Great Moments in Backup Singing: Heart
November 9, 2007 by Extra P.
Confession time - I’ve never been a very big fan of heavy metal vocals. They too often sound strained and screechy to me. But Heart is another story entirely. Ann Wilson has a big voice, and it never sounds like she’s forcing out a high note. It’s just full and natural, and it always hits me in a vital spot. You know what I’m talkin’ about, fellas.
Since I’m using YouTube to illustrate my choices, I often have little to pick from. In this case, I had fuzzy late-70’s video where Ann is singing completely without backup, or pouffy 80’s videos with way too much synth in them.
I finally settled on this nice clip, in which Nancy is still mostly just shredding, but adds her voice at strategic moments to sweeten an already impressive note. I imagine hearing it live, the whole place would vibrate like a tuning fork. Amazing stuff.
We’ll probably go back to the soul arena next week, but until then, rock on, and be excellent to each other.
Ooh, Heart. Good choice. Thank you for reminding me about them; I’ll have to add “Barracuda” and “These Dreams” to the playlist for my White Trash Party tomorrow.
WHAT ABOUT LOOOOOOOOVE?!
We have Brian from Awful Announcing to thank for that suggestion.
Dude, Heart kicks some serious ass. IMO, other than Geoff Tate(Queensryche) and Sebastian Bach, Ann Wilson has the best voice in rock. If you’ve ever heard her sing any of the Zeppelin songs they usually include in their concerts, she does them better than Robert Plant. And Nancy…. ah, Nancy. She still looks hot at the age of 53.
Damnit, I really thought you were going to do Michael McDonald this week. On my own….
Your strong feelings about it virtually guarantee that it will happen next week, so that’s good.
I used to beat off to those chicks before they got fat.
Fat or not, I’d titty fuck them. Sometimes, you just have to go off the reservation.
I’m really worried about what you guys are going to say about Michael McDonald now.
I have to respectfully disagree with Bruce. I heard Sebastian Bach on the radio about a year ago–he sounded TERRIBLE. He hasn’t been able to sing since back when he wasn’t as good as Freddie Mercury.
[...] Extra P. put an intriguing blog post on Great Moments in Backup Singing: Heart.Here’s a quick excerpt:But Heart is another story entirely. Ann Wilson has a big voice, and it never sounds like she’s forcing out a high note. It’s just full and natural, and it always hits me in a vital spot. You know what I’m talkin’ about, fellas. … [...]
I will defend the scantity of Heart’s awesomeness to the death. Crazy on You is the most underrated song of all time.
But I have two words about next week. Stay smooth.