul, directly affected negatively by over production at the mastering stage. You can keep your izotopes and finalisers if they are going to strain out all the rough edges that make someone like this artist sound squeaky clean to the point of fatigue.

I'd even go as far as to say that, despite the amazing mastering plugins these days and the amazing skills of mastering engineers - that over mastering is killing modern music. Mastering engineers have a lot to answer for IMO, and I belive history will judge them harshely for being incredibly sheepish - en masse - in this regard these days. Even in recent interviews in SOS and the likes of Musictech Mastering Focus, even reputable mastering engineers of old seem utterly oblivious to the damage they are causing and are virtually totally willing to go along with current norms. Any issues of the 'loudness wars' are mentioned in the first sentence or two of any such intervire, before they then expound at great lenght on how instigate such mastering features as maximum loudness. There's simply no variation, and mastering engineers and mastering houses are simply killing the soul in artists like Pixie Lott in the grand scheme. I suspect that 'online mastering' services are even worse - offering the same, bland, generic mastering to all unsuspecting users who simply do not know better (and on which the likes of SOS magazine offer very little opinion analysis, insight or objective guidance I should add.)

Kevin.

[muzines]

I'm willing to bet that a lot of pop music listening these days, by far the largest amount, is a combination of radio play, youtube, and mobile phone speakers - all playback systems which introduce such a level of processing or distortion that vastly outweighs any fatigue created by the mastering practices...

Times like these...

[Tui]

So Autotune is a new toy in the studio toolbox. So what? It's just an easier way of achieving what we used to do in convoluted ways with other studio trickery.

Yeah, sure. Give people technology, and they will use it. Give them more, and they will use more.

It's just getting beyond ridiculous. We now have several generations of charts-topping acts that can't sing to save their life. Or, as Puff Daddy/Diddly/whatever famously said, he doesn't want to learn to play an instrument, because being able to play one would "dilute" his art.

At least in my time (when I was young and pretty ), the Whitneys and Kates and Bobs and Stevies of the era could easily perform live just as well as they did on their recordings, sometimes even better. In fact, I used to take it for granted and was rather disappointed when one of the superstars did not manage to live up to expectations. Expectations were generally so much higher than nowadays, not only in terms of performance, but song-writing as well. Yes, there was plenty of tosh way back when too, of course, but there was also breath-taking excellence.

Today, I'm missing excellence. There's not one new great voice in pop that I'm aware of. At best, vocalists are competent nowadays, but that's not enough to get me excited. Too many singers these days sound as if they're doing a karaoke version of their own material.

[Syncratic]

We live in an age of make believe. It's that way with most things. Say, if you offer regular people a choice between a wholesome, organic meal, or a McD hamburger, which are they going to choose?

Increasingly the Organic meal, it's not all doom and gloom..

'We live in a land of make believe.' Surely a guy singing out of a box called the radio was more preposterous, why is this a negative thing?

At the end of the day it's pop music, if you don't like it listen to something you do.

[Tui]

At the end of the day it's pop music, if you don't like it listen to something you do.

I used to LOVE pop music, and I'd like to love it again. Fat chance.

Mind you, some of the Thai pop music is very nice. If you can get past what sounds like bag pipes, an 80's-style production and the Thai language, obviously, I think this is an incredible melody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0CYHmCpziE

[Syncratic]

At the end of the day it's pop music, if you don't like it listen to something you do.

I used to LOVE pop music, and I'd like to love it again. Fat chance.

Mind you, some of the Thai pop music is very nice. If you can get past what sounds like bag pipes, an 80's-style production and the Thai language, obviously, I think this is an incredible melody:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0CYHmCpziE

Wow ha, it sounds a bit like an advert for a four star hotel. And I guess it would be nice to enjoy pop music, ever since I was a kid I never really have.

[grab]

At best, vocalists are competent nowadays, but that's not enough to get me excited.

Absolutely.

That's why I'm annoyed I forgot to mention Beverley Knight initially on my list of current faves. We saw her about 2 years back at the Cambridge Corn Exchange. The opening act (an eminently forgettable R&B guy) was pretty dreadful, and FOH was cranked so far up that halfway down the hall I could literally feel the kick blowing my hair! But BK was frankly awesome - it was like you'd imagine being back in the 60s and seeing Aretha Franklin or Tina Turner at the height of their powers.

There *are* new voices in pop, and it'd be wrong to expect them to sound the same as the old ones. The trouble is that if anyone thinks Pixie Lott is the cream of the crop vocally, it's a pretty sure sign that the average standard is a lot lower than it was.

[muzines]

Beverly Knight is the real deal, no doubt.

[onesecondglance]

The trouble is that if anyone thinks Pixie Lott is the cream of the crop vocally, it's a pretty sure sign that the average standard is a lot lower than it was.

this is the sad truth. very few pop vocalists from the past 10 years have really blown me away - a fair few in other genres, but not in pop.

standards are undoubtedly lower. people keep telling us that Adele, Duffy, and Amy Winehouse etc are "great" singers when they're "good" and nothing more. they're not BAD, but elevating them to legendary status does no one any favours.

[Tui]

I forgot to mention Beverley Knight
...
like you'd imagine being back in the 60s and seeing Aretha Franklin or Tina Turner at the height of their powers.

Yes, Beverley Knight is excellent. Now, I hope someone is going to write a bunch of great songs for her that will allow her to shine.