Why John Darnielle is one of the best singers in rock music today.

I know, it sounds ridiculous, like one of those deliberately contrary things that people say on music blogs the world over to try to differentiate themselves from the pack. But bear with me here: first up, I don’t mean “in all music ever”. I’m deliberately keeping my argument to a pretty narrow focus here, on the rock & pop world (inadequate though we might deem those descriptions to be). I’m not well-versed enough in the other myriad forms of vocal-dependent music to comment on them. Secondly, I don’t mean to say that John Darnielle has a great singing voice. That’s clearly not the case. Sure, he hits the notes okay, has a pretty good range, but tonally his voice is nasal and over-strident. I don’t think anyone’s denying that.

But Billie Holiday didn’t have a great voice, either. And we all know she was one the greatest singers of the 20^th century (and that’s not just received wisdom: go check out some of her Columbia recordings from the ’30s and ’40s). Sometimes what a person does with his or her voice can surpass any limitations within that voice. John Darnielle is one of those people.

This is thanks in no small part to his much-talked about move from bedroom & boombox recording to working within an actual, properly kitted out studio. As has been mentioned by many people in the past, the microphone can be as much of a musical instrument as a guitar or a drum or anything else. When he was recording his songs straight onto cassette John Darnielle’s singing was pretty uniform: just about every song was belted out at maximum force, perhaps out of necessity: subtleties are easily lost among the tape hiss.

Since his move to the studio with Tallahassee, though, he seems to have been revelling in the possibilities granted by the use of a proper microphone. His lyrics had always been exceptional: now he tempers his singing to suit those lyrics. This is demonstrated best on the Mountain Goats’ great, great album from 2005, the Sunset Tree. His voice shifts through all the gears, just as the songs on the album display all human emotions: angry and defiant on “This Year”; desperate and urgent on “Hast Thou Considered the Tetrapod?”; quiet and resigned on “Pale Green Things”. The album carries a massive emotional weight, and that’s in no small part to the attention to detail John Darnielle puts into his singing throughout.

There aren’t many people out there in the rock & pop world at the moment who are doing what he’s doing with his voice. Next time you listen to your favourite contemporary rock album, just pay attention to the singer. How much is he or she doing, vocally? Is there any variety between songs? Probably not, I’d bet. That’s why John Darnielle is one of the best singers in rock music today.