I really loathe the kind of singing that wins X Factor. That Mariah Carey-type caterwauling makes me vomit. It all sounds the same - think Leona Lewis and that Burke girl - and its all shite.
So as I sit here listening to the fourth Peter Gabriel album, one of the greatest albums of the 80s and any other decade frankly, I started thinking about singers who would be booed off the X Factor stage because their voice doesn't fit the norm but whose voice can, at times, make me weep with joy.
Here's just a few to be going along with:
David Bowie - Teenage Wildlife off Scary Monsters. You could pick virtually anything by Bowie but his singing on this particular track is wonderful.
Peter Gabriel - The Family and the Fishing Net from the aforementioned fourth album. Obviously, I could choose any number of Gabriel tracks.
Thom Yorke - Let Down off Radiohead's OK Computer - in my opinion the album of the 90s. How anyone can find Yorke's gorgeous, plaintive, heartbreaking voice tedious or depressing is beyond me.
Paul Buchanan - absolutely the whole of the Hats album by The Blue Nile. This man has the voice of an angel. If you've never heard of The Blue Nile seek them out immediately. Hats is in the top five albums of the 80s to be sure.
There you go, just four. Four wonderful vocal performances that would have the X Factor judges looking at each other in bemusement, ignorant fuckwits that they are.
That's a bit harsh. I guess they're just doing what they're told.
Feel free to suggest some more. If nothing else, it makes you play some things you might not have played for a while, and that's gotta be a good thing.
