Word: sopranoes
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...intriguing newcomer on the rock-music scene whose first album, Horses (Arista), has been climbing fast since its release in November. A few months ago, she was just another aspiring singer on Manhattan's underground nightspot circuit. Grafted to primitive three-chord rock, Smith's raw soprano and often menacing lyrics emerge in an effect that is curiously vulnerable. With her fame spreading almost as suddenly as the sales of her album, some music executives see Smith as a potential Janis Joplin. Bob Dylan has paid a benedictory visit to her act in Manhattan. Now Patti is beginning...
...really another Joplin. Janis was big and blowsy; Patti is a somewhat haunted-looking waif who stands 5 ft. 5 in. and weighs all of 95 Ibs. Janis liked to stretch her whisky-hoarse voice into a shredding scream now and then; Patti's vivid soprano has power to spare, but she often prefers to communicate in a throaty, low chant. What she does have in common with Joplin is a throbbing emotionality and naked intensity. Says Smith: "I want every faggot, grandmother, five-year-old and Chinaman to be able to hear my music and say YEAH...
...Ullmann's eclectic style produces a constant interplay between the melancholic and the light comic in Germany's rich musical tradition. Death, in the shabby uniform of a Central European functionary, could be a sadly tired Wotan. The Emperor's edicts are sung in the piercing soprano of the German cabaret...
LINDA RONSTADT: PRISONER IN DISGUISE (Asylum; $6.98). A year ago, Ronstadt's amazing Heart Like a Wheel album helped make her top woman singer in the Top 40s, or pretty close to it. Ronstadt sings about loss and desperation; her big, beautiful soprano radiates vulnerability. She comes naturally to heartbreakers like Dolly Parton's country classic / Will Always Love You or the old Smokey Robinson hit Tracks of My Tears. On Heat Wave Ronstadt breaks into a real rocker...
...fair-haired Eileen, Goldenberg is sweet without being cloying. Clad in dainty, full-skirted dresses that contrast with her sister's more careerish two-piece outfits, she sings in a lilting soprano and radiates a natural charm that prevents her from being too far overshadowed by Terry's necessarily more pungent characterization of Ruth...