What do you call this '80s pop vocal style? Or was it even a thing?
April 10, 2019 12:02 PM   Subscribe

Looking for terms to describe a particular tightening of the throat I hear in so many '80s male pop / new wave vocal performances, which sounds to me effortful and cramped (and great). Examples below.

When I'm singing along with or mimicking certain beloved/inescapable '80s songs--by male singers, mostly from the UK--I find I'm doing a particular thing with my voice and throat that I *never* do when singing along with anything else. I am not a singer or linguist and so lack the right terms to describe this--but there's something I hear in these songs that I copy by tightening the muscles at the back of my tongue and tensing my soft palate so I sound like Curt Smith from Tears for Fears. I'm pretty sure I'm not just mimicking a single person or regional accent--though it's odd that I can't think of any US singers from the same time that sound this way to me. I'm from the northeast US and so maybe part of what I'm hearing and copying is simply "accent different from my own."

The clearest example for me is the verse part of Change by Tears for Fears. Here are some others:

-XTC, When You're Near Me I Have Difficulty (especially the chorus)
-Men at Work, It's a Mistake or Overkill (esp. the "day after day" & "night after night" lines) (yes I am aware they're from Australia)
-ABC, Poison Arrow

... Also lots of Haircut 100, A Flock of Seagulls, Aztec Camera, & other Tears for Fears, as well as (less consistently) some Duran Duran & Spandau Ballet & Depeche Mode.

Questions: Is there a name for this style of singing? Was it particularly prevalent in the '80s or am I just making that up? If the former, is it some chorus/reverb effect that was happening at the recording and production end of things? --or was it performers copying/influencing each other in their singing style? (E.G., was it just a lot of dudes trying to sound like Bryan Ferry? Ferry doesn't sound like the rest of these to my ear--but I know he was very influential in this scene.)

Followup question: Do you have more vocal performances along the lines of the above? They scratch a particular itch for me, it turns out. Thanks!
posted by miles per flower to Media & Arts (8 answers total) 10 users marked this as a favorite
 
Dunno if it has a name, so many eras of pop music have common, identifiable motifs and elements that would be interesting to catalog and discuss but I have no idea what they're called! There was a thread on the blue awhile back about the "millennial whoop" that was sort of revelatory for me.

Anyway, Robert Smith and Dave Gahan immediately came to mind.
posted by prize bull octorok at 12:13 PM on April 10, 2019 [1 favorite]


That particular vocal style, I think, draws from the influence of Ian Curtis and Joy Division, most notably in "Love Will Tear Us Apart".
posted by SansPoint at 12:14 PM on April 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


Best answer: Sadly I have no name for this style, but I did read an interesting claim in Mark Fisher's Ghosts of My Life that the vocal style of many provincial/non-upper-class late-seventies/early eighties UK singers was strongly marked by the attempt to sort of....massage regional accents into art? Like, not try to sound like an upper class Londoner, but also not sound Midlands-y or something but to sound like some third, transcendent thing? He talks about this particularly in reference to the band Japan.
posted by Frowner at 12:18 PM on April 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


If there's a name for it I never heard it. I'm not even sure I've got the right end of the stick, but I thought first of some of Andy McCluskey's vocals for OMD, such as on Enola Gay; and maybe some Jim Kerr too, as on Promised You A Miracle.
posted by misteraitch at 1:43 PM on April 10, 2019 [3 favorites]


My ears tell me that these are men singing 'high' but trying not to go into head (or falsetto) voice to do it. So they probably haven't had much vocal training/coaching. I can't, however, explain why it would be heard in more UK than US male 80s vocalists.
posted by Halo in reverse at 2:23 PM on April 10, 2019 [4 favorites]


I'm no vocal expert, but I think this is just an intuitive thing singers do trying to hit the upper end of their vocal range without frying their vocal chords, and while still generating a lot of harmonics. Does Sting in early Police songs scratch the same itch? How about Carl Wilson singing Girl Don't Tell Me?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 2:49 PM on April 10, 2019


Best answer: Howard Jones: Everlasting Love
New Order: Bizarre Love Triangle
Fun Boy Three: Pressure of Life
Housemartins: Happy Hour
Orange Juice: Rip It Up
Kajagoogoo: Too Shy
Naked Eyes: Promises Promises
China Crisis: King in a Catholic Style

Not British: I think Donald Fagen often sounds similar, and I get the same feeling when singing along that you describe.

inconclusive related Straight Dope thread
posted by heatvision at 4:13 AM on April 11, 2019 [3 favorites]


Best answer: I've liked that kind of singing and sung like that for 35 yrs. My understanding of it is as follows:

The BBC documentary Synth Brittannia traces the rise of synthesizer music.
A music journalist observes in it that around the time when synthesizer music became really successful and more 'pop', a template for success appeared: cold clinical synthesizer music with very emotional singing.
The singing is in a style that's more chanson like. Think Jacques Brel. With a very open larynx for more lower resonance, volume and sustain. Sometimes with an elevated back of the tongue to add more poppy high overtones. And sometimes verging on going in falsetto, like yodelling. The latter gives a very emotional impression.
This kind of singing on its own is not very pop/rock/etc like. But together with the harsh metronome like synthesizers it is.
For your amusement here's a 2006 pop song from a young singer with an 80s singer joining in. When he does suddenly the whole song sounds 80s to me.
posted by jouke at 9:45 AM on April 12, 2019 [3 favorites]


« Older Tiki Party - how does one even?   |   "What issue would you like me to address first?” Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.