The PF Audio Playmate Review
Jeff Silverstein

Audiophiles, mostly male, are always talking about female vocals. "Female vocal this, liquid midrange that." Let’s call a spade a spade guys, with all this talk about "palpability" this discourse usually masks a fantasy life of collecting vocal "Playmates." It’s OK. One of the functions of pop-stardom is to give audiences of all genders the objects of their fantasies. So deal with it — you conjure up your favorite audio-inflatable right there in your living room. Let’s talk about a few so you understand my preferences. I’ll admit that this isn’t a list of jazz singers, virtuoso vocalists, or singers audiophiles like to use to show off their systems. But this is the stuff I like in the female pop vocalist category. You’ll notice I tend towards singer/songwriter/producers. Perhaps the most important reason to listen to women in pop is because they have something to say. And they often say it in a way more affecting and personal than male artists.

There’s also an Oedipal theory on this issue of female vocals. First voice we hear and bond to is through direct contact liquid transducer. I’d guess that in Darwinian terms it is important for infants to both "recognize" their mother’s voice, and be "pleased" by it. So while male voice may have evolved to threaten other tribesmen and say "Hey, get the hell away from that tiger," female voice may have evolved for the purposes of being pleasing to infants with sensitive ears. (This doesn’t count all jokes which involve Fran Drescher, Rosie Perez and a car alarm.)

Since it’s a matter of life and death for the infant’s survival to recognize its actual mother (compatibility, immune issues, feeding), we must be hard wired for micro-minute subtlety in detecting female voice variations, and wired for pleasure associated with that. Hence the magical siren-call of well reproduced female voice. So lest my opening paragraph lead you to an exclusively prurient application of female voice, people of both genders and all orientations get buttons pressed in that frequency and overtone range. So run to your therapist, ‘cause each time you stacks-of-wax ecstatic about female vocals you are singing a pre-verbal chorus of Mammy.

Picking female vocalists is like the "Favorite Beatle" game little sisters used to play. Your pick is a personal projection. Which of Charlie’s Angels? (Jaclyn Smith). Which one of the Designing Women? (Dixie Carter). Which one of the Friends? (Lisa Kudrow). Who on Cheers — will it be Diane, Carla, or Rebecca? (fooled you, it’s Lilith). Which one on Star Trek (Deanna Troi, then Jadzia Dax, then that Dabo Girl, Leeta. Why not Major Kira? — too much ex-wife baggage.) And speaking of the power of the female voice, clock Alice Krige as the magnificent Borg Queen: "Data, have you experienced pleasure?" (Star Trek: First Contact).

Probably the single most influential singer/songwriter and producer from Woodstock to the present. There’s Joni, and there’s everybody else. There’s hardly a day goes by when I don’t hear a lyric steal, a vocal turn, or a mix idea from her work sneaking into another artist’s recordings. Even her "misses" pave the way for virtually every pop female and more than a few of the boys. Her oeuvre is not merely a journey into self-exposure and the often referred-to introspective POV. It’s as a producer and innovator and risk taker that Mitchell has the most importance. For me the male analog in influence is Mr. Steveland Morris. Joni’s is the voice of a generation, and not simply the background track to a 30something episode. I’ve even heard an uncorroborated story that Jimi based the melody for his transcendent Little Wing on a Native American tune Joni gave him backstage at a festival.

There’s no one place to start. Most people recommend Court and Spark or Blue. I might even start with Turbulent Indigo. It just doesn’t make any difference. Chalk Mark, Hissing, Hejira, Roses, Miles of Aisles, there are almost no minor works in Joni. The Shadows and Light concert on laserdisc with Metheny, Mays, Alias, Brecker, and the Lithium Bass God himself, Jaco Pastorius, is a must. Roberta Joan Mitchell has a brilliant sense of how to pick drummers, guitarists, and horn players. And she gets engineers to do some very amazing things.

Mitchell is a painter of scenes (yeah I know, she lives in a box of paints). She plunges you into worlds of personal angst, suburban disillusionment, lipstick and cars, spiritual crisis, Native American anger, addictive loves, the road, guilt over success, aging, and outcries against injustice. And that’s just the "up" material. Start somewhere. If she isn’t already, Mitchell will be studied in school as one of the significant bards of the 20th century, trust me on this.

People unfortunately mistake a bit of hair-dye and East Village art direction for a lack of depth — and Cyndi is often dismissed. Don’t make this error. Lauper is much more than just your nutty cousin. And far from simply being Leslie Gore on Helium, Cyndi has one of the biggest little voices in pop. Her songwriting, producing, and choice of collaborators generates top grade material, and her taste is impeccable. If introspective whining makes you want to slash your wrists, the antidote is Cyndi Lauper. Happy music, with oodles of vulnerability. Production consistently rocks and is often spectacular. Sonics are good, heavy on synth and rhythm boxes, but her sense of the backbeat is perfection, in the tradition of the best of the Brill Building tunesmiths. A word comes to mind with Lauper, one which is not generally used — powerful. Cyndi is a master of the power of rock and roll, and of the power of telling the truth. Every note she sings is totally committed, and her emotional range is deceptively wide.

Try She’s So Unusual, the one with Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. A beautifully produced album. As good as pop gets. The real treat, and a cut which never fails to send shivers, is her Time After Time, which I consider up there with the best of its decade. I think Miles Davis knew it too. Try the great sounding True Colors — with Change of Heart, for those killer Nile Rogers/Hendrix-funk guitar chops. A Night to Remember, her 1989 effort, is a strong showing as well.

I recently saw Lauper interviewed by RuPaul, and she sat in the spotlight and sang solo with a dulcimer. Shades of Joni and Blue. Was over at Sony and picked up a copy of Sisters of Avalon, Lauper’s recent collaboration with Jan Pulsford. Interesting material, grows on you every day, but not purely my familiar Cyndi. And then cut 11, Fearless, shows up and puts its arms around you like it won’t let go. And wouldn’t you know it’s the only song on the album with a Lauper solo writing credit, the only one mixed at Electric Lady, and the only one with her long-time drum machine wizard Jimmy Bralower. It was also the one she chose to sing on Ru’s show.

If you’re in the mood for a Cliff’s Notes summary of Lauper’s massive contribution to pop, her Twelve Deadly Cyns is a best-of collection which I’d love to see in vinyl. Some people look at me funny when I tell them that Cyndi Lauper is one of the very best we have. In case you too question my predisposition to going gaga over Lauper, consider that we’re both about the same age, and both grew up in the Sovereign State of Brooklyn. (Yo. You guys coulda been in the same class.) Can’t you just see this little 9 year old singing along to Girl Group tunes in the early 60s, listening to the WMCA Good Guys? They just wanna , they just wan na a uh...

If there was a Joni for the 80s it should have been Rickie Lee. Her 1978 debut album Rickie Lee Jones is about as masterly a piece of work as I’ve heard; completely fresh today. Waronker and Titelman’s production is sonically surprising, and as much as we listen to Cassandra’s New Moon Daughter for its Taj Mahalesque use of instruments, check out Rickie. Pirates is a masterpiece. Jones is just a great songwriter, a solid musician, an innovative producer, and has timeless material. A heartbreaking voice and rarely-erring stylistic sense. Go find the 10" Girl at Her Volcano for Rickie Lee’s Walk Away Renee, there’s not much else to say. Her collaboration with Steely Dan’s Walter Becker, Flying Cowboys is often on my list. If for you Rickie Lee is just that mumbling beret-wearing hipster who did Chuck E’s in Love, check her out and stick it into Coolsville. You’ll be Jonesing on her soon enough.

Other Voices/Other Rooms almost transcends its Grammy. Griffith is a time-capsule love letter to the folk era, and you can see why Letterman looked almost ready to propose to her on the show. A folkie with a twang so cute it couldn’t be real, Griffith almost single-handedly carries the torch.

If Joni was the flower child of your dreams, Patti was the balls to the wall punk rocker. (When I asked "Just exactly how does one apply balls to walls?" Steve Sullivan told me the expression comes from pilots pushing hard forward on their throttles.) Run, don’t walk and go get Gone Again. When a musician sets up shop in the studio Jimi built, Electric Lady, and has the cojones to create an homage to All Along the Watchtower, arguably the greatest rock cover of all time, you’ve got to admire her for pulling it off. Smith’s Summer Cannibals deftly lifts from Watchtower — from the progression, and construction, to the Dylan snarl, all the way down to a musical saw standing in for Jimi’s Zippo sliding along his Strat neck. And she creates a completely new classic as chillingly sardonic as the opening of Macbeth, one of the most impressive pieces of pop legerdemain I heard last year. To me the spirit of Hendrix is one of those which hovers near Patti on this album. The opening of About A Boy is appropriately Electric Ladylike; I’m told it’s a tribute to Kurt Cobain. After getting into her "return" to recording, it’s time to check out Smith’s heyday.

What? I know, people think she’s already made it, Grammys and all. And a couple of megahit albums. But I can’t help thinking that Bonnie has a heck of a lot more to come. I remember seeing this college aged redhead, must have been in 1973, playing at the old Gaslight downstairs in the Village. I think it was after Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. The way I tell it, and who knows how much I’ve punched up this story, the then little-known Raitt grabbed a wine bottle, cracked the neck off perfectly on the edge of the stage platform, and proceeded to kick Clapton’s ass on guitar. A girl playing bottleneck! But I can’t help thinking she’s been over-produced. As good as her recent records have been, and they’re just fine, her specialty was rawness, and I want it back.

With her picture in the dictionary right next to "naked ambition," Madonna is something of an enigma. I will admit that while working on a screenplay, I found Madonna’s albums to be the perfect background music for productive writing. Must be the rhythm. Her showbusiness talent is undeniable, but doesn’t she make you tired? Is moving at Warp Nine sexy? And not only are all shields up, but photon torpedoes are locked on you. Even so, she’s an extraordinary entertainer, and her albums are as perfectionistic as Streisand’s. I guess if Ms. Ciccone and Michael Jackson somehow met on stage the planet would go up in one of those matter-antimatter events. But don’t diss her cause she’s larger than life. Her albums are fun and worth listening to.

Sometimes Merchant really bugs me. Not because I don’t like some of her material, I do. She just bugs me. There’s something smug and sophomoric about her persona as well as some of her writing. I don’t get her popularity, but she must have stricken a chord. There’s something in her voice; what appears to be a middle eastern or Indian drone. Kind of like an electric sitar strapped to a whirling dervish. Tiger Lily isn’t a bad album, but I think its sonics and production are better than the material itself. For me, Merchant was stronger with the Maniacs, and the material was more memorable. Isn’t it interesting how their last hit was written by Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen (Because the Night on the 10,000 Maniacs MTV Unplugged ) .

I was almost ready to delete this little critique; I always fear hurting artistic feelings. But then I heard something to strengthen my resolve. Across the phototogenically perfect faces of Michelle Pfeiffer and George Clooney, in a minor romantic comedy of the same name, I heard Ms. Merchant’s painful rendition of the Goffin/King classic One Fine Day. Without doubt one of the greatest Girl Group songs in history, and I thought, up till now, unruinable. I blame the director for getting Merchant to sing a torchy, bluesy, microtonally chalkboardian and irritating cover for the opening. It could be argued that the discomfort of the song reflects the sit-com angst of the main characters. And it could be argued that when they climactically kiss and we finally hear the Chiffons version, all is right in the world. All I can say is as I heard the Merchant version, the words Louisville Slugger appeared out of nowhere and my hands began to tighten.

The queen of Prozac-folk rock. While Joni can be sad and self critical, Vega must be kept away from sharp objects. Solitude Standing is a sonic treat; I find myself listening to it very regularly. Besides its brilliant production, I’ve become fascinated with her "L." I’m nuts enough to check which syllable she uses to stress her speech characteristic, "My name is Luka" or "My name is Calypso." (Lauper tends to slip in a bit of the "Baba Wawa R" — "I see yaw twue cuh-wuhs shining fwue," and I’ve found that these things can attractively contribute to a childlike innocence in both artist’s sonic personae; both turn it on and off to distinctive effect.) The fabulous Days of Open Hand scares me; Vega’s music often flirts with terror, madness, and depression. Listening to Vega makes me want to go back to old Janis Ian albums; I hear a lot of Ian hiding under Vega.

I’ve been trying hard to find something I love about Vega’s recent Nine Objects of Desire, and I haven’t found it yet. Its production seems a mismatch for her, as if they’re not sure whether to reset a folk-rock jewel as an alternative diva or a female Sting. Don’t count on her voice showing off your speakers or imaging; it’s phased, smeared, and castable as a voiceover for a psychotic computer. This album has done very well in sales, perhaps it’s the great cover and title. The oft-played Caramel is a nice cut, and there’s one cut which feels like a tip of the hat to Donovan’s Sunshine Superman. But don’t go by me, I could be stuck on her early persona and unwilling to leave it; Steve Sullivan likes this album a lot, and it does sound good for a CD.

Notwithstanding Morissette-backlash, and the political unacceptability of praising her work, Jagged Little Pill is a good piece of pop magic. Glen Ballard’s production is a lesson in hit-making. There’s a reason this album sold so much, and it wasn’t only to the teens. Ballard is 40-something, and his production references from (just for starters) Hendrix, Beatles, Dylan, Joni, even Streisand (that refrain from Ironic is a straight Barbra swipe), make it easy for Boomers to hear this Gen-X kvitcher and like it. The steals just keep on coming. Derivative IS its style, and it’s supposed to be. Every other bar is lifted from yet another singer, producer or album. Pill is like Trivial Pursuit to listen to, and that’s fun in itself, perhaps even the point of this work. Ballard has attempted a Phil Spector for the late 90s; wall of sound, computer scored, and massive. Like her or not, Alanis Morissette has a talent for hooks, and expresses herself in a money-making way. Will she stand the test of time? Who knows, but she’s perfect in ‘phones for the NY subway.

One of the very few reasons for a New Yorker to even admit to owning a country record is Ms. Emmylou. Besides holding the position of "all-time hottest looking on an album cover," a position which Carly kept shooting for, but which Emmylou didn’t need too many stylists to achieve, her voice is pure, true, and divine. I like Evangeline, and a Half Speed of Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town.

In the country vein for a moment, now that it’s opened, Alison Kraus, besides her virtuoso fiddling, has a killer voice and sensitive interpretation. Keep your eyes on her. And though I’d rather listen to Patsy Cline, Leanne Rimes is somewhat of a prodigy in that style. I don’t yet know enough of K.D. Lang to speak of her intelligently, but a good deal of what I hear is extraordinary.

I have a thing for these Canadian singer-songwriters. Best known for writing the Ronstadt hit Heart Like a Wheel, check them out. You may find them tricky to take at times but there are moments when they tear your heart out. Try the 1979 Dancer With Bruised Knees.

One of my favorite "reference discs," if such a silly thing has any meaning, is an old Nautilus of Dreamboat Annie. Go find me something that rocks more than Magic Man or Crazy On You. A knockout recording.

Amy Ray and Emily Saliers could have been those two nice girls who showed up at summer camp and got you all to sing along. That is, if those girls did a mean Van Morrison, James Taylor, CSN, Paul and Artie, Jim Croce, Keith and Mick, Airplane, Tom Petty, and Pink Floyd. Indigo Girls are one of the more important sounds in contemporary pop. Keeping alive the folk-rock tradition, garage/basement band sounds, and interesting vocal harmonies, the Girls are definitely "grow on you" artists. I was a big fan of their Swamp Ophelia a couple of years ago, and their recent Shaming of the Sun fast worked its way into my playlist. Both Ray and Saliers have distinctive and strong individual talents and together their work is compelling and sonically solid. Not every tune is a keeper, but there are some sounds, moods, joys and pains they can do together which just about no one else does today.

It’s all too easy for the consumer press and publicists to come up with facile labels like "A Joni for the VH1 generation." And how is an artist to deal with overhype? Give Jewel a bit of credit. She has pipes, technique and showmanship. She can cop Mitchell, Baez and Judy Collins. She can belt and God help us, yodel. You may, however never look at her with a straight face again if you’ve seen Ana Gasteyer’s SNL sendup. Jewel’s really a lot better than I suppose I want her to be. Joni was undeniably Joni on her first album but wasn’t canonizable until she had a larger body of work. So Jewel, do us a few miracles before beatification.

A must read, and the best book on women in rock is Gillian Gaar’s 1992 She’s a Rebel (Seal Press, Seattle). The author fills over 460 pages on the women in rock alone, and it looks like she could have kept going. But I had to stop somewhere... If your fave record or artist isn’t mentioned, it ain’t cause I don’t love her; this isn’t meant to be exhaustive.

In case you think I’m suffering from the kind of audio apartheid which has afflicted the record business, and ghettoized the white girls in this piece, guilty as charged. The topic is so huge I’ve not even scratched the surface, so watch this space for Cassandra , Whitney, Patti, Aretha, Tracy, Tina, Toni, Nina, Sade, Ella, Sarah, and more. And just wait till I turn you on the the great flamenco cantaoras La Nina de Los Peines, La Fernanda and La Bernarda de Utrera, Carmen Linares, Lole Montoya and Tomasa la Macanita.

A little while before she died, Sarah Vaughan played New York’s Blue Note and I was lucky enough to sit up front during one of her last public gigs. One of Sassy’s showpiece bits was to teach the audience that "it’s not the song, it’s the singer." She demoed this principle by using a song generally considered to bite, Rhinestone Cowboy. First she sang it in the standard Glen Campbell way, not parodying, just the way it was intended. Then, just like Tina saying "Now we’re gonna do it a little... rough" Vaughan took this dumb tune into jazz heaven. But she was sure right.

When you come out of the closet and stop listening to obscure audiophile singers only because you can hear their breath binaurally and they exercise your tweeter, it’s time to admit to your collection of Audio Playmates. Admit that it’s not just because you like her voice hovering between those mongo speakers, it’s because you want that voice whispering in your ear from a pillow. The Discovery Channel teaches us that boids do it (sing) mostly for mating reasons. It’s certainly not the only reason; there are brilliant vocalists you don’t have to fantasize about. Or could it be, as Nora Ephron’s Harry told Sally: "Nah. Them you pretty much wanna nail too."

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