January 18, 2004

The Sweet Sounds of Really Bad Singing

ast week, the eighth-most-popular song in the country was "Slow Jamz," a ruthlessly addictive ode to make-out music. In his verses, the mile-a-minute Chicago rapper Twista pays tribute to great crooners: he offers to "Get ya sheets wet/ Listening to Keith Sweat," he promises to "put you in a daze with Maze," and you can probably guess that he has no trouble finding a rhyme for Teddy Pendergrass.

Like many hip-hop hits, this one has as much singing as rapping, including an ingenious Luther Vandross sample and a surprisingly sweet chorus from the actor and comedian Jamie Foxx. But the best part is the first verse, where the producer turned rapper Kanye West croons crude come-ons, struggling to hit the notes. This is what makes the song so irresistible: it's a not-very-smooth celebration of smoothness, a ridiculous tribute to the sublime.

Welcome to the golden age of un-golden throats: "Slow Jamz" is only the latest example of the bad-singing boom that has produced one great pop song after another over the last year or so. From 50 Cent to Pharrell, from Ashanti to André 3000, the pop chart has been overrun with singers who have learned how to flaunt their imperfections.

It would be easy to think of reasons that this odd trend is bad news. No doubt some listeners still wince when high notes are flat, or when ad-libs veer disastrously off-key. But the best badly sung songs make such objections seem like so much pedantry: it's hard to hold a grudge when Mr. West is howling, "I'm-a play this Vandross/ You gon' take your pants off." For a nation still entranced by the big-voiced stars of "American Idol," this may be the perfect antidote: a deluge of audacious pop songs, sung by people who might never have made it past the show's auditions.

Whenever someone wants to play down the importance of vocal virtuosity, Bob Dylan is Exhibit A: a brilliant croaker who makes you feel sorry for all those hacks content to simply carry a tune. But for precisely that reason, Mr. Dylan isn't really a bad singer. He's got an unconventional voice, to be sure (has anyone else noticed that he is sounding more and more like Scooby Doo?), but he's too idiosyncratic, too rock 'n' roll. A great bad singer must never give up on goodness. Perhaps Mr. West knows how preposterous he sounds, but he's still singing the best he can.

I'd propose that the father of modern bad singing is Biz Markie, the rapper best known for the classic anti-love song "Just a Friend," from 1989. His bellowed plea — wildly out of tune, and totally unforgettable — sounded like something concocted after a day of romantic disappointments and a night of heavy drinking: "Oh baby, you/ You got what I need/ But you say he's just a friend." With each repetition of the chorus, he sounded funnier and more unhinged.

Biz Markie's most direct descendant is Lumidee, the young R & B singer behind one of 2003's biggest and best and strangest hits, "Never Leave (Uh Ooh Uh Ooh)." It had an appealing beat and a catchy chorus, but what really made it stand out was her unusual vocal style. Lumidee told an MTV interviewer, "I don't have such a strong voice, but it's different."

That's putting it mildly. On "Never Leave," she could have been one of those melody-challenged "American Idol" contestants who gets interrupted mid-verse by Simon Cowell. Except there was no one to stop her, so she blithely sang it all the way through, often departing from the tune entirely. By the end, it was hard not to admire her audacity, and harder still not to join in: those out-of-reach notes sounded like an invitation to do better, or to make fun, or just to sing along.

You can hear a similar — but less extreme — approach on "The Love Below" (Arista), André 3000's half of the new OutKast album. He's obviously obsessed with Prince, and he's not about to let his less-than-Princely voice get in the way. The effect is disarming: his slightly wobbly sense of pitch gives the whole disc an appealing, woozy feel; when he reaches for a high note and comes up short, it's a welcome reminder that he doesn't take himself too seriously.

50 Cent's "Get Rich or Die Tryin' " (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope), the best-selling album of 2003, was also full of proudly amateurish singing. Instead of teaming up with R & B singers, the way rappers used to, he delivered his own choruses, slurring and sneering the words without burying the tunes. This was a clever way to make the album hummable without making it sound slick or commercial — perhaps 50 Cent learned this strategy from his executive producer Eminem, who did some un-slick singing of his own on his 2002 album "The Eminem Show."

Sometimes, a not-so-strong voice acts as a leash, forcing singers to stick to simple melodies. That's why critics who complain about Ashanti's modest vocal gifts are missing the point: she's no gospel roarer, and that's one reason her songs tend to be so straightforward; her current single, "Breakup 2 Makeup," may not be quite pitch-perfect, but it's catchy and casual in a way louder, more histrionic songs never are.

This strategy may be the only thing that Ashanti shares with Kid Rock, the rapper turned rocker turned crooner who scored the biggest hit of his career with "Picture," a twangy duet with Sheryl Crow. Kid Rock's not really cut out for ballads, and that's one reason he sings them well — he can't help but keep it simple. His impressive new album, "Kid Rock" (Atlantic), includes no fewer than five weepy ballads, including "Hard Night for Sarah," Bob Seger's spectacularly maudlin divorce song. Few singers could survive all this intact, but Kid Rock redeems these ballads by under-singing them, straining to hit the notes so that listeners root for him, not against him.

Right now the most successful bad singer is Pharrell, whose yelped choruses have produced recent hip-hop hits for Snoop Dogg ("Beautiful") and Jay-Z ("Change Clothes"). As one-half of the production duo the Neptunes, Pharrell has a knack for writing the kind of infectious hooks that get people singing along before they even know the words. Last summer, Pharrell released "Frontin'," an irresistible R & B song that also sounded like a parody of an R & B song. It began with an over-the-top pick-up line ("Don't wanna sound full of myself or rude/ But you ain't looking at no other dudes / 'Cause you love me"), and Pharrell's strained falsetto evoked the image of a teenager in the bathroom, crooning sweet nothings into a hair dryer. Like many of these songs, "Frontin' " made listeners want to sing along, because the singer seemed to be merely singing along, too.

All of that brings us back to "Slow Jamz," and to Mr. West, who has supplanted Pharrell as the most exciting (and most ridiculous) producer/vocalist in hip-hop. Mr. West was behind two current hits, "You Don't Know My Name" by Alicia Keys and "Stand Up" by Ludacris. Mr. West has showed off his scrambled-soul beats and witty rhymes on a series of mixtapes (the most recent is called "Kon the Louis Vuitton Don"), and his eagerly anticipated debut album, "The College Dropout" (Roc-A-Fella/Island Def Jam), is due on Feb. 10.

Like Pharrell, Mr. West can hit enough notes to create a memorable chorus (and no more), and he has a winning way with punch lines. The most memorable part of "Slow Jamz" is his slightly off-key couplet: "She got a light-skinned friend, look like Michael Jackson / Got a dark-skinned friend, look like Michael Jackson." Mr. West has figured out that many listeners want to be charmed, not floored. And whether he's singing or rapping, his sly, matter-of-fact delivery makes every track sound slightly conspiratorial: we're all in on the joke.

This wave of weak voices comes at a time when singers have fewer excuses than ever: with electronic pitch control, producers can make sure every note is perfect. And listeners are getting more astute: they know that what they're hearing on the new album by, say, Britney Spears (a closeted bad singer, though she's not fooling anyone) is something more — or less — than an unvarnished voice.

Maybe that's why bad singing is so popular right now: the more listeners know about pitch correction, the more fascinated they may be to hear something that's obviously uncorrected. At a time when it seems easier than ever to become a celebrity, bad singing can create a seductive illusion of intimacy. To hear a pop star flub a note is to believe, if only for a moment, that you or I could just as easily be onstage, doing no less and no more than our best.

Tomorrow, Fox is to begin broadcasting the third season of "American Idol," and before too long we'll have a new cast of would-be winners, turning too-familiar songs into vocal workouts. And maybe some enterprising producer will look at the contestants, look at the pop charts and see the marketing opportunity. Never mind the winners: maybe it's time to sign up the losers.