Yesterday I posted a YouTube link to a typical tiny-waif-with-big-guitar-and-single-name of a type that afflicts far too many hip coffee shops thinking they're writing songs that are just so precious and true but actually just recycling all the tropes of every other tiny-waif-with-big-guitar-and-single-name that has ever existed. Don't get me wrong, I dig these types, I mean, I am male, but I don't take them too serious. Which of course drives them insane, but... shrug. Maybe after they grow up. Anybody seen "Jewel" lately?
Anyhow, here is someone who is not a tiny waif with a big acoustic guitar and a single name singing oh-so-precious songs:
Beth Orton, live, playing Stolen Car. (Embedded object fixed, sorry!)
-- Badtux the Music Penguin
re: the tiny waif with a tiny voice and a big guitar syndrome.
ReplyDeletemy agent phoned me a while back about a gig with a "up and coming" female singer/songwriter. he ran down the usual bullshit notices, blew the usual smoke, then, he made a mistake and paused for a breath. i said:
great, just what the industry needs, another chick with a guitar, and an agenda.
he replied, that attitude won't get you many paydays.
loves me some beth orton. she's got teeth.
Tiny waif doesn't describe Beth Orton. She's a tall drinka water.
ReplyDeleteAs for the "chick with a guitar, and an agenda", I think the only agenda a lot of these coffee-house waif types have is to get laid, get rich, or both. But then, how does that make them any different from their male counterparts, other than the fact that they also are so ridiculously and pretentiously serious about their oh-so-precious songs? It's just so funny to watch them stamp their little feet when you say "Awe, that was so cute", heh! I can be a vicious penguin sometimes, eh?
- Badtux the not-rabid Penguin (thankfully!)
Agreed on not being able to tolerate all of the sound-alike, sorry songwriting out there.
ReplyDeleteGive me some Emmylou, Patty Griffin, or Lucinda any day. Those are the cool "girls" with guitars!
Emmylou, Patty, and Lucinda make regular appearances on my blog :-).
ReplyDeleteThat said, like I said, I'm male, so I can appreciate the waif with guitar chicks as cuties. I like listening to them while taking in the eye candy. I don't "hate" them by any means. Heck, I can even appreciate their songs as ear candy, much as I might appreciate the diary entries of a 14-year-old girl -- i.e., as possible indications of future talent. But c'mon, let's get real. They gotta work at it and prove their chops first, and that takes more than a few oh-so-precious songs akin to the diary entries of a 14 year old girl whispered into a microphone at a coffee shop. Laura Nyro, for example, proved her chops by having her songs covered and made hits by bunches of people, even though she wrote'em at age 18 or 19. But she wasn't a tiny chick with a tiny voice and a big guitar singing oh-so-precious songs, either...
-- Badtux the Music Penguin