Post

Never sure where I sit with singers harmonising with themselves on records as it breaks the illusion that you're listening to a thing that happened as a single performance. I suppose the answer is there's times when I think it's fine, and there's times when I think, jeez let the band sing too.

There's kind of a deal between the artist and listener isn't there? You trust some vocalists who are amazing storytelling vocalists to *also* do stunts. PSB's Heart is a good example maybe

I'd have to listen to that track again to see what you mean but it's amusing to think of Neil doing the main vocal, and the Chris interjecting with the h-h-h-heart beat bit.

That's what I meant really. And the Oh-ah-oh-oh thing. They re-re-process Neil loads and turn him into an instrument on most tracks but the only time I've ever gone, "eh?" is on the Introspective version of Always. Totally allowed the rest of the time

Just given Heart a listen and the ah-ah-ah-ah synth bit doesn't break my sense of single performance as it's so clearly a sample of Neil played on keyboard. Chris *could* be doing it live, having sampled Neil before the performance. Yes Chris might need several hands to but hey.

I think that's why it works yeah. There's an Uncanny Valley somewhere where if you flip (in the hip-hop sample-bending sense) a vocal but don't flip it *enough* or you multi-track it and either the vocalist or the producer miss the mark, THEN the listener doesn't buy.

I think the way the bass is used melodically in this might be a factor, because that's definitely doing some counterpoint things, I'm finding it quite hard to work out what intervals the vocals are using. But I thiiiiiink the *intervals* are changing too. I think it's deliberately weird at one point

It's not the bass for me. It's that they've basically written a harmony duet but it's one guy singing both parts, the low and the high and just keep finding myself thinking, actually it should be two people here, empathising about the trouble on the street. It would thematically be stronger.