Stipe is a musician.
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Iâm sorry if youâve been offended in any way by that, Lori, because that isnât at all my intention and you know it. But I stand by my words and Iâll tell you why.
Having English as a second language has absolutely nothing to do with that stupid cartoonish voice in the song. I have no idea who that woman is, if sheâs American, British or whatnot. My voice doesnât sound like that in any language I speak. If it did, I wouldnât use it to sing, but to dub cartoons.
And yes, that idiotic song of his sounds like shit to me â much like most of top40 currently sounds like shit to me, because the arrangement is extremely poor and ill-conceived, and he isnât even making an effort to sing. The song is just that bad, and I used a more polite word â feces â to express how bad it sounds to me. Now Iâm using shit, because thatâs the real feeling. If you like the song, to each their own and I hope you appreciate it, really. We all here donât even agree on a top 10 R.E.M. songs anyway, and I canât stand âYou are the everythingâ, for example.
And I donât have a disability. Iâm in the autistic spectrum, but that only represented a difficulty for me my whole life. If anything, thatâs what makes me speak perfect English these days.
I understand what you meant by ânot a musicianâ â he doesnât play any instruments prolifically and doesnât know theory or even what to do with an instrument. But a singer is a musician if he can carry a song in tune, can come up with melodies, with arrangement ideas, all that.
Per a previous conversation in one of the FB groups @ethank weighed in to say he played accordion (I believe) as a child. I know he has also played other instruments such as drums, keys, guitar, harmonica, etc. but I have no idea how accomplished he is (or isnât) on those instruments. His voice is also considered an instrument.
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From what Iâve noticed along the years, he only has rudiments of this and that. He doesnât seem to be accomplished in anything. His harmonica skills were null. He released a keyboard song no one ever talks about anymore these days, as the soundtrack for a movie called âThe cold landsâ. Itâs quite primary.
By all possible means, his voice is an instrument. That doesnât make someone an instrumentalist strictly speaking, but, like I was saying, if you contribute tuneful vocals, melodies, lyrics, backing vocals, arrangements and ideas, you are indeed a musician in full respect.
Well ok it comes down to semantics. You could certainly argue for the musician moniker. I just meant he isnât (presumably) coming up with chord sequences and arrangements and writing a song from scratch, he is writing lyrics and melodies for an existing piece another musician has come up with. So his music will be dictated by the material he chooses to work with. Iâm not dissing Stipe, I am a lifelong fan of the guy and respect him hugely
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I could bet heâs pulling a reverse R.E.M. with those solo songs heâs been slowly releasing along the last few years. It sounds to me like he comes up with lyrics, arrange them into a melody (could happen the other way around at least occasionally), records it a capella and then whoever heâs working with atm comes up with the arrangement. Iâm not sure Stipe contributes ideas to the arrangement part, but I could also bet he only adds melodic fluffs and the such, not chords at all.
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Now that you said it, I know you didnât mean to offend, but your comments, in particular âstupidâ really bothered me. I looked for reasons why you may have said that.
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Itâs just a really stupid-sounding voice. Like something from a cartoon that wouldnât belong in a âseriousâ song at all. You know how âBarbie girlâ sounds stupid? Yeah, same. I donât mean her accent or nationality or if she has a disability or anything by that: just that that voice sounds unbelievably stupid. Like what some people do to babies.
Ah, I see what everyone means. Sorry, canât help thinking that voice is not at all appropriate for a song just because she has a disability. It simply doesnât sound good. If she plays the violin, great, sheâs probably very good at it, and her activism is absolutely on point. Just donât tell me I should like her voice because of anything non-musical. It sounds like a cartoon.
Yes I can agree with you here. I looked up the words âactivismâ, âadvocateâ and âstupidâ just to make sure.
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Itâs certainly an unusual voice and you have every right to dislike it, but calling it âa cartoonâ and âstupidâ is somewhat mean spirited I feel. I wouldnât enjoy listening to it myself, but I think it contrasts nicely with Stipeâs gravelly singing here.
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Thank you. I thought it was just me who felt that way. My son is profoundly deaf, his speech isnât like the average person. If someone said he shouldnât express himself with speech because he sounds stupid, I would get pretty worked up too. âStupidâ means lack of intelligence or common sense. No one on here said anyone should like Gaelynnâs voice or the song.
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Lori and Flor and whoever felt offended by that, please let me elaborate and tell you that, believe me, it was never intended as âmean spiritedâ. It was an honest impression from what I was listening.
I wonât pedal back and be hypocritical and say âIâm sorry because sheâs disabledâ. I think the song is extremely shitty just the same after knowing about that â and not because of her, but because of Stipeâs very low efforts in coming up with a song these days. I had no idea who that woman was and still donât know much about her, except that sheâs disabled and a couple of details. There was no intended disparaging of her or disabled people. There are some voices in the universe of pop music that I donât know, because theyâre literally thousands, and some of them resort to gimmicks to try and stand out. At first, I honestly thought it was that, that some girl singer actually tried hard to sound like that (ever listened to âDance monkeyâ?). It was not the case, it was a disabled person â but that doesnât change the final result.
(Lori, if your son is deaf, Iâve seen before what a deaf personâs speech is like and I find it highly commendable that they can even manage to communicate, sometimes very well, using sounds they canât even hear. I applaud his efforts and more power to him. If he wants to write a book or paint landscapes, itâs all a way to pass his message too and he wonât need to talk for that, if he finds our more usual form of communication too difficult.)
I can explain my use of âstupidâ there, because I certainly didnât imply as much as you guys are taking from that. Of course I didnât mean she was stupid â I had no idea who the woman was! I used âstupidâ in the sense of âtoo sillyâ, and thatâs why I equated it to a cartoonish voice and âBarbie girlâ â both are way too silly. And while âBarbie girlâ is supposed to be a humorous, fun song, an intendedly serious song like Stipeâs shouldnât have a voice like that. It simply doesnât fit. It sounds out of place and caused a reaction in me, a discomfort while listening. Yes, it sounds cartoonish, and Iâm sorry for the girl, but that canât be helped. I donât appreciate hearing a cartoonish voice in a song thatâs not supposed to have it. It doesnât work â for me â at all. It sounds ridiculous. My bad if I didnât make it clear before.
Iâm gonna be very honest here and say something most people donât want to admit to themselves: Stipe only called her for a contribution because of activism reasons, not for musical reasons, not for art, not because of her âwonderfulâ singing voice. WE ALL KNOW MICHAEL STIPE HERE, so letâs not be hypocritical! I myself consider that reason extremely misguided, but thatâs just me. I donât appreciate it at all. You might find beauty in that. But my philosophy is to live and let live. Listen to it more times if you feel like it.
One thing Iâm coming to realize about myself in this forum is that, more and more, I donât give a shit about the guysâs solo works. Not because of myself, but because their efforts are ridiculously low these days. Thatâs one of the reasons why Iâm glad R.E.M. called it a day â not that it would be exactly like this if they had stayed together. I just said this in another thread: I like âMy bible is the latest TV guideâ much better than anything any of the four guys have released after 2011. Considering itâs kind of a jokey song â that I do like â I think that says volumes about the low-effort material theyâve been putting out. And probably about me as well. Iâd much rather discuss 1980-2011.
Silence would probably be your best option to exercise at this point.
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Seriously? Why didnât you exercise silence then and now?
Iâm not the one on here slamming people.
@Gargumma @Drivernate peace guys! Just to throw in a curve ball the word " lyric" i.e. words written for the human voice ( agreed by all to also be capable of being a musical instrument) comes from âlyreâ. Lyrics were originally written for the lyre musical instrument. And thatâs relatively modern times! Now then.
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