Alright, since I got a little bit carried away yesterday on my music blog, I decided to carry over (like in addition). Heaven forbid a single blog post would be too long to hold your attention; I wish to be everything but boring.
So. Brandi.
I've loved Brandi Carlile for a while now. There's just something about her music that really hits home for me. At first I only listened to her for her lyrics (and because of my somewhat obsessive affinity for female singer-songwriters). I didn't really like her voice that much, because every time I listened, it kind of hurt me inside. I thought, "There is no way that singing like that is actually good for her." She's an excellent musician and song-writer, but as a vocalist... it just didn't do it for me.
My opinion has changed. Quite a bit.
First of all, her vibrato. At first, I thought it was over the top. It's a little bit on the shaky side, but now, as improper as it may be, I kinda sorta love it. It's something that's different from every other singer out there, and it's absolutely beautiful.
Second of all, her range. It's not an obnoxious belty range, but she has immaculate control over her voice. She can belt without making it sound like belting. It's loud, but it's not simply noise.
Third, and most importantly of all, her lyrics. I am still trying to figure out Brandi's writing style. One minute it's deep and philosophical ("I don't think you ever learned a thing from me/but I'm sure that you want me to learn from you/and you've drawn heavy handed lines around morality/about yourself and I don't share your point of view"-I Will), and the next it's raw and simple ("And nothing you could do could make me turn my back on you/when you're lookin for a friend/I'm your man/when you need a friend/you got my hand"-If There Was No You).
Oh, and about the album. It's AWESOME. As if acoustic Brandi wasn't good enough. Add a full symphony, and you've got a folk singer-songwriter concert gone Broadway play. It's like nothing I've ever heard before. On a lot of songs, the orchestra bows out and lets Brandi do her thing on the guitar, but those violins and trumpets and all that jazz just add so much to the album.
Check out these tracks from the album:
I just really love her. She's deep, she's raw, she sings about things that are relatable. Not just love, but friendship, life, her dreams. You can tell that her music is really personal to her, and that "for her, love is the axis around which everything else turns, whether coming or going, long-lost or firmly rooted" (paste magazine's review). (I have no idea how to cite things via blog, I just didn't want to attempt to pass off that well-written sentence as my own. It doesn't even flow well.)
OH! And totally off subject, but the bloggerson has a new feature! If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, you'll see a little box inside which there is a place where you can subscribe to my blog via EMAIL!! How great is that?? Cause google accounts are lame, and I know that very few of the people that read my blog actually have them, and EVERYBODY has an email address (despite how little they check it). I hope that this new feature will encourage you to check your email more often. Hey, maybe I'm even doing you a favor. I know that you hate to get on your aol account and see
5 billion emails from facebook and random stores on whose lists you never even wanted to be. Maybe now you'll check it often enough to actually delete those emails. So, subscribe. It brightens my day to see new followers. It really does. Especially if you're from Europe. That's super cool.
Good night, internet.
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