Stereotype of Pop Punk voices: Avril Lavigne case
Oct 20, 2015 20:41:29 GMT
Cookie Monster likes this
Post by Gabo on Oct 20, 2015 20:41:29 GMT
Just like the "Valley girl" colloquial dialect, there's a new case for pop-punk singers:
The OP of the article says:
"Two decades have passed since pop-punk exploded in the American music scene, yet the quintessentially suburban, teen-centric music still seems to bounce around our collective skulls. Of all the elements of the Clinton-era mutation of punk music that embraced skate and surf culture, mild angst, goofiness, and incredibly hooky, catchy music, it's the vocals that we remember. The very specific accent used in the mega-hits of the genre seems to still have a hold over anyone who was a teenager between 1993 and 2003: On Twitter you’ll see jokes made about the “pop punk voice" used by bands like the Offspring, New Found Glory, Avril Lavigne, and, especially, Blink-182. Their accents are a relic as strong as the Valley Girl voice.
There's a whole Tumblr called Tom DeLonge Lyrics, dedicated to transliterating the spectacularly strange and exaggerated accent used by DeLonge, one of the singers of pop-punk band Blink-182. An example, transliterating the song “I Miss You”:
DeLonge is an extreme example but far from the only singer in the genre to adopt a very particular accent, usually described as sneering, whining, bratty, or snotty. By the early-2000s, with pop-punk nearing the apex of its popularity, singers from all over California had influenced singers from as far afield as Minnesota, Ontario, Maryland, and South Florida, all of whom sung pretty much just like DeLonge, who grew up just outside San Diego.
What's going on here? How did that linguistic pattern take hold?"
"April Lavigne's accent is...complicated...."
"Pop punk accent.... took their own accent, the California accent, and ramped it up, pushed it to new extremes. It was almost exactly what happened in London. Pop-punk singers became more Californian than the Californians."
"Pop-punk spread quickly. Bands aping the accent and posture of Blink-182 and the Offspring (who in turn were doing their own aping and posturing) popped up all over the continent. Good Charlotte emerged from Maryland. New Found Glory came out of Florida. And, perhaps strangest, Sum 41 and Avril Lavigne exploded out of Ontario, Canada, of all places, singing songs for teens in front of palm trees.
Or maybe it’s not so strange! The California Shift has another name north of the border: the Canadian Shift. From Ontario on west to British Columbia, the Canadian accent has been rotating in much the same way as it has in California. There are differences; the classic Canadian “about,” which is more like “aboat,” is not mirrored in California. But the Canadian dialect found itself faced with the cot-caught merger, which had a similar effect on the rest of the vowels as what happened in California.
This can be very complicated for singers like Avril Lavigne. Kennedy, who is originally from Canada, thinks she might be consciously trying, as many Canadians in the U.S. do, to dial down her Canadian accent. “Interestingly she manages to pronounce the word ‘like’ (and others with the same vowel) in a non-Canadian manner, but in the first line of ‘Complicated’ (‘chill out’), the word ‘out’ sounds Canadian to me,” he says. "
"The linguistics professors I talked to were interested in the specifics of these exaggerated or confusingly located accents: “I think it can be a more nasal way of singing, which really lends itself to punk, to rise above the din of music and cut through,” he says.
If you want to read the full article:
www.atlasobscura.com/articles/i-made-a-linguistics-professor-listen-to-a-blink-182-song-and-analyze-the-accent
So... what do you think of this? Do you see Avril's voice related to this scene?
The OP of the article says:
"Two decades have passed since pop-punk exploded in the American music scene, yet the quintessentially suburban, teen-centric music still seems to bounce around our collective skulls. Of all the elements of the Clinton-era mutation of punk music that embraced skate and surf culture, mild angst, goofiness, and incredibly hooky, catchy music, it's the vocals that we remember. The very specific accent used in the mega-hits of the genre seems to still have a hold over anyone who was a teenager between 1993 and 2003: On Twitter you’ll see jokes made about the “pop punk voice" used by bands like the Offspring, New Found Glory, Avril Lavigne, and, especially, Blink-182. Their accents are a relic as strong as the Valley Girl voice.
There's a whole Tumblr called Tom DeLonge Lyrics, dedicated to transliterating the spectacularly strange and exaggerated accent used by DeLonge, one of the singers of pop-punk band Blink-182. An example, transliterating the song “I Miss You”:
AND AS I STARED I COUNTEHHHD
THE WEBS FROM ALL THE SPYDURRRS
CATCHEENG THEENGS AND EATING THEIR INSYDES
LIKE INDECISION TO CALL YEUUUWWWW
AND HEAR YOUR VOICE OF TREEEZAWNNN
WILL YEW COME HOME AND STOP THIS PAIN TUHNYTE
STOP THIS PAIN TUHNYTE
THE WEBS FROM ALL THE SPYDURRRS
CATCHEENG THEENGS AND EATING THEIR INSYDES
LIKE INDECISION TO CALL YEUUUWWWW
AND HEAR YOUR VOICE OF TREEEZAWNNN
WILL YEW COME HOME AND STOP THIS PAIN TUHNYTE
STOP THIS PAIN TUHNYTE
DeLonge is an extreme example but far from the only singer in the genre to adopt a very particular accent, usually described as sneering, whining, bratty, or snotty. By the early-2000s, with pop-punk nearing the apex of its popularity, singers from all over California had influenced singers from as far afield as Minnesota, Ontario, Maryland, and South Florida, all of whom sung pretty much just like DeLonge, who grew up just outside San Diego.
What's going on here? How did that linguistic pattern take hold?"
"April Lavigne's accent is...complicated...."
"Pop punk accent.... took their own accent, the California accent, and ramped it up, pushed it to new extremes. It was almost exactly what happened in London. Pop-punk singers became more Californian than the Californians."
"Pop-punk spread quickly. Bands aping the accent and posture of Blink-182 and the Offspring (who in turn were doing their own aping and posturing) popped up all over the continent. Good Charlotte emerged from Maryland. New Found Glory came out of Florida. And, perhaps strangest, Sum 41 and Avril Lavigne exploded out of Ontario, Canada, of all places, singing songs for teens in front of palm trees.
Or maybe it’s not so strange! The California Shift has another name north of the border: the Canadian Shift. From Ontario on west to British Columbia, the Canadian accent has been rotating in much the same way as it has in California. There are differences; the classic Canadian “about,” which is more like “aboat,” is not mirrored in California. But the Canadian dialect found itself faced with the cot-caught merger, which had a similar effect on the rest of the vowels as what happened in California.
This can be very complicated for singers like Avril Lavigne. Kennedy, who is originally from Canada, thinks she might be consciously trying, as many Canadians in the U.S. do, to dial down her Canadian accent. “Interestingly she manages to pronounce the word ‘like’ (and others with the same vowel) in a non-Canadian manner, but in the first line of ‘Complicated’ (‘chill out’), the word ‘out’ sounds Canadian to me,” he says. "
"The linguistics professors I talked to were interested in the specifics of these exaggerated or confusingly located accents: “I think it can be a more nasal way of singing, which really lends itself to punk, to rise above the din of music and cut through,” he says.
If you want to read the full article:
www.atlasobscura.com/articles/i-made-a-linguistics-professor-listen-to-a-blink-182-song-and-analyze-the-accent
So... what do you think of this? Do you see Avril's voice related to this scene?
