Is this song haunting, or just weird?

[Morella]

You might have to right-click and "save target as" to download it, if your browser isn't configured to play an MP3 file on demand. I'm just curious to know what people think of this song...fuck the language...pretend you're at the opera. Your mother took you when you were little, right? Maybe not. Anyway, it's about a girl from the poor side of town who thought there was something wrong with her because she couldn't learn proper grammar, then she became a famous rock star, and the song is kind of an "in your face" to her teacher because her fans don't want to hear proper language anyway.

Anyway...this was recorded in my home studio, and yes I will admit to being the vocalist. One opinion is that the stuff that I record in studio has no "feeling" compared to what I do live...what do you think? Does this have "feeling", or does it sound flat and rehearsed?

http://www.admaero.com/morella/Les_Consonnes.mp3

Your opinion, even if you think that my song is a piece of shit, is welcome. I have thick skin. I would be curious to know why it is a piece of shit, though.

-d

[Guest]

hmm... hard to say. can't reckon that i understand french. the music itself does sound a little sterile to me, not the notes or the style, just the actual sound of the recorded music. how exactly did you go about recording it?

[Morella]

Is it the sound of the voice, or the backing track, that sounds "sterile"?

You can thank Tency Music in France for the soundtrack. I did something that I don't normally do with soundtracks, which was to leave it alone. The voice was recorded with a Sterling mic, MBOX2 interface, and Pro Tools, and I applied compression, reverb, and EQ to it. It was a difficult soundtrack to do, and I was actually surprised that Tency did as well as they did with it, but I did also notice that they didn't play it with the "feeling" that the original artists put into it. In fact, they were the ones who inspired me to go get a MIDI controller and start making my own tracks from now on. My neighbor across the street is a really good guitar player, so I am going to try to talk him into working with me. I can handle basslines, percussion, and synth with the keyboard, as long as I have a good guitar player, which I'm really not.

-d

[Guest]

i mean the music sounded sterile.

[Morella]

Thanks for the input. Maybe I should spice it up a little.

[Guest]

yeah to me it sounded kinda like a karaoke backing track.

[dodgerider666]

oooo yeah not for me at all too slow and just umm idk im very picky about what I like although I like alot of different kind of music

[Morella]

oooo yeah not for me at all too slow and just umm idk im very picky about what I like although I like alot of different kind of music

Well, I was looking for something more objective than subjective, but I did say that I would welcome any opinion, didn't I? Les Consonnes was done by a very famous French group called Les Rita Mitsouko. In my opinion, it is the best song that they ever did, but AFAIK it was never played on the radio, and only recorded on Acoustiques, which was a limited-edition album, in 2006. A new copy of it will cost you about $130 right now, if you can find one. The most popular song that LRM ever did was Marcia Beila, which has a latin beat, similar to Santana. I have no idea why, but people love it. When I sing it at a karaoke bar, they pound on the tables and yell, and the more cowbell I put in my soundtrack, the more they like it. I mean, I can turn the cowbell up to Will Farrell levels and they still want more.



Of course, I can imagine that French speakers would get a lot more out of Les Consonnes, because there is a very clever story behind the lyrics. That's why my tone of voice changes from frustrated, to innocent, to "hey, go to hell fuck you" at the end.

-d

[dodgerider666]

Ok ok lets see if I can make this more objective to me the instrumentals are pretty good but sounds like you should put more feelings into it you have feelings put in it but more might help.

[Morella]

Mmm, maybe what my husband said was correct, that my live shows are more interesting than my studio recordings. I never could figure out why, but with most commercial artists, it seems to be the other way around. Perhaps they have a producer in the studio who yells at them or otherwise gets them to feel something when they're recording. Mick Jagger once said (roughly paraphrased) that when you do a live show, it doesn't have to sound good, you just jump around on the stage and do anything. If you've ever heard the Rolling Stones live, it is quite obvious that he was expressing his true feelings, but I've found that LRM was exactly the opposite.

-d