Contemplating a career in music? Perhaps you’re thinking of following in the footsteps of the newest showbiz ingénue, Lana Del Rey?
Well, what happens when a killer tune, a nice voice and a model’s pout is simply not enough?
Take, for example, newly minted pop star Del Rey, who experienced a baffling meltdown on a recent Saturday Night Live appearance. The cringe-inducing performance was her unfortunate debut on U.S. television, and it brought on the wrath of critics like Hollywood Reporter scribe and actress Juliette Lewis who tweeted, “Wow watching this 'singer' on SNL is like watching a 12 yearold [sic] in their bedroom when theyre [sic] pretending to sing and perform. #signofourtimes.”
Ouch!
Have a look:
Apparently Del Rey’s own handlers felt she needed some more rehearsal, so they pulled her out of a highly anticipated North American tour.
But fear not Del Rey – all is not lost! The CBC is here to help emerging talent.
I thought that a performance primer could be created to help Del Rey and countless others avoid the pitfall of a bad night at the office. So I sought the sage council of Elaine Overholt, a respected vocal coach to the stars, to weigh in. What she says is powerful tough love for a budding star.
Man-up Del Rey: if you take Overholt’s advice you’ll be just fine.
Elaine Overholt on Lana Del Rey’s performance weaknesses
“Everything about Lana's performance is pulled into herself – away from her audience. We hate that because it feels like the performer is hiding something – or that they don't care. Her voice is pulled into the back of her throat, her hair is often covering one eye (and she's constantly pulling at it), she's wearing a dress that makes her want to stay small and ‘pretty,’ her consonants and vowels are rolled back in her mouth.
“Thus, it starts to look like performance masturbation, only not even titillating to watch because she is completely on one level, never ever showing us any true, gut-level emotion or personal enjoyment. She may just have been purely terrified of the gig, and resorted to pulling everything back – death for a performer. In order to combat that fear, you have to nail it head on, fearlessly throw it all forward to the audience.
“Vocally, when a singer puts the sound that far back in the mouth, it creates a fakey-phony sound. The audience senses that, even though they may not be able to put words to it. Interestingly, it is not at all the sound on her original recording of the song, where she has a nice ‘edge’ to her voice all the way through. Also, when that ‘core’ to the voice is not there, it makes it very hard to stay in tune, and she certainly had some pitch problems in the song. And the high range is completely ungrounded. That may be another reason the audience is ticked off – she's selling a completely different sound (and an inauthentic one) than what she sold to them on the recording. Ah, the joys of technology! And let's not forget that the lyrical content of this song is incredibly negative, so the performer had better find a way to make it palatable.
“An audience wants to feel that you are really ‘working’ for them, that you want them to hear these brilliant words you have written – that your ‘intention’ is huge and clear. They want the performer to take them from their boring, difficult lives and raise them up, even for just three minutes. Instead, (although I believe she was merely terrified) what she gave was a lyrically dark song with a self indulgent-looking performance, where it was all about her, and not about her audience at all.
“I would like to believe that she is really a very lovely person who hasn't yet learned to use her ‘forward’ energy and voice, put the text on the tip of her teeth, get into her legs, use the ‘rock face,’ learn forward and show them how incredibly ‘intent’ she is on getting her message across. Her job is to rock her audience's world, and instead, in her fear, she pulled back into her cocoon. Boxing lessons might help.”
Come on Canada - I just know you want to weigh in on this one...
Related links:
Elaine Overholt – vocal coach
Reviewing the 2012 Juno performances