I gave Beck’s Midnite Vultures a spin recently. Much maligned, it’s at least half an album’s worth of killer, concluding with the pretty amazing Debra sung by Beck in a rather magnificent falsetto. No studio available on youtube, so here’s him doing it on Later live. There’s an excellent wikipedia page that left me utterly baffled as to its physiological characteristics – phonation? Ligamentous edges? On this subject. I think we all know a falsetto when we hear one, though again I am unsure as to what a female falsetto is, so examples would be very welcome.
Let’s take it higher ladies and gentlemen, your trouser-tightening falsetto entries please.
“Ohhhh, Appen I’ve hurt me doings!”
I like Midnite Vultures. Actually I think I like it better than Odelay. Debra is a Prince tribute, non? See also Peaches and Cream.
Dare one mention Somer Jimmyville?
I always though the whole album was a Prince tribute…?
Apart from that track that’s a Kraftwerk tribute. And even that’s got Wendy and Lisa style bv.s.
Mmmm… Wendy and Lisa….
….sorry….
I’m not sure how much of this is falsetto and how much is just ‘high voice’, but it’s ace.
The whole album’s like that – I thought it was a woman singing when first I heard it.
All Dads watching TotP 1964-2000-odd: “Is that a boy or a girl?”
A lot of Veedon Fleece is rather good falsetto.
Female falsetto. Nailed it Joni.
Like Donald and Davey Stott formed a post-rock outfit:
The Stylistics’ 2nd soloist demonstrates the male falsetto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WogXHXua9Ds
(You Make Me Feel Brand New)
Minnie Ripperton shows us how the ladies do it.
(Loving You)
The Bee Gees:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpEkugItKQI
I love those sketches!
Any wonderful Klaus Nomi song.
Will this do?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gma5IUNMTn0
(Lightning Strikes)
A trained opera singer and a talented pastry chef too.
Thanks Mike. Klaus was truly unique . I love him.
The choice of Prince falsetto songs seems endless. I’m sure everyone will have a favourite, but here are two of mine (DMB possibly NSFW):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu9qkMPr10I
Imagine a world where Queen meets Sparks meets Girls Aloud-esque Pop
Mika – Grace Kelly
Maurice Williams & The Zodiacs – Stay
Featuring the vocal stylings of Justin “Shrieky” Hawkins – The Darkness: I Believe In A Thing Called Love
(The Four Knights – La La)
What about this chap?
Can’t miss yet another opportunity to post an Arca track, Reverie.
There’s a lot of Fraudulent Falsetto Fakery going on in modern “R&B” thanks to Autotune.
Yet another reason why I Utterly Diskard so much of it. Nobody’s going to be playing that f***in’ shite in ten years time, mark my words.
I am sure there was a discussion about “head voice” versus “falsetto” not so long ago. What was the consensus?
They are different things but sometimes it’s heard to tell. We agreed to differ.
And then there’s “software voice”, where a “singer” can be in any pitch at all (or none) and become in whatever key the autotune programmer wants them to be. And singers who simulate heavy autotuning with their own voices.
Not really possible without it being a deliberate-sounding effect. Autotune and Molodyne can’t do anything about timbre or voice quality and if you used them to re-pitch a note to a completely new frequency, very large and noticible artefacts would be left on the signal. It would sound like T-Pain or Frank Ocean, in short. Those software packages are for finessing very near misses or for use as a deliberate and unmistakeable effect. You can’t turn a shit singer into a good one with them, or make them hit notes that they can’t hit.
But that’s the point I’m trying to make.
They’re not trying to make it sound natural at all, they’re using extreme Autotune/Melodyne as an effect upon a voice, in the same way a guitarist might use sound modelling from a pedal.
Wither Falsetto Teeth?
….coat
Chris Isaak does this a lot. Can’t Do A Thing To Stop Me has it all over the chorus.
And Bono.
It was the hexagram of the heavens.
It was the strings on my guitar.
Amelia, it was just a falsetto alarm.
Michael Stipe gives his falsetto a lengthy outing on this track from “Monster”.
The chorus of Mockingbirds by the much-missed Grant Lee Buffalo has a chorus that still makes me swoon a bit.
yes Bob – a great band.
This is rather high!
1993 U2 was the best U2.
https://youtu.be/b_dLirLT6cA
(The official vid is missing, this’ll do)
Falsetto?
Wot, no Frankie Valli?
“You like to sing falsetto like real men shouldn’t do”
Justin Currie “Falsetto”
Some funky falsetto from (fairly) local singer Dexter Moseley, here with Dex & Mercy’s Funk & Soul, covering The Fatback Band’s “I Found Lovin'”.