Christina Aguilera's oversinging is dangerous to her career.
She's got a voice Britney would kill for, but lately it isn't rubbing
Chris Willman the right way.
WAILING MOLL Aguilera abuses her vocal talent by oversinging
When Christina Aguilera's debut album came out last year, I said
such nice things about her vocal talent in the pages of EW that
her record label prominently quoted me in ads they took out to
trumpet the release. Well, I just finished giving another listen to
Aguilera's holiday album, ''My Kind of Christmas,'' and I'd like to take
most of it back. It's all chops and no maturity, resulting in some of
the most ruinous oversinging since the glory days of Cher.
Christina's kind of Christmas involves hitting every note on the
scale as often as possible, simply because, as another mountain
climber once said, they're there. Oversinging is the curse of the
gifted child singer, although relative elders like Celine Dion suffer
from it as well. If you know much about music, you're familiar with
the term ''melisma,'' which refers to the fine art of taking a syllable
and stretching it through multiple notes. The word itself sounds
almost like a disease, though, doesn't it? Bingo. Mariah Carey is the
Typhoid Mary of the highly contagious malady that makes every
young female singer want to go to R&B's most melismatic and
melodramatic extremes. Carey is pretty much an empty vessel
herself, but her voice is perfect enough that, at times, you might
forgive the fact that she's all about show and not connecting with
her material. (It helps that said material is generally pretty vapid
stuff.) But the Mariah venerators don't get away with it so easily.
Aguilera, for one thing, has a slightly nasal tone that really only
becomes obvious when she's overselling a song.
Aguilera wanted to make her first album more Mariah like, but
producer Ron Fair wisely reined in her soul diva aspirations and
came up with something more frothily attuned to the teen pop
market while not completely abandoning her inclinations toward
R&B balladry. As a result, that debut, while no great shakes overall,
bears a few fairly nifty pop singles. I was reminded how I enjoyed
parts of it as I watched Aguilera perform the charming ''Come On
Over Baby'' at the My VH1 Awards show at the Shrine. (No, it
wasn't the hot pants, you perv.) In a modest number like that, she
can hint at the power she's holding in reserve -- a great voice,
like sex appeal, benefits when you hold a little something back --
and the song is too fast and tight to allow her to showboat much,
anyway.
But on ''My Kind of Christmas,'' Aguilera's mentor, Fair, either
wasn't minding the farm or simply had to give up and let his now
multiplatinum charge run roughshod over him. There are a couple
of numbers here so fantastically oversung they're appalling. One is
''Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,'' Ralph Blaine and Hugh
Martin's delicate music box of a tune, which was never meant to
support heavy lifting along the lines of ''Hang a shining star upon
the highest bough- ow- ow- ow- ow- OO- oh- OO- oh- oh- oh- oh-
ohhhhh...'' Needless to say, the bough breaks under all that weight.
Two and a half minutes into the song, she hits some Mariah- like
high notes that can be fully appreciated only by Mr. Winkle, and,
exhausted just from following along with these gymnastics, you
sigh relief that it's over -- but hey, that was no climax! She's just
getting started!
And I can scarcely begin to describe the abject unholiness of ''Oh
Holy Night.'' Two thirds of the way through that tune, after one
particularly vampy bout of a cappella melisma, she lets loose with
a self conscious chuckle. Is it the birth of Jesus that's making her
laugh so? No, she's either snorting in appreciation of her own just
proven gifts or signaling the listener that the song is about to kick
into a campy, choir backed gospel overdrive. Either way, it's all
about the singer, not the song.
And that's the very hallmark of oversinging right there: a lack of
generosity on the performer's part toward the tune that brung her
to the dance, and an assumption that the song itself is a vehicle to
be misused and discarded. This kind of murderousness knows
no bounds: Indeed, many perpetrators of melismatic overkill in R&B
brag about how they picked up their style in church, as if trying too
hard somehow connotes holiness. And anyone who's ever been
through a few gospel marathons knows that some of the singers
are in touch with the spirit of the Lord and some sound like they're
trying to whip the audience up at ''Star Search.''
Now, some readers will think we ought to cut Aguilera a big break
because she's one of the few representatives of teen pop who
can carry a tune, much less run with one. That was my line of
argument when the first album came out, too. But saying Christina
is a much better singer than Britney Spears or Mandy Moore is like
saying The Rock is a better athlete than Crispin Glover. It's true, but
irrelevant. She's still a veritable lass and still has time to develop
into the Barbra that Ron Fair once told me he envisioned her turning
into. But it's becoming evident that along the way she'll need
someone to convince her to use her superpowers for good,
not evil
----------------------------------
"I'm just a wittle angel!"
Re: Genie At Full Throttle
OMG how rude! He so needs to get a reality check! I love her Christmas album! In some way he is kinda right. She does kinda over does it. But when she does it's so beautiful! I love it! She has such an amazingly beautiful voice. And believe me, if I had a voice like that. I'd over sing too!
Peace & Love Yo!
~*Mara*Ytzel*~~*Just*Got*Paid*Friday night*Party hoppin'*Feelin right*Booties shakin'*All around*Pump that jam*While I'm gettin' down*~
Re: Genie At Full Throttle
wow that guy wasn't too nice. She does over do it a little and it might be good to take a little break...but I agree with Mara if I had a voice like that I'd use it too!
Re: Genie At Full Throttle
He wasn't nice at all, but I do agree that lately she tends to play with the notes TOO much!
[::: Ashley :::]
I support Jessica Simpson, Visit my site Jessica Simpson Academy, Check
out my messageboard Jessica Simpson Fan Haven, I've
Adopted Tara's Enthusiastic Olympic Leaping and Jessica's Love
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~*Mara*Ytzel*~
~*Just*Got*Paid*Friday night*Party hoppin'*Feelin right*Booties shakin'*All around*Pump that jam*While I'm gettin' down*~
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