Thursday, March 10, 2011

March 15-- The Crooner, Part I (Rudy Vallee)



Reading:

  • Allison McCracken (2001) “Real Men Don’t Sing Ballads: The Radio Crooner in Hollywood, 1929-1933,” from Soundtrack Available: Essays on Film and Popular Music, ed. Pamela Robertson Wojcik and Arthur Knight
  • "Singing Teachers Condemn Crooning," New York Times, 23 February 1932, p 19
  • "Full-Voiced Singers Encroach on Popularity of the Crooners," New York Times, 1 May 1932, p. X10


Listening:

  • Rudy Vallee, “Would You Like to Take a Walk,” “Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” "I Love the Moon"
  • Bing Crosby “I Surrender Dear”


Artifact posting is on either:


  • one of the New York Times articles-----or
  • comparison of Vallee's and Crosby's singing voice (based on the Blackboard tracks)


NOTE: If your comment doesn't show up right away, don't worry--it just means I have to take it out of the spam folder.

10 comments:

Angela said...

Question
Is sensitivity even a feminine characteristic if the male / the crooner expressing the sensitivity via song desires females, gives “sex” to the voice, and has a extensive female fan base? Or was this just a defense of the men in society because that felt threatened by the masculinity and the females’ desires for the crooners?

Artifact Discussion
While both Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby are defined as “crooners,” they have unique voices and singing styles that are very different from each other. Bing Crosby in “I Surrender Dear” uses a lower, deep voice than Rudy Vallee typically uses. Crosby sounds very sophisticated and proper in his song, whereas Vallee seems to have a bit of a country twang that makes him sound more homely and ordinary, so to speak. Both singers use a strong, appropriate vibrato in their singing voices. The vibrato adds to the emotion associated with each phrase, each word, and each note. Crosby has a definite jazzy, swing feel to his song. For instance, in “I Surrender Dear,” the word “dear” has a lift on the last part of the note. In contrast to the easy-going slight swing, Vallee instead employs a more traditional long-short syncopation, particularly in eighth notes. For instance, in the song “Would You Like to Take a Walk?” there is a distinctive long-short eighth note pattern in that phrase and in phrases such as “I’d like to bet a juicy huckleberry.”
McCracken claims, “What is most sexually suggestive and characteristic of crooning songs is that crooners can’t quite reach the higher note; the effort is almost too much for them and they seem constantly on the verge of expiring, always on the edge of attainment (always, therefore, on the brink of orgasm).” I did not really notice this in Crosby’s singing, as Crosby mainly stayed in the comfortable lower register, but I definitely noticed it in Vallee’s voice. For example, in Vallee’s song “Life is just a bowl of cherries,” Vallee attempts to go to a higher register around 1:58 with the phrase “so live and laugh at it all.” It seemed that Vallee was about to expire at any point during that phrase and that he was exerting more effort into the phrase than it was worth. Whereas Crosby’s singing for the most part seemed effortless, Vallee definitely exhibited the ‘edge of attainment’ about which McCracken was talking about in crooners.

Emily Chang said...

Discussion Question:
Although Elvis Presley is considered a more masculine figure than both Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee, their singing styles are still somewhat similar. If the “crooner era” followed the time of Elvis’s peak success, would they be regarded as more masculine in that time context?

Artifact Discussion:
When I listened to the tracks posted on Blackboard, I started out with “I Love the Moon” by Rudy Vallee, then followed with the Bing Crosby track (“I Surrender, Dear”), and finished out with the remaining two Vallee songs. Therefore, my first auditory impression of the crooners would be from “I Love the Moon”, in which Vallee performs with a smooth, melodious voice that can definitely be labeled as feminine. He sings with a relatively higher pitched voice for a man compared to the typical male singers of his time, and it was evident that he “worked to infuse his songs with however much ‘emotion and feeling’ the lyrics seemed to warrant” (McCracken 113). In more musical terms, his voice could very well be described as the sound of the legato melody of a violin – a romantic, treble instrument often used for emotional songs.
Vallee’s apparent “lack of sexual aggression” via vocals was probably so appealing to women in his time because of traditional gender relations (McCracken 117). In general, men typically dominated over women, especially their wives, emphasizing the more aggressive role men would take on. From listening to Vallee’s songs, women would probably think that he is a gentle, kind man whom they would love to be with because he is DIFFERENT – he is not the ordinary, domineering man that they would normally find.
Then, shifting gears to “I Surrender, Dear”, I could tell that indeed “Crosby lowered the pitch of his crooning songs”, which made a definite contrast between this track and the previous Rudy Vallee one (McCracken 119). This corroborates the idea presented in the McCracken article of Crosby being more a playboy than Vallee, for a lower-pitched voice indicates masculinity, and masculinity is associated with the active pursuit of women (as in a man-to-playboy woman relationship) in various aspects of life including music.

Evan said...

Question:

McCracken hints that Vallee’s lack of sexual aggression toward women was one of the things that drew female audiences to adore him. Artists who have come since, however, have been propelled to fame for the exact opposite reason – see Elvis, Hendrix, etc. Can we say that women’s preferences in sexuality have changed? Or perhaps that men have become a larger presence in the consumption of male vocal music?

Artifact Discussion:

There are large differences between Rudy Vallee’s style of crooning and that of Bing Crosby. I can definitely understand McCracken’s explanation of why Rudy Vallee was so controversial at first while Bing Crosby was more widely accepted. Rudy Vallee’s songs definitely have a feminine quality to them. The first thing that I noticed was his high voice. I was expecting a much deeper voice, more similar to other artists of his time, and according to McCracken, more acceptable. His voice is so high, in fact, that at first I thought I was listening to “Would You Like to Take a Walk”, I almost thought I had started listening to a woman. His melodies, too, remind me of something that a woman would sing. They have a feminine quality to it – light and playful instead of deep and sober. On a similar note, Vallee’s lyrics are not gendered. In many cases they can be just as easily sung by a woman as a man. Vallee was certainly a woman’s man, not a man’s man, which at the time was the more acceptable form of masculinity.
Bing Crosby, on the other hand, has a much deeper voice, one that definitely has a masculine quality to it. It is much closer to what I would expect from a voice at that time. While it is smooth and uses vibrato, it is deep. Crosby’s lyrics, however are effeminate. “I may seem proud… it’s just a pose, I’m not that way. Deep down in my heart I say, I surrender, Dear.” Crosby is confessing that his masculine attitude is just a front. Still he is acknowledging that this is somehow wrong, and that he really shouldn’t feel this way. I can certainly see how the combination of his slightly feminine lyrics and the masculinity in his voice strike more of a balance which makes Crosby more acceptable to the codes of masculinity.

Athira said...

Question:
Music is a medium for expressing emotion. Do men use music to express different emotions than women? McCracken suggests that at least in crooning, men who associated themselves with "the feminine" too strongly were unsuccessful. Is this true for all genres of music? And how rigidly are these distinctions between "the masculine" and "the feminine" policed?

Discussion:
The New York Times articles had very different tones. "Singing Teachers Condemn Crooning" talks about the form like it's degenerate and harmful. Frederic Warren of the NYSTA is quoted saying, "it robs the human voice of its ability to express the higher emotions and deprives it of its inherently devotional ability." McCracken suggested that this was a common evaluation. "By the early 1930s, crooners had become the object of widespread condemnation by critics who referred to them most frequently as 'emasculated, effeminate whiners,'" she asserts. (I mean, what exactly is the difference between "appropriate" sadness and "inappropriate" whining? Who gets to decide what that distinction is? Is it the same for all people?) On the other hand, "Full-Voiced Singers Encroach on the Popularity of Crooners" referred to crooning as singing in a gentle, whispering tone that "people liked."

McCracken's article suggests that there's tension surrounding normative gender roles. A person who behaves transgressively, who breaks the rules, makes others anxious. (If this person isn't playing by the same rules I'm playing by, then what rules are they playing by?) So, whether consciously or subconsciously, people experience a drive to stop transgressors in their tracks; it's a self-defense mechanism. (Ultimately, we all operate within an "ideology" that takes assumptions and makes them into fact, and there's a subconscious drive to protect our ideology and deny information that contradicts what we want to think.)

Anyway, McCracken suggests that Crosby was the crooner to maintain success because he smartly balanced the transgressive aspects of his crooner status with elements of traditional masculinity. This seemed to satiate the public's need for convention.

Harold Hamann said...

Question: Was there the same kind of stigma towards crooners like Frank Sinatra when they sang songs like “Come Fly with Me” or “I’ve Got the World on a String?” These songs are arguably more up beat and lively when compared to the ballades presented by Vallee and Crosby. Couldn’t these songs above me considered more carefree and talented, than the stigmatized ballades Vallee and Crosby sang?

Artifact discussion:
I started this listening with Vallee’s “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” The tempo was very subdued and relied heavily on muted brass instruments and the piano. This was common for all of Vallee’s songs presented to us. It is interesting to contrast the instrumentation of Vallee’s songs and Crobsy’s song. Crosby’s “I Surrender Dear” uses a full orchestra on the downbeat. The contrast in instrumentation may have something to do with the intended audience. Crosby seems much more delicate and with his voice, while still maintain his masculinity. Vallee’s dynamic range is very static. Though his vocal range is extensive and he makes large interval leaps, it still sounds as though is talking with a heavy inflection to the audience and not necessarily singing.

In contrast, Crosby seems much more talented when compared to Vallee just because his greater dynamic level and different instrumentation. Crosby even starts out “I Surrender Dear” at a slightly lower register than Vallee’s songs combined. If we are trying to compare masculinity, the ability to start at this lower register may signify that Crosby is the more “masculine” singer of the two. However, we should not make the distinction between pitch as necessarily masculine or not. Lastly, Crosby used a wider vibrato than Vallee’s short, controlled vibrato. I feel the wider vibrato made the songs more emotional and displayed a song easier to the ear than Vallee’s songs. Personally, I prefer the sound of Crosby’s voice and that of Sinatra compared to Vallee.

Matt Circle said...

Question:
The age of crooning exemplifies a large contrast in female audience taste of male singers, when compared to the age of rock and roll that we studied previously in the semester. McCracken classifies crooning as effeminate and emasculating. Thus, what social factors do you think affected women's change in taste of male artists from expressing little sex appeal to the opposite end of the spectrum?

Artifact Discussion:
After listening to both Vallee and Crosby, McCracken's description of crooning became much clearer. You can really tell that there is not much room in crooning for a wide range of vocal pitches. The songs posted to Blackboard, Vallee and Crosby alike, seem to prove to me that crooning songs are all pretty mellow and banal.

The main difference that I noted between Vallee's and Crosby's respective styles is the pitch of their voices. Crosby seemed to force his voice into a very low range, never hitting a high pitch. Although I would not describe this as very musically talented, since it does not have the wide range of a normal singing voice, it still retains a very cool and masculine tone. It is easy to tell why Crosby had a wider audience than Vallee, as McCracken discusses.

Rudy Vallee, on the other hand, forces the pitch of his voice in the other direction. It maintains an effeminately high range. To me, this better exemplifies the "emasculated, whining" representation of crooning that was condemned by critics. The lyrics certainly do not help either to accredit Vallee as masculine. There is nothing sexually suggestive in his songs. The lyrics take gender out of the equation, and thus make it easier to classify Vallee's singing as effeminate. For instance, it would be strange and misplaced if Elvis Presley sang his masculine lyrics in a high-pitched voice. However, since Vallee's songs are non-gendered, you can easily mistake his voice for that of a woman's. Thus, it is not hard to understand why Vallee's style was more highly criticized than Crosby's, as it transcends gender relations.

Samantha said...

In my opinion, the musical uprising against crooners appears unfounded. Why did crooners create such controversy in the music world?

I read the article in the New York Times entitled “Singing Teachers Condemn Crooning” in which vocal teachers reject the crooning style as a proper genre of singing. They make many claims against crooners, stating that “If you will listen closely when you are unfortunate enough to get one of these [crooners], you will discern the basest appeal to sex emotions in the young. They are not true love songs; they profane the name.” However, while listening to the Rudy Vallee and Bing Crosby tracks, I had trouble discerning the sexual nature of the songs. I found the lyrics to be romantic, sweet, and hardly suggestive of profane sexuality.

In terms of musical talent, Vallee’s voice is not particularly impressive nor are his lyrics the least bit complex, but he stays on tune and he creates a lackadaisical mood in his “Would You Like to Take a Walk?” I thought his music was relaxing and upbeat. On the other hand, Crosby’s voice is much deeper and sultrier than Vallee’s. His lyrics “I surrender, dear” suggest an innocent sexuality and the strings in the background present a more romantic sound than that of Vallee. Crosby also sings with a stronger voice and he has more of a vocal range. He makes use of more musical elements such as vibrato as well as the crescendo, so I would argue that Crosby is the more talented of the two crooners.

Unknown said...

Question:
Was it popular to make movies about oneself? Both Crosby and Vallee do it, yet I feel like fake autobiographies are considered a bit tacky today.

Artifact discussion:
It is hard for me to completely understand Bing Crosby’s persona because he was the “everyman” who took on so many roles. “I surrender, Dear” starts off with an eerie violin, but Bing’s voice does not resonate romantically or eerily behind it. It is as if he does not fit the opening music. Once he begins to sing, the background music becomes repetitive and less loud. It is almost a different song. He does not boom the main line: “I surrender, dear” rather it is soft crooning. The song seems like a build up to nothing. He gets faster and more intense but then calms down when singing the chorus. After the chorus he begins the build up again. Also his voice is not powerful enough for the lyrics in the song. I would imagine someone (even a woman) with a much more intensely loving voice singing those words. It makes sense that his image was careless and devoid of intensity. In one episode of Mad Men, they use a Crosby ballad. I think this is perfect because Don Draper, the main character, does not seem to care about his wife at all. He is completely detached like Crosby.
I think the same could be said of Rudy Vallee. He sounds like a complete wimp when crooning “I love the wild birds.” I can completely understand why people questioned his masculinity because there is no depth to his voice. It seems to be in falsetto. At least Bing seems less strained when singing.

Anonymous said...

Question:
I am intrigued as to why crooners are considered feminine and thus can be rejected by other males, yet someone like Mick Jagger was considered somewhat homosexual and was loved by his male audience. Was acting like a female less acceptable than acting homosexual?

Artifact Discussion:
I found Vallee’s singing style to be very different (and I’d argue more ‘feminine’) than Crosby’s. First off, his voice was pretty high-pitched and a bit weak (like he didn’t have the energy to fully hit his notes), which instantly brands him as more feminine than Crosby, who has a much deeper and lower voice. While Crosby’s voice carries more reverb and covers a decently sized range, Vallee’s voice stays within a specific range (which seems to be a little too high for him) and sounds very similar from track to track. Granted, we only listened to one track by Crosby, but I predict his voice is a bit more flexible from song to song, given what I heard in this track. His vibrato sounded much more controlled than Vallee’s, and he had more change in dynamics.
Lastly, Vallee also sounded much more nasal, almost cartoony, than Crosby. It was as if he were faking his voice, which begs the question then if his singing voice was actually natural. This then makes me wonder how much of the rejection he may have faced from people was due to his sounding like a female rather than for his attempts to sound like a female. Could the real issue that made people uncomfortable have been not that he sounded feminine, but instead was that he was trying to sound like someone he wasn’t?

AJ said...

Question:
The article about the waning popularity of the crooners suggests that their time has passed, but really pulls in the “there’s a season for everything” argument. It heightens the differences of the crooning style of singing and the vocalization of full voiced singers who never “whisper”, and how much about the success of the songs is giving the masses what they want. However, the article by McCracken initially suggests that the waning interest had more to do with the desire for an American style of music that was dominant, that did not forsake the patriarchal, that wasn’t largely controlled/ bolstered by a domestic audience, especially during a time of economic shift and the way the country faced hardship. How much truth do these perspectives hold to what was happening in the times, and how might they have interplayed in fostering a climate that saw the diminishing popularity of crooning?

Artifact discussion:
It really surprises me that even in the argument of the article “Full Voiced Singers Encroach on Popularity of Crooners”, there are still some hints of an allusion to “feminine” or docile aspects of the crooners persona—the “lesser voice”, “giving the public what it wanted in a style that people liked” (conformity), “had no preconceived notions about singing style and was amenable to direction”; unlike the “full voiced singer” whose style the “radio could not handle”, who owned the concert stage, and showed emotion, anger even, was an individual.
While the article seems to be praising the attributes of the crooner and his ability to appeal to an audience via radio singing, it almost does it in a way that makes crooners seem lesser (in masculinity in success); than other types of vocalists. It reveals then in a way, perhaps the unconscious biases that may have existed (according to the reading). Was the demise of crooning result of retribution against femininity, or assertion of masculinity? Or was it really that full voiced singing trumped “whispering” in a land where being loud and proud would become increasingly important in the years to come?