2mo ago

If I hear a singer and I can't understand what they are saying/singing I lose interest very quickly.

I don’t mean singing in a foreign language, I mean if they aren’t enunciating their words.

There is a style of singing where the singer rolls one word into the next word, or just cuts a word off. I find it distracting and I tend to skip the song very quickly when I realize what they are doing.

While it is a popular way to sing, I have never enjoyed it. I heard some of it in the 1980s but it wasn’t widely used. Today I find a lot more singers doing it.

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So I take it you're not a fan of most songs of the 90s?
Ted: "You can do any 90s song with just vowels
- I have a buddy who has been singing 90% vowels for Pearl Jam for years. He's covered them, he does karaoke, and sings in the car. It's just aeiouy make me cry.
  I think he started covering them that way back in high school in the 90s.
  
  Lol, that's awesome. And "90s Vowels" is my favorite genre.
Have you considered trying to think of the vocals as another music element rather than lyrical? Like if a musician scats, can you enjoy that? And if so, can you not just consider the poor enunciation a sort of scatting and stop trying to pull words out of it?
Not saying you're right or wrong, just curious where the limits on this are
- Tried. Failed. But good thoughts
I don’t really listen to lyrics much, so no big deal to me, but I understand. Now, if they bend and twist the words to rhyme or to be different, I will cut that shit off quickly. Thankfully, it is not as popular these days as it was 10-15 years ago.
you would have HATED living in the 1990s then
- Actually most of the music I listened to in the 90s were easy to understand. There were a few bands that were hard to invested but nothing like now.
  
  maybe it's just me or some people like me, but i learned a TON of shit i got wrong once it became easy to look up lyrics online. you wouldn't even believe what 14-year-old me thought the lyrics for beck's 'loser' were when i could only hear the song on fm radio..
I switched genres for this. I grew up on classic rock and I still like listening to it, but when I started going to live performances, I couldn’t understand the words. All too often bands substituted volume for the words, and i ended up in pain while not enjoying it. Then I started going to blues clubs. Similar catchy beat but I could usually understand the words, hear what they were singing about and the volume generally wasn’t as painful. Now it’s my biggest genre
So, does that mean you’re not into metal or opera? They both technically have lyrics, but a casual listener will have no idea what they say.
- Depends on the type of metal.
  Hair metal bands from the 80's most were easy to understand. Most of AC/DC was easy to understand.
  Opera is that rare exception. Not much into it. But once in a while there is something there that I do enjoy
- Listen to this https://youtu.be/nEh10iBzgvU
  I think a casual listener can understand it
  
  That’s a good point. I totally forgot that clean vocals also exist. When I think of metal, all that comes to my mind is RORRORRO GRRROGRRO!
I'm basically the opposite. I don't mind lyrics, but i basically don't care. I mainly listen to the actual music, the instruments, and the way each sound and voice sounds like and makes me feel. I can't understand the lyrics at the same time, so if i care, i need to read them.
- Check out Cocteau Twins, they surely aren't everyone's cup of tea, but the vocalist has a lot of "lyrics" that aren't actual words, but are used for their tone and percussive effects and shit, basically exploring what the mouth can do as an instrument without relying on language.
  I found them on some gothy playlist some years ago, wikipedia says they were the progenitors of shoe gaze, but I'm not sure what that entails but it might help others.
  
  Thanks, have listened a lot to Cocteau Twins. They're great. Love shoe gaze and post rock. Beach house is also pretty influenced by them and are really good too.
For me it heavily depends on the genre.
If it's supposed to be understandable and they cut off words or mumble through multiple words, it really annoys me. Although I don't really have a problem if I don't understand all the words of a black metal song.
Not really an opinion though, is it?
- I think it is.
  Personally I NEVER can understand what any of these songs are saying.
  I was very confused by the sudden populatity in the late 90s of a white rapper singing about zamboni's. If you don't know what a zamboni is, they're the little truck things that drive onto ice rinks between periods at hockey games to smooth out the ice.
  Nobody had a clue what I was talking about. Apperently he wasn't saying his name was zamboni. He was saying his name was slim shady.
  Which still makes no sense, because I thought his name was eminem. Which STILL doesn't make sense, because his name is Marshal Mathers.
  How many names does this guy need???
- Close enough for the casual kind of community this tends to be, imo
I can't say I really agree. Maybe to a certain extent sure. But there's plenty of songs that are fantastic that you don't really understand. Hell I don't think anyone knows the words of Louie Louie. Still an awesome song. I mean I don't speak German but I like the German version of 99 Red Balloons way better than the English version. I've always been of the opinion that lyrics are absolutely least important part of a song.
- I have english and german versions of 99 red balloons on my playlist. I really don't even distinguish between them anymore because I know what's being said in the german version even though I don't know german. Funny how the brain works.
You should listen to Scatman John.
Same, kinda. Not a fan of super heavy metal that employs that "demon growl" yelling kind of singing. It doesn't sound enjoyable, even though the lyrics for a lot of those songs are dope as hell when you look them up.
On the other hand, I am a huge fan of grunge. I can actually understand the words through the mumbling. 🤣
- I think that just takes a lot of skill to enunciate and hold pitch. It took me a while to hear past the "noise" when I was first introduced to heavier metal and acquire the ear for it. Theres definitely vocalists that don't do it well, but like architects' latest song "blackhole" has incredible range and is catchy as fuuuck
Billie Eilish did this when she first came into the industry. She sounded drunk all the time. I stopped listening. But lately she learned to use her lips or something and it's much more tolerable
Sorry, but I had to down vote this as a popular opinion.
While the enjoyment of less enunciated and clear vocals has expanded over the years, wanting clear, easy to understand vocals is the norm.
Now, I happen to dislike what gets called "cursive" singing, particularly when it comes along with unnecessarily exaggerated vowels and outright wrong vowel sounds, so I feel you on how annoying it is with the current trend of it. It has, as you noted, had previous spurts of popularity, and even the jazz era version grates on me.
What's crazy is that I listen to a good amount of death and other metal that's often less intelligible, to an unfamiliar ear, but once you get past the unfamiliarity it's less annoying than the "cursive" singing. It's better enunciated most of the time because it has to be, or you can't produce the growls and screams at all.
So, yeah. I share your peeve about it, but it's actually a pretty common opinion to share, overall.
Radiohead
Well there goes shoegaze lol
I saw a video about a videogame that used Don't Fear The Reaper and how the lyrics reflected in the game and I was just spending the entire video wondering what he was talking about because every time I heard that song all I heard was "huuuuuu duuu huuu muuu buuu"
- So what are the real lyrics there?
  
  Still not sure.
- Prey (2006)!
  
  it was returnal 😔
Kneecap - Amach Anocht
What about songs that don't have any singing, do you enjoy those?
- That is fine.
  I just get annoyed with people that don't enunciate
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FklUAoZ6KxY
I find language in songs has taken a turn for the worse in the last 15 years or so. It was rare and nuance to hear a swear word in songs when I was young. I know I'm being an old man here btw 😂
But now Spotify with it's "explicit" tag shows that most popular songs have swearing now. Music tends to influence society greatly and I find that now swearing is just common place and I think we're worse off for it.
Listening to the radio, with the song having the swearing muted makes it hilarious as there are so many gaps in the lyrics.
- Right, swearing became too common. There’s none of the shock value many singers may expect. Usually it’s a meaningless distraction in the song, just lazy writing. I definitely appreciate the few who are still able to get impact, or find meaning in it though
Very subjective. I don't care for heavy metal and growling, but in the last scene of 8mm, it fit perfectly. It created a very tense scene near perfectly. But I wouldn't listen to that song anywhere else.
Music usually has it's place, even bad music.

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