Straight Outta Lynwood

[unexpectedguy]

Straight outta Lynwood,Los Angeles/All the cities in the worlds/Chicago

[dj's mom]

What do you mean "in your face" angry, depressive Ben Folds? I am soo confused..

~*Cat*~

Well, if you have ever heard Ben's "Song for the Dumped" or "Landed", there is an underlying current of bitterness and anger, with some irony and humor mixed in. My husband's favorite Lucinda Williams tend to just be hopelessly sad.

sorry to be off topic, but I felt I had to "unconfuse"

SOL Rocks!

Juliej

[Insert Coin(s) to Continue]

You know, I noticed two things about Straight Outta Lynwood that kind of broke trends in Al's music.

First of all, with a little room for movement, every song on Straight Outta Lynwood sounds like "typical Al". That is, he didn't really "morph" his voice like he usually does (Isle Thing and Truck Drivin' Song, for some extreme examples). The impression that I've gotten from Al's music in the past is that Al really sounded different on every track that he does. SOL is really the first time when I said, "That's the same singer singing each track the same way" before.

Secondly, I've noticed that SOL doesn't really have any "superhuman" feats. The trend may only exist in my mind, but I've noticed that Al likes to, about once each CD, wow his audience with a "superhuman" musical feat such as the bridge in Hardware Store. Does anyone else agree with me on this one?

[Orthography Enthusiast]

Really? Virus Alert and White & Nerdy sounded the same to you?

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Not necisarily the style of the song, but Al didn't really change his voice very much. Listen to Stop Draggin' My Car Around and Ricky, two very different styles on the same CD.

[Dumb N00b]

Meh. White and Nerdy isn't superhuman, but enunciating that clearly while speed-rapping is very, very hard. And a requirement mostly limited to parodists, in my opinion, because most of the jokes have to hit. The first time I heard Ridin' and American Idiot, I probably caught only 2/3 of what I caught when I heard Al's parodies. He just has to make them easier to understand.

And yes, I think Virus Alert sounds very different indeed from White and Nerdy, at least as much as between Ricky and SDMCA, which were recognizably by the same guy.

Yes, he often stretches his voice in other ways (yes, Truck Drivin' Song and Bob), but I think speed-rapping, managing to sound like RATM without sounding at all like his normal "scream voice", and sounding so incredibly cheesily inspirational in DDTS is enough of a stretch to make most artists green with envy.

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I wouldn't count White & Nerdy superhuman at all. I listen to rap so I know that rapping that fast is nothing special at all. It's really common to hear lines fly by much faster than that. He was immitating Chamillionaire's song, which was already that fast.

If he were to to a Twista style parody, that would be superhuman.

[Kevbo1987]

I think "I'll Sue Ya" might be an example of Al changing his voice. He made it much more rock for that one. Other than that, I agree that Al's voice sounds pretty much the same on every track. I certainly don't mind that. That's really not an important trend to me, as long as all the songs are funny, which they most certainly are.

[Dumb N00b]

I wouldn't count White & Nerdy superhuman at all. I listen to rap so I know that rapping that fast is nothing special at all. It's really common to hear lines fly by much faster than that. He was immitating Chamillionaire's song, which was already that fast.

I was focusing more on his incredible enunciation. There are many lines in Ridin' that take a few listens to get--not that many, but some--whereas you can pretty much get all of W&N on the first listen.

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Mostly it is because of Chamillionaire's southern accent. I'm sure anyone from the south who is accustomed to the flow of rap wouldn't have any trouble with it.