I Need the Noises of Destruction When There's Nothing New (Or: I Like It When Voices Grate)

Vocals in a band can be something of a peculiarity. I listen to a number of artists that at least primarily lack them, and enjoy many of those artists on into the "upper echelons" of my taste in music. My affections for Goblin, Aphex Twin, Mogwai alone are enough that when they come up with some people it's with the acknowledgment that their appreciation stems from my own and the sharing of it. But instrumental music isn't always for everyone--heck, all three of those artists have used vocals in one way or another¹.

But vocals are more likely to be a splitting point for people, it seems. Sure, the 80s are maligned in general for their drum sound a lot of the time, it having become so dominant that The Church had their third album, Seance, rendered with gated reverb drums basically without their knowledge, let alone their consent. That, however, tends to be more association and generalized preference, and it hasn't had a major effect on things like popularity of songs overall. In a sense that might confuse the issue, it's similar to the usage of heavily auto-tuned vocals in the modern era, which tends to bug a lot of the same crowd that hates gated reverb. No judgment here, incidentally--but there is truly plenty of crossover there.

Unusual, especially off-key, non-melodic, grating, unusually pitched, or strangely toned or timbred voices can rapidly put people off an entire body of work. Some will even forego an artist's work until someone covers it, simply because the original author's voice is inexpert, amateurish, or just plain weird. Respect is occasionally given to these artists by folks who can't stand their voices, because it has nothing to do with the song itself.

To ease us into something that will eventually start annoying the hell out of some readers, let's start with the voice of one Tom Waits: