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Should More Artists Add Vocals to Their Tracks?


Joyrex

Should More Artists Add Vocals to Their Tracks?  

45 members have voted

  1. 1. With Clark's Recent Release Sus Dog, Should Other Electronic Artists Consider Putting Vocals in Their Tracks?

    • Yes, where it makes sense from an artistic perspective
      19
    • No, keep electronic music about the melodies and instruments
      27


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  1. Everything in moderation. (ex:  Sampha gets old very quickly. But a single Sampha track once every great while is nice.)
  2. If the music tailors to vocal accompaniment.
  3. If the vocals fit.

I am dj'ing more vocals now than I probably ever have. Try to put vocals in where possible. But that's all about creating a new and original sound, NOT just having vocals in 'cause I should. For that usage, having a balance of tracks with vocals to those without works out well.

Edited by Taupe Beats
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Underworld and Radiohead are the undisputed kings of the vocals in electronic music, though Radiohead are essentially a rock band experimenting with one of the greatest voices and electronic music. Burial probably equal even though it’s not his voice so kind of different. Hmmm. What was the question? 

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20 hours ago, Joyrex said:

electronic music artists

is 'electronic music' still an identifiable genre?

edit: i expect watmm, my electronic music resource, to be able to answer this question succinctly and definitively

Edited by luke viia
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It obviously greatly depends on if it fits/works for the piece in question. Electronic music is an incredibly wide range of music. It wouldn't be intelligible to refer so broadly to "acoustic" or "amplified" music for this sort of question, would it?

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People just do stupid things with vocals anymore and the words more often than not are complete trash. Please don’t try to reinvent the wheel when you’re having new ideas. It sucks. 

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Vox have long been a part of Clark's arsenal, with Growl's Garden, Rainbow Voodoo, much of Iradelphic etc, theres even spoken word stuff on Body Riddle iirc. Sus Dog seems to come at it from a different angle - much more prestige, almost trying a Beach Boys type vibe (if I may steal ideas from the Guardian review). I have to give him props for holding his own against the likes of seasoned pros like Tchocky and Anika and he does largely pull it off, but its still a bit too coffee table for me, Clive - I want the dirty gritty club madness Clark back but thats just a personal preference.

I def dont want the Watmm Pantheon to start doing song/lyric based compositions, its just not their strong suit, whenever they foray into stuff like that (Milkman, Shobaleader etc.) its always amongst their weaker material for me. AFX is a master at using vocal textures in a more abstract way (Windowlicker, Crying In Your Face, Minipops) He should not be getting his notepad and pen out and start writing from the heart, nor do I think he has any desire to do so, the cynical bastard.

Edited by Key
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I remember being so annoyed when the mid 00s wave of mandatory vocals was happening. I always figured it was because live shows became more important to make a living, and the artists needed something beyond a laptop to perform with. But yeah, I feel like it rarely ever plays to the artists strengths. Tho there's been some great ones here and there. And I guess if you consider the Wobbly album that comes out this Friday to be IDM, that one rules, but I don't know if that's IDM.

It'd be really cool if someone would do them in a way that went beyond the warped processed stuff that Arca was doing on the stretch ep's. Like there's that ai technology where someone can sing a song with their normal boring voice and then have it end up sounding like Drake or whatever. There's probably some potential to get into some really wild space if that kind of thing was trained on a bunch of fucked up noises instead of drakes voice. Someone needs to do that.

Edited by taphead
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1 hour ago, taphead said:

I remember being so annoyed when the mid 00s wave of mandatory vocals was happening. I always figured it was because live shows became more important to make a living, and the artists needed something beyond a laptop to perform with. But yeah, I feel like it rarely ever plays to the artists strengths. Tho there's been some great ones here and there. And I guess if you consider the Wobbly album that comes out this Friday to be IDM, that one rules, but I don't know if that's IDM.

It'd be really cool if someone would do them in a way that went beyond the warped processed stuff that Arca was doing on the stretch ep's. Like there's that ai technology where someone can sing a song with their normal boring voice and then have it end up sounding like Drake or whatever. There's probably some potential to get into some really wild space if that kind of thing was trained on a bunch of fucked up noises instead of drakes voice. Someone needs to do that.

I feel like Aphex is already doing similar stuff as you suggest with voice processing but yeah there's a lot of potential with machine learning

I like how snares makes the live shows interesting by chopping tracks together really fast, almost creating new stuff out of the massive back catalogue

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It's an interesting question, but I think the word "should" is problematic. Thought about this a lot over the years - the human voice adds an anchor element that more people seem to connect to than purely instrumental music. Lots of people I know who listen to a wide range of music eschew electronic music (or instrumental music in general) because it doesn't have vocals (or lyrics) - it's a hurdle many don't want to leap over.  It's also undeniable that the human voice adds a particular texture that's unique - in some ways, the OG analogue sound.

It's probably not a coincidence that all of Aphex's most popular tracks (and, one could argue, knowingly promoted tracks) feature vocals of some sort. Come to Daddy. Windowlicker. Even Minipops has a monster hook of a vocal melody (though unintelligible lyrics). 

Accordingly, I feel like an electronic artist might find their music connecting more with more people when they include singing and lyrics, but I'm not sure that means it "should" happen. I guess it depends on what you want. Do you want more people to listen to what you make? Then, maybe, yes include vocals and/or lyrics. Then there's the question of if the song itself is something where vocals and/or lyrics fits - clearly some of the Sus dog tracks the vocals are an integral part - if you took them away, then the song isn't the song anymore. 

Personally, although I totally understand/get it, I get slightly turned off by it partly because it seems like something that Warp vociferously has been pursuing recently. By that I mean their decision to try and court musicians who are electronic (or even, barely electronic) but with vocals and lyrics, which necessarily seems a bit more mainstream, and seems a little like abandoning their original niche market. Again, I get it. You want to build your label, you gotta pursue artists who will draw in a larger audience. Even the biggest Warp artist's of yore are still relatively niche and, let's face it, artists like []< and Aphex are rare just because of their caliber of musicianship and originality. 

Still, and maybe this is just me hanging on to nostalgia, I miss the days when a Warp release engendered excitement and anticipation. Like, you would just instabuy, blindly because you knew whatever it was, it was gonna be weird af and also dope af. It's like the reverse now - any time an artist gets signed to Warp I'm like "well... this is gonna be some indie rocky, alterna-electro shit I'm gonna hate." I miss the days of them releasing challenging instrumental electronic music that stood completely on it's own as compositional pieces - sometimes I fear that vocals, while grounding, also ground music to a particular point in time, which weakens the longevity of a piece. 

TLDR: Sure, why not. Also, WARP I'm disappointed in you. 

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