RiffDraft

Rock’n'roll has always been about blurring gender lines: guys with long hair, dancing, and often singing in high pitches. That’s part of it’s weird attraction. As a kid, I spent a lot of time listening to my “big three”: Led Zeppelin, Rush, and The Police. The singers in each band sang in impossibly high registers. In fact, most popular male singers have high voices.

Because of this, I think music becomes more of a spectacle than something participatory. And that’s something rock’n'roll lost when it moved beyond folk, rockabilly, and the blues. Try singing “Roxanne” in your normal voice. The best you can do is what Eddie Murphy did in 48 Hours–a laughable falsetto.

Fortunately, there are some excellent singers out there with normally pitched (manly) voices. Over the past year, I’ve found a few that I really like, and they’re mostly British, for some reason:

1) Richard Hawley – This guy sings some pretty dreamy stuff. Ripply reverbed guitars on songs about long black trains. Hank Williams meets Brian Setzer.

2) Lloyd Cole – I love his album “Anti-Depressent”. Aptly titled, light and refreshing

3) Nick Lowe – see “Lee’s Best Album of 2007″ post below. This guys a crooner and you can sing along without turning red.

4) Billy Bragg – I’ve been a fan of his since the Mermaid Avenue collaboration with Wilco. He has quite a range, and can go high, but his voice always resonates at a low register, which is much appreciated.