Vocal Mugging

 Posted by
Mar 102011
 

I’ve always had a hard time getting into Billy Bragg. It’s because of his very heavy accented singing. It almost sounds like he’s mugging to the audience (even in the booth) with every line.

I don’t seem to mind other artists who do this—Andy Partridge has a bit of this wink-to-the-audience tone to his voice—but Mr. Bragg is too much for me.

Anyone with me?

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  38 Responses to “Vocal Mugging”

  1. Yeah, I hear you, machinery. He’s in a group of singers I feel are putting on their English accents extra thick. I find it distracting. More to your point, I wish Bragg would calm the fuck down more often. I have one album by him that I fully like, Workers’ Playtime (or something like that), that contains one GREAT song, “Waiting for the Great Leap Forwards,” and a few other winners. It’s one album by him that I’ve heard that makes real use of a band. That whole solo electric guitar thing he started out with had a “Does not play well with others” vibe about it that ran contrary to his often-cited favorite band, The Clash and all their “brotherhood stuff,” as Oats put it, that appeals to me. I’ve heard some other albums with a band, but on those albums the band usually sounds like AAA radio phoned-in coffee table rock. On may levels I’d love to like the guy’s music more, but yeah, I’m totally with you.

    Funny you should have brought Andy Partridge into this, by the way, I just got done listening to “Love on a Farmboy’s Wages” when I saw this new thread waiting to be posted! For me, Partridge gets away with more vocal mugging sins than any singer I can think of.

  2. cherguevara

    One person who I think is an offender on this front is the Decemberist’s Colin Meloy. Not only does he sing with a thick accent, it’s a fake accent, a complete affectation.

    On the other hand, there’s the dB’s – take a song like, “Dynamite.” I don’t mind the vocal approach on that song, though I could see how it would be a turn-off for some.

    I think Mr Mod’s comments on Billy Bragg are valid – I like the vocal/guitar stuff better than his band stuff and agree with the AAA comment. But his accent never bothered me.

  3. BigSteve

    Elvis Costello and Graham Parker were big vocal muggers. I think it started out as a reaction to the laid-back vocal style that was popular in the 70s.

    ‘Vocal mugging’ is a useful term, probably a good candidate for a glossary entry. It’s a good description of Billy Joel’s vocal rock crimes (“biiiiiiig shot”) that we were talking about recently.

  4. machinery

    Agreed Big Steve, but I have such love for Costello, it never bothered me — except when I saw him live the last one or two times, where he took the “I’m going to sing every song like Cole Porter” to an extreme and I had to leave.

  5. I could never get into Bragg myself, though I think it was more for his all-around sound than the mugging. I wanted to be able to like him as I had always read great things, but my ears just weren’t believing it.

    However, it’s funny you bring this up as I was watching some live clips of The Cars performing “Let’s Go” and I was struck by how much fake English Ben Orr was putting into his vocals. In that case, I find it sort of cool and it’s not something he (or certainly Ocasek) did very often.

    On the other hand, there always was Billie Joe Armstrong and his fellating of the faux Anglaise before Green Day became prom sweethearts with the horrible “Good Riddance.” Man, I wish those dudes would just go away now.

  6. misterioso

    Armstrong was the first one who came to mind for me. Silly and annoying.

    I pretty much agree with the assessment of Bragg, too. I’m no great fan of his. But the concept of “vocal mugging” can cut both ways. Costello’s was cool but at some point ceased to be. (See machinery’s spot-on comment.) Dylan on Blonde on Blonde is engaging in a form of vocal mugging, I guess, but it is brilliant. Johnny Rotten/Lydon mugs all over the place; sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It can be a fine line between mugging and styling.

  7. As I think we’re all saying, there’s some merit in a vocalist hamming it up a bit, I mean, these people are performing. cher’s citing of the dB’s “Dynamite” is brilliant. Talk about a band whose singing really comes close to going over the line for me, but I love the first two albums and give them a pass for their mugging, even finding it usefully supporting the themes of their songs.

    Costello first crossed the line for me on Blood & Chocolate, an album I like a lot but that gets a couple of points off for Costello oversinging almost everything and the production fully supporting his mugging.

    Dylan and Lydon are great examples of vocal muggers who usually did it for a valid purpose. No one wants to hear “Like a Rolling Stone” or “Poptones” sung in a straightforward manner, do they?

    Benjamin Orr’s faux-English accent is a good call, but I think it worked for The Cars. Beside, wasn’t Orr born in Poland or somewhere? I have no idea if he grew up in the US with any kind of accent.

    Billie Joe Armstrong is a prime offender, though. To me, his vocal mugging is as bad as Billy Joel’s. It’s too bad; Green Day has some toe-tapping songs, but his voice takes me out of the moment.

  8. When Green Day first broke out with that Long View song, I recall my brother and I having an argument about whether they were from England, Scotland or Ireland.

    But where is the line between performing and vocal mugging? Are people like Bowie or Tom Waits or Captain Beefheart vocally mugging or are they inhabiting the characters of their songs or are they just plain “performing”?

  9. What about Paul McCartney? Isn’t all that “Jude-Jude-Judey!” stuff mugging to a degree?

    I don’t consider what the dB’s do to be mugging. I think they need to do that adenoidal thing with their voices in order to hit the notes correctly.

  10. misterioso

    Whatever Orr and Ocasek did, call it mugging or whatever, just listen to them as Milkwood. Not that the vocal style is the only difference, but clearly they figured out that some changes needed to be made.

  11. Re: Green Day, I still love the Insomniac album and consider it their best. After that, I really only enjoyed their rip off of The Kinks’ “Picture Book” (“Warning”), as well as their cover of “So Tired of Waiting for You.”

    Oats, I agree with you, but moreso with Paulie’s absolutely irritating mugging he has done during that song in live performances since I first heard him destroy it on Tripping the Live Fantastic.

    In regards to Beefheart, man, that cat just performed it as he felt it, which would probably even include his watered down shenanigans on Bluejeans and Moonbeams and Unconditionally Guaranteed.

    Bowie I’ve never had a problem with as his performances, like Beefhearts, always seemed like a genuine part of the product. Now, I have seen him over-emphasize some of his accent during live gigs from time to time, but again, like The Cars, for me it always sounded cool than bogus.

  12. For some reason, I lump Bragg, the singer for Madness, and Wreckless Eric together as Brit muggers. I am not a huge Bragg fan, but really do like the Woody Guthrie thing he did with Wilco — I still listen to Mermaid Ave.

    Bowie is great, but his mugging on The Lodger is rampant and very funny to me. “African Night Flight” “Red Sails” and “Yasassin” are a hoot.

  13. cherguevara

    I don’t mind Suggs from Madness, I don’t think he’s affecting that accent, do you? Isn’t it possible that other Brits don’t “mug” because they’ve emulating American accents? Dead Roses, anyone?

    This is playing into a character:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSuHrTfcikU
    (Blue – Parklife)

  14. machinery

    Another vocal mugger: the guys from Fountains of Wayne.

  15. shawnkilroy

    Billy Bragg fuckin sucks!
    So does fuckin Shane McGowan.
    The only thing worse than listening to those a-holes is looking at them.

  16. 2000 Man

    Ow! Man, the cool kids ain’t gonna like you at all. I’m with ya on Billy Bragg, but The Pogues have some stuff I like. Once in awhile. A little goes a long way.

    I immediately thought of two guys from Cleveland that are vocal muggers – Dave Thomas and Stiv Bators. But I can give them both a pass because I like the way it all ends up being, usually. I liked Stiv’s band better than Dave’s, but Dave sings songs the Dead Boys did way better than Stiv. He seems less whiny.

    I’m surprised Oats didn’t bring up the “punched in the nuts” stylings of Conor Oberst. That’s a really apt description!

  17. BigSteve

    I’m happy that we can’t draw the line between mugging and style. There’s no such thing as a natural singing voice. Trying to sing in a natural voice is an affectation. At some point a singer’s vocal style can cross a line and seem overly mannered. Where that line is will vary greatly among listeners.

    To me the question is, what factors contribute to the placement of your line? Not all Brits like Billy Bragg, I’m sure, but would a Brit every react to Bragg’s accent, ever find it too much like some of us do? Is it always just personal prejudice?

  18. bostonhistorian

    As long as Mick Jagger gets a pass for his blackface routine, Billy Bragg is a-okay in my book. Bragg sings the way he talks. What’s Mick’s excuse?

  19. I’m surprised Oats didn’t bring up the “punched in the nuts” stylings of Conor Oberst. That’s a really apt description!

    Oh man, I totally forgot to mention that. I really feel that style of singing is the bane of indie rock, a genre that is still very dear to my heart! And I am thrilled, 2000 Man, that you enjoyed and agreed with my descriptive phrase. I’m hoping it goes viral or whatever soon.

  20. 2000 Man

    Mick’s excuse is that he ROCKS. It doesn’t matter how you do it when you rock that hard.

  21. hrrundivbakshi

    Axl Rose!

    “In the kawld novembuh RAY-EE-YAYN!” — and many more.

  22. ladymisskirroyale

    To me, the ultimate mugger is this gent:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-yy2URAYqU

  23. I’m pretty sure that Bragg is from East End London and actually talks like that – you might as well call out Ian Dury or Jerry Lee Lewis for using their native accent. Mugging would be Dylan fake-crooning “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” or country Jagger in “Faraway Eyes”.

    Where does Harry Nilsson’s wild vocal goofing fit in? I know it fits in here somewhere but I can’t place it.

  24. cherguevara

    Isn’t there another word for what Axl Rose does? Yawrling or something? Like what Mark Lindsay did.

  25. cherguevara

    “Yarling.”

  26. shawnkilroy

    Yarling is what Eddie Vedder and Collective Soul do.
    Yarling is for Goat Rock.
    Mermening is what Axl does.
    Ethyl Mermening

  27. cherguevara

    Are those subcategories of mugging? We gotta parse this out.

  28. John Fogerty, but it worked. I can’t imagine what those records would have sounded like if he sang the way he talks….maybe like Alex Chilton, post-Boxtops, or something.

  29. All singers have their natural style that may appear to be mugging but its just them singing normally. I know I have a different accent singing than I do talking. Don’t know why, it just happens.

    But on the other hand, all singers have their little tricks they like/can do with their vox chops.

  30. It’s clear to me why you’ve got that Canadian accent when you’re singing.

  31. alexmagic

    I agree with kilroy. Axl belongs to a vocal family tree that has members including Ethel Merman and Sammy Davis Jr. The connection would be that Sammy influenced both Axl and Jim Morrison, and Morrison would be an influence on the Vedder vocal bloodline.

  32. machinery

    Oh, I thought that was his new-found Princeton accent.

  33. mockcarr

    I think it involves cat strangling as well. The only thing I admire about that band is their determination to leave out the letter they don’t pronounce when they speak.

  34. trigmogigmo

    That animation is tremendous….

  35. trigmogigmo

    McCartney would sometimes “put on” a voice for a whole song. “Lady Madonna” and “Get Back” sound like a completely different guy at the mic. Maybe it was Paul’s double.

    Robin Zander has a few variants he applies to fit the song or song section. I hear at least three different voices in “Taxman, Mr. Thief”, “Mandocello”, and “Auf Wiedersehen”. But they don’t sound put on. More like he’s tuning the level of vocal attack.

  36. misterioso

    Can I state what seems to be obvious (something I always feel able to do)? That if you find the singer annoying, it’s mugging. If you like the singer, it’s just what the singer does. I am rather hard-pressed to think of anyone who I really like who, if someone is not a fan, wouldn’t find guilty of mugging.

  37. Sounds like you’re reaching for a generalization that’s not there. I truly like the crooning Dylan song I mentioned above and vocal on “Faraway Eyes” lets me know this is a goof and a change of pace and that’s acceptable.

    Someone who is mugging that I don’t like? Morrissey. How did we get this far in this thread without mentioning him?

  38. misterioso

    Right, k., I agree: I find Morrissey unbearable and his mugging ridiculous. I do not consider Dylan’s vocal on Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You to be mugging: I just hear it is laying on the style thickly. I love Morrissey’s alphabetical neighbor Van Morrison: therefore I love his vocal mannerisms; but I know they make some people crazy and to them this is mugging, pure and simple. A song like Faraway Eyes is an interesting middle ground, since it is clearly being done as a goof, and it is telegraphed as such. But I will maintain my stance that what are definingly great mannerisms to a fan will be annoying mugging to the non-fan.

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