This Is My Brain On Music

Monday, December 14, 2009

For Purists Only: Minnie vs. Mimi

This is one of the funniest YouTubes I've ever seen...a note by note smackdown of vocal range between the fabulous Minnie Riperton and the shortbus hooker Mariah Carey. If you've ever wondered what on earth possessed Mariah to start whistling for dogs in her head voice, then you're probably not familiar with Riperton who got there first (and got there better, in the opinion of many). Though we lost Minnie way too soon--she died of cancer, at just 31 years old, in 1979--Mariah's carried the dog-whistle-as-vocal torch quite ably; I imagine she's shattered a glass or two along the way (surely she's ruptured a sinus?)

I'll admit this video is way too long if you don't find it funny, but it's truly a note-by-note match-up. Try to ignore the poorly selected text fonts (the video creator used an ALL CAPS font which means that "E flat" renders, stupidly as "EB") and you might want to have earplugs at the ready. As for me, I'm going to see about snapping up all the Riperton gaps in my collection!

Piggy's "Trees"

The side-eyes at 0:53 slay me...

Thursday, December 3, 2009

Sometimes There's God So Quickly

I know the horse is dead and I should just stop beating it, but I need to gloat: despite a massive Clive Davis-fueled campaign, Whitney Houston's (super-crap) album I LOOK TO YOU was shut out of the Grammy nominations. That's a (well-deserved) snub of someone who has been nominated for Grammys 24 times in the past 3 decades (she's won 6 of them, as well as a startling 23 American Music Awards). Since I've already had my say about how crazy it makes me for people to pretend Miss Houston can still sing well enough to justify her gazillion dollar record deals (she can't) I'm gonna just stop now. Thud.