Your cursive singing is tearing this family apart!

Switched on Pop

Vox Media Podcast Network

Music Interviews, Music History, Music, Music Commentary

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 1 August 2023

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Recently while scrolling twitter we saw a clip from American Idol of judge Katy Perry admonishing an auditioner on the show to “Enunciate!” The video went viral because of Perry’s incensed reaction, but also because the contestant’s performance of Amy Winehouse’s “Valerie” offered a crystalline example of a popular style of singing that has produced reactions of love and—like for Perry—hate. It’s a style that features elongated vowels, clipped consonants, and runaway phrasing associated with contemporary singers like Halsey, Jorja Smith, and Shawn Mendes, and like many things in the 21st century it got its name from a tweet—specifically by the user @trackdroppa who boasted in 2009, “Voice so smooth it’s like i’m singing in cursive” In this episode we speak to vocal coaches and journalists to to ask: Where did this cursive style come from? What are the vocal techniques used to create this sound? And why does cursive singing create so much backlash? Songs Discussed Shawn Mendes - Stitches Zooey Deschanel, M. Ward - Winnie the Pooh Mick Jagger - Strange Game Selena Gomez, A$AP Rocky - Good For You Frank Zappa, Moon Zappa - Valley Girl Mark Ronson, Amy Winehouse - Valerie benny blanco, Halsey, Khalid - Eastside Jorja Smith - Teenage Fantasy Tones And I - Dance Monkey Sia - Cheap Thrills Corinne Bailey Rae - Put Your Records On Blink-182 - All The Small Things SZA - Kill Bill More Ashaala Shanae https://www.themahi.com/founder Jumi Akinfenwa https://www.vice.com/en/contributor/jumi-akinfenwa Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Switched On Pop. I'm musicologist Nate Sloan. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.
0:18.4	Charlie recently I was scrolling through ye old Twitter searching for some dank memes
0:24.8	to entertain myself when I came across a clip from 2020 of the show American Idol that captured
0:36.0	a very tense interaction between the judge Katie Perry and one of the auditioners.
0:44.1	Have some time to go out by myself. Slow down. And I look across the water. Say all the words.
0:53.9	Don't cut the words off. And you've been out there my body's been mad and I miss your
1:01.0	gender. Annunciate the words Charlie. It's very combative.
1:06.8	I feel like this clip went viral because of that combative interaction. But also because
1:12.6	in that short clip we get a crystalline example of a popular style of singing that has produced
1:20.0	reactions of love but also like Katie Perry here hate. A style that features elongated vowels
1:31.0	clipped consonants and run on phrasing. It's a style associated with contemporary singers like
1:38.8	Halsey. Georgia Smith.
1:50.5	And Sean Mendez.
1:52.1	Just like a morpher onto a flame. Oh, you're learning. I couldn't sense the pain.
2:01.9	It got its name from a 2009 tweet by the user track dropper saying quote, voice so smooth.
2:10.2	It's like I'm singing in cursive. Okay, Charlie. So that is what we're talking about here.
2:17.2	Curse of singing. Are you familiar with this vocal phenomenon? I am. It's something I've never
2:23.6	fully understood because it feels like people are singing in another English dialect that doesn't
2:30.6	exist. I find it compelling and it like it requires me to listen more closely like wide
2:36.4	deer a sound like eyes. I also know that it has received a good amount of derision. I feel like
2:41.7	sometimes people negatively call this indie girl voice also gender it. So yeah, I'm
2:47.5	very familiar with the topic but I definitely don't really understand why it's happening exactly
	...

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