The over-produced female vocalist mor-pop to art-pop continuum of the 80s and sometimes early 90s, often but not necessarily from Canada

Like Dalbello:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-e-lZekd2Y

or mid-80s Jane Siberry:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAToWdWVRj0

or early Sarah McLachlan:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6i2Ph1BYXE

(note awesome lyric: "they start to limply flail their bodies in a twisted mime" - this is literally me at twelve somehow transmuted into someone else's music)

I love how resistant this stuff feels to rehabilitation, it will never sound cool surely? And I also love how you can aways trace a line backwards or forwards to Tango In The Night from any of it but it always sounds more gauche somehow, whether it comes off more arty or more nakedly chart-baiting, the balance always feels off somehow.

So maybe this is the genre of "songs that aspire to be a Tango In The Night album track".

Post suggestions, commentaries and analysis plz!

Ooh, good thread!

Second thing that came to mind when I read the title (first was Jane Siberry), was this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiKB9UGYPrQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwrYMWoqg5w

"I love how resistant this stuff feels to rehabilitation, it will never sound cool surely?"

anything can be rehabilitated, problem is this kind of stuff is anathema to the current music-press ecosystem

(yes, mixed metaphor, bleh)

anyway danielle dax should be here somewhere

I always liked the first version of "Vox" better. You are right, the version that was put on the album was really over-produced.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nM_NGOTaCs

"Some" will argue that this is the vein Haim's exploring.

Forgot about Mae Moore. I bought that disc after seeing Steve Kilbey listed in the credits.

it will never sound cool surely?"

I know several folks who are not critics or music fanatics who love this stuff. But yeah, likely neither edgy enough or pop enough or soulful enough to be rehabilitated as cool

I feel like this genre was literally like 80% of Canadian radio in the early 90s, yet I'm blanking on names here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pk3A_QSINI

^ does this fit? have always loved this song. some very mac-like guitar and vocal samples in there

Toni Childs?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S00HHzXZUrg

"I love how resistant this stuff feels to rehabilitation, it will never sound cool surely?"

anything can be rehabilitated, problem is this kind of stuff is anathema to the current music-press ecosystem

― katherine, Thursday, 9 October 2014 14:39 (4 hours ago) Permalink

Yes this is kind of what I meant - theoretically it could become cool but the kind of shift in critical values that would be necessary seems too big.

One of the things that marks out this music is that its sonic trappings never feel totally deliberate - rather in large part they reflect the expectations of the time. Those artists with longer careers - Sarah McLachlan and Jane Siberry for example - were moving away from big production pretty rapidly by the end of the 80s.

i fucking love "vox"

Those fake string riffs are probably my favourite bit!

omg that Mae Moore tune is the most 1992 thing i have ever heard.

the 'a love supreme' reference made me laff.

jann arden?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nrGWwHalCU

that's probably a little too mid-'90s

David Denies by 'Til Tuesday is not on youtube :(
would that count? I love that song.

til tuesday seem like a great fit here

I feel like this genre was literally like 80% of Canadian radio in the early 90s, yet I'm blanking on names here.

I was so surprised when I found out that Natalie Imbruglia wasn't Canadian. Also Fearless-era Taylor Swift.

I'm pleased that Brad gets my idea enough to police the parameters of this thread for me.

But yeah I don't want to intermingle this stuff with Lilith Fair vibes even though there is ultimately near 100% artistic crossover.

This is like: what did artists sound like before the Lilith Fair vibes sound became a thing?

lol a new jann arden record came out this year, i am totally listening to that

i also feel there are a few chantal kreviazuk songs that traffic in this sound despite being late-'90s and post-lilith fair

time and genre are more recursive in canada

I loathe "Insensitive." Yes, I am.

I associate it with spring '96 and "Change the World."

Where does Kate Bush fit in with this stuff? I feel like at least half the artists on here would cite her as an influence. I love her stuff but really dislike most of what's on this thread so I wonder.

arden didn't write "insensitive" don't hold it against her alfred!

pretty certain i just needed to skew earlier on arden anyway! this is from 93

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeSgYR-zaxQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEqy9D29ZsY

Rosie Vela - Sunday

did Prince write this one

wow the rosie vela is incredible

Rosanne Cash owns this thread

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqHJouOCKA4

I KNEW I WAS FORGETTING SOMEONE

thanks alfred

the whole of Rosie Vela's Zazu is great, it seems sad to me that her singer/songwriter career didn't continue and she ended up doing backing vox for ELO(?). apparently she recorded a second album but it's never been released.

I almost forgot that this thread was loosely inspired by finally tracking down Eleanor Academia's Jungle Wave album only to discover that it sounds like this stuff and not at all like the GOAT club mix of "Adventure" (which youtube now tells me further is in fact by Shep Pettibone. Of course it is!). Whole album for your edification:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxh-IZs41IM&list=PLsoTC3800RxrQ2dpJaCX_sODuniiixRPY

yo that is amazing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3opyD9c68k

how about Martha Davis' 1987 solo album Policy?

would in my tribe-era 10,000 maniacs fit in here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnyZQBaUSXc

^^^ I shiver in my bones just thinking

happy rhodes!

http://youtu.be/mq8h3QY4Gm0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mq8h3QY4Gm0

I think this is the first time someone on ILX other than me has menationed Happy Rhodes.

veda hille may not be overproduced enough for this strain of MOR-pop but i feel like she's a spiritual cousin?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoI-0a8bOSs

That's getting too mid-nineties, soundwise I agree. sorta proto Is This Desire?

But the other thing that happens in the mid 90s is that a lot of these artists start repositioning themselves as kind of "alternative", and typically start sounding a lot more angry / rock. The secret blueprint being the first Sinead O'Connor album (one reason it sounds so prescient).

And of course anyone a major label was pressured to chase that morrissette money.

I never heard pre Spine Veda Hille, did she have a softer synthy period?

Lauren Christy perhaps the most pertinent and lolsy example of the above transition.

Imagine growing up listening to music like this and then thinking it was all downhill from there...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpcbNlMgr70

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmjqCQsnt3I

Oh, wow, so much greatness. My version of this would also have at least something from Til Tuesday, Sarah Slean, Abra Moore, Rachael Sage, Sarah Harmer, Emm Gryner, Martina Sorbara, Tanita Tikaram, Tasmin Archer, Bic Runga, Julia Darling, Charlotte Martin, Melissa Ferrick, Over the Rhine, Eddi Reader, Nina Gordon, Dido, Beth Nielsen Chapman, Lisa Germano, Mia Doi Todd, Leah Andreone, Kathleen Edwards, Vanessa Carlton, Vienna Teng, Kate Miller-Heidke, Milla, Imogen Heap, Wendy & Lisa, the Corrs, Maria Mena and Lili Haydn. Just for starters.

A huge amount of what I first knew of the obscure realms of this music comes from the so-great Ecto mailing list, which was nominally the fan list for Happy Rhodes, but kind of became the secret community for everybody who loved somebody who sounded a little like Kate Bush but wasn't famous.

I still basically haven't gotten over how crushed I was when Jane Siberry got rid of her synthesizers.

See also Tori Amos' pre-solo band/album Y Kant Tori Read, and Pat Benatar's similarly glossy Seven the Hard Way, and a bunch of the less-well-known early Cyndi Lauper songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qrh4FyRFZsY

^^^ dig that mid eighties 'power woman' wardrobe and posture

Heh. Was just about to look into some late 80's Anne Murrary to see if it would fit in here just before you posted that.

I find touted UK indie hopefuls Flowers almost unlistenable because the singer reminds me of this woman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9qGur8eTUg

And this is surely the last gasp/apotheosis of the genre?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOqVQPq8zm8

(J-Sibs will always be cool in my books)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJL7j8HCWWY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rggBIc54B5Q

When I was about twelve or thirteen I had a tape of Sarah McLachlan on one side and Toni Childs on the other and at the time it was both the best thing ever and all I ever needed of this.

Heather Nova's Oyster is the direction this stuff should have went, massive and overproduced but somehow more dreamy.

fucking tremendous thread I gotta say, thanks everybody this is really cool

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSTJm05GDEA

don't know the album; was led to this due to her impeccable taste in remixers on this single: http://www.discogs.com/Laurel-MacDonald-Wingspan-EP/release/329773

Country: Canada

I don't even know if the Anne Murray song I posted is good, but it's stuck in my head.

Where does Sam Phillips (who I adore) fit in? And what does Robin Holcolmb sound like?

Heather Nova's Oyster is the direction this stuff should have went, massive and overproduced but somehow more dreamy.

― boxedjoy, Thursday, October 23, 2014 11:12 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Did you ever hear Glowstars, her first album? It's actually amazing and much more ~dreamy~, parts of it sound like they were produced by AR Kane.

I never did - I went forward to Sirens which I found to be too glossy and even more lyrically naff in its extreme earnestness - not sounding "massive", but more sleek and shiny and a bit sterile. The idea of AR Kane doing full-diva dreampop is too appealing though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OX67eVvDLZo

^ only recently discovered this claire hamill video, absolutely hilarious performance from her

syd straw? katydids? am i miles away?

Boxedjoy, check this: Heather Nova - Shell

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrrKV9JT7Y4

"Frontier":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SmdeGBOEVA

Ah no that's "Glow Stars", this is "Frontier":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVboVXPUJ1g

"perspectives of profundity"

I dunno what that bs is about.

I felt like a lot of the Danielle Brisebois record would fit in here, but I think maybe this is the only song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6VW0IGdZP8

it's a bit of a tangent but i think maybe amy grant's lead me on works in this continuum?

Perspectives of Profundity sounds like a title that Joni Mitchell thought of for one of her own curated comps.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JGRpBDJyeQ

Would this fit here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4P-AGHIVKs

Not a lot of kate-bushisms here, but it's very heavy on the Fleetwood Mac wannabe side.

Love this thread. Was a big fan of Mae Moore's "Bohemia."

Also was Loreena McKennitt mentioned in this thread?

In Canada in the '80s, even the metal chicks were over-produced pop vocalists...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo8GsdyzEcY

I finally listened to that Heather Nova album and it is brilliant, really astonishing how much her output went right over a cliff and kept falling after it.

I'd still defend a good two thirds of the second album - "Heal" and "Island" are both beautiful.

But yes the first album is an unacknowledged masterpiece. You could imagine it having come out on 4AD and really blowing up amongst the kind of people into I dunno Lisa Germano and His Name Is Alive and etc.

Oyster is actually a better album than I remember it being, just from refreshing the tracklist in my head by skimming Wikipedia.

This has also helped me figure out exactly what the Emma Ruth Rundle album from last year has been reminding me of that I couldn't quite put my finger on initially.

i have never heard of Emma Ruth Rundle, would i like.

Now we're getting quite off-topic, but:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEjzLtDFmk0

Hugo Largo must have really tanked not to have been mentioned yet.

I don't think of this band as "overproduced" but rather produced just right, 1987 (hope this ridiculously long url works):

https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=AwrT6VrlUMRUSwsAqc8nnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0c2puYm1xBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2dxMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwM18x?p=miaou+did+she&tnr=21&vid=C5B80D5D9E7D76F28E99C5B80D5D9E7D76F28E99&l=225&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608020520324630804%26pid%3D15.1&sigi=11r0qg311&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvsIk7Lo0ooM&sigr=11bl2li2k&tt=b&tit=Miaow+~+Did+She&sigt=10fnkpaf5&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dmiaou%2Bdid%2Bshe%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=12poatchk&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001

No of course it didn't glug glug. Maiow doing "Did She".

Hugo Largo way too indie to belong in this thread - e.g. also why there's no actual 4AD in this thread.

Okay. Opal Records was distributed by Warner Brothers, but maybe it was still "indie" anyway.

I typo'd the name: it's Miaow, who failed to reach the public on Factory Records.

Does Mary Margaret O'Hara fit?

By "indie" i really mean "presaged a lot of mid-90s alterna-sonics sensibilities that washed everything else in this thread away."

I mean Hugo Largo are their own thing obv but they never sound late eighties except in the sense that they literally are from that period.

In a certain sense they are "too good" for this thread.

what about these cats?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAdNpx8bl5Q

an MOR-tinged hugo largo with a margo timmins soundalike on vocals?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1o5eRr_HWw

This is suddenly my very favourite genre of music again this week, during which I've had in heavy rotation: Stretch Princess' Fun with Humans, Emm Gryner's Asianblue and K's Choice's Almost Happy. The latter might e a little too alt.rock to qualify, and only Emm is actually from Canada, but whatever. Tried putting Martika's Kitchen into the mix, but not melancholic enough. Will probably go with something by Jane Siberry next. Some recommended listening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZtVuunFpAo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xs4E-ZJWRyw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wz2b8c7gXg

Thank you for reminding me about Stretch Princess!

I think people might really love this stuff from Suse Millemann who was brought to light after she got included on a Numero comp a couple of years back ('Switched On Eugene'):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lw2Bfo6_47Q
Suse Millemann - Patterns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liXrdZQ-Pcg
Suse Millemann - Walk In The Fire

^ listening to this stuff again and the closest point of comparison i can think of is Anna Domino who made some amazing tracks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8wTNLTb08I
Anna Domino - Caught

(i'm probably going too indie here aren't i?)