The Pretty Reckless "25" REACTION & ANALYSIS by Vocal Coach / Opera Singer

welcome back to the charismatic voice today i get to investigate an artist that i have been wanting it to dig into for a very long time but it is actually our patrons choice day luckily these things are coinciding so the patrons have chosen the pretty reckless and specifically we're going to be taking a look at 25 the unplugged version i have been wanting to investigate taylor momsen's vocals ever since a student sang this song it must have been at least six months ago and he told me about how extraordinary she is i have just been waiting for the right moment and it has finally arrived taylor momsen got her start as an actress and how the grinch stole christmas i believe that was in 2000 and she's done quite a bit of acting ever since but she went on record at one point as saying that acting is essentially getting to play another person while singing is essentially getting to play herself so it's pretty cool i think that she also fronts a rock band and this song was written after she'd gone through some pretty traumatic events essentially she lost a couple of people close to her very notably one of those people was chris cornell pretty reckless was opening for sound garden the night before he took his life so i imagine that we're going to hear a lot of the pain that that really brought into taylor's life in this song let's get to it [Music] year one was lots of fun but nothing lasts forever in my dreams too i followed you because you knew the way i still believed that we would be becoming destiny [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] ah that is a really good low range and it's funny her voice doesn't sound like it's super meaty down there so i wouldn't say she's like a contralto but you hear just so much depth and good core in that sound in that lower range that's that's very very impressive low um i want to talk about the way they've put together this video it was uh i believe this is during the pandemic and you have very limited resources for how you can film a music video during the pandemic i love this fading between the piano and her it's just it's simple it's effective and the pianist is duncan watt by the way um and i love that they're just kind of keeping it pretty stripped down here i really like that because i can hear lots of extra details in her voice as well very very interesting i'm gonna go back because her timbre is particularly grabbing me right now uh maybe here but nothing left year one was lots of fun but nothing lasts forever in my dreams until i followed you [Music] i love the way she transitioned up to this very light delicate head voice unseemed um it feels like uh you have almost like an apparition of sound unseemed it was such a good word to do that on the full throatedness of her sound is delightful i like the grit in it it feels real it feels raw but it's so funny i was thinking uh about lizzie hale and like maybe is there some similarity in here to lizzy hill lizzy has a little bit more often like a little more bite in the sound and she has a little more throatiness in the sound but they feel like they both have just really strong personalities that are coming through in the words and it feels honest and gritty additionally i should mention i believe she's gone on record as saying this is essentially autobiographical so all of these words which are heavy and pretty dark are are true it's kind of cool i still believed that we would be becoming destiny [Music] [Applause] [Music] things [Music] so interesting that she closes to that ng there and really lingers on it uh this is kind of again reminding me of uh david draymond he will really close to ends and ngs he did that in the sound of silence at one point often that is not considered like your go-to classical technique you want to open the vowel and stay on that ball for longer but i think it's fascinating to hear how much sound energy she is pouring through that ng if you're gonna have consistency in your levels if you go to a closed consonant a nasal consonant like that in order to have the same amount of sound energy you actually have to give more energy to drive it through because you're losing a little bit of that energy by it going through some things in here if you just open your mouth up it's gonna easily carry more [Music] [Applause] [Music] much longer than expected shatters in my hand [Music] that is delightful and almost like oh goodness she's not tearing apart her vocal folds when she goes up to that high note and it's not it's not even particularly high there it just sounds like the higher note within the phrase in her voice but when she goes up there in her full voice and she gives all of this extra rasp all of this extra distortion she's not ripping apart her vocal folds even though it sounds like it a little bit right it sounds so gritty it sounds like uh it sounds like a wild animal is trying to get out because when she goes back to pretty singing afterwards pretty singing ooh i hope i'm not implying that any sort of rasp or growl is not pretty it is pretty in its own way but maybe it's not pristine so when she goes back to pristine singing it is so clean and it sounds easy and gentle so i don't feel like she's doing any sort of damage in the interim uh let's go back to this this is nice [Music] oh lovely continuation through those consonants [Music] five to six a lie a kiss the secrets that were served we'd never say skipped ate we called it [Music] reflected in the barrel of a [Music] gun we're here against [Music] i love her addiction i just i love it she's so specific about it i get all of the words she even is really specific about whether or not she has a t which is a stop t or a t which she sings through so at one point she says skip to eight at the beginning of this verse and she doesn't say eight and have a t at the end it's eight and she closed it off uh there are many many times in here where she's going through an in and really buzzing through that in we got a glimpse of that before with that ng in there um but when she goes to fate she does a t at the end fate it's so cool i'm gonna go back to the beginning of this verse and listen to these final consonants they are so specific they are very specifically placed on certain beats or held out for a certain amount of time i wonder if this comes from that acting background where you really take a lot of focus on the various kinds of diction or enunciation that you say i can tell that she has uh spent so much time in her life thinking about these things i don't know if she does it automatically at this point or if she's thinking about it if it's a song that she's been singing for a really long time it's probably fairly automatic but i wonder when she was first working on it did she say oh i definitely want to make sure that eight is a stop and that fate is good gonna continue that tea plosive out let's go back to here is [Music] we called it fate to live to let us die another day and when the headway i saw the signs reflected [Music] those who love me burn [Music] much longer than expected for a man [Music] [Music] i am loving the build that they're giving here even with an unplugged version right um i i like the word unplugged by the way instead of saying acoustic which feels almost like it can be a little bit snooty at times depending on which kind of circles you run in or it might sound like oh it's very calming uh unplugged is a great way to describe like hey we're just not gonna have as many effects on this right maybe we're doing it in a microphone but we're not gonna have like tons of amplification and we're gonna use an acoustic piano here so anyhow i like the word unplugged i love that this is something that is trending and it just it makes me extremely happy to get to hear singers uh more stripped down like this i love that within this format they are really creating some fantastic build i at the end here i wanted to hear her like break out into this like crazy belted extended moment but then she brought it back and it was soft and i was like oh give me more right it's just amazing push and pull that is managing expectations and is really you know hooking us in it's fun let's keep [Music] [Music] much [Music] i think this is so interesting i i don't know how old she was when she did how the grinch stole christmas but she's saying from 11 12 i held the future in my grasp and that makes me wonder if that was when that was released um because it sounds like it was like such a happy time in life and even in the piano we've entered into a major key here and it's also bouncy it's got more staccato happening and it's also higher in the register so he's not playing really low octaves when it's higher it feels lighter it feels brighter and happier so all of these things are essentially contributing to a feeling of more levity and yeah i think that just really matches the lyrics there and i i'm really curious about which specific moment those lyrics were written for up let's go back again really notice how the piano is affecting the overall tone of the piece here [Music] 21 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 oh my goodness the piano actually seems like i there was something that might have been slightly out of tune right there not sure um the i want to talk about the beautiful shift that they're doing again this is done during the pandemic they didn't have a lot of resources to make an unplugged video i love the way that they're doing frame shifts as they're going between um almost sounds like clock ticking here which i'm guessing is exactly what they were going for or not um not just clock ticking but almost like a bell tolling as if you had a grandfather clock digging right really cool uh could i go back right a little bit here the frame shifts are cool [Music] 25 and still a life much longer than expected for me at 25 the glass of my intentions the glass of my intentions okay we're gonna go back and listen to that again i'm shocked by the this like screech that comes in at glass each time it's like it doesn't even really have pitch anymore it has that much distortion in it i feel like it's such a great way to express glass shattering it's like the voice has shattered there i just i feel like this is one of the more effective ways that i've heard harsh vocals used in a song and and really interwoven it's not an entire uh verse of it you know she's really just coming in and doing it with one word and it's just fascinating i love i love how it's interwoven uh here it is [Music] also this gave me major shivers i think that the drive here and her voice is amazing it really does have like a certain um like lizzy hailish kind of buzz and bite to it uh i'd love to hear these two doing a do it i think that'd be pretty fantastic and i just i feel like the overall singing technique has to be so much in her body to not be wreaking havoc on her vocal folds at this point this is some pretty heavy belting um she's still pretty close to the microphone so i don't know how loud it would be in person um but that's probably good you don't want to be like crazy crazy loud on your belts unless you have tons of practice and endurance to get it up to that point a lot of times people's might seem louder in belts um partly because they're on a microphone so anyhow i'm gonna come back uh right here that part right there that's the part that gave me shivers before we're going to listen to it a few times i love the slide on dyed she even uses the diphthong and that word i'd to really [Music] there's like there's some other artists that this is reminding me of almost like like a little freddy mercury in there it's just i love this died [Music] shatters in my [Music] [Applause] [Music] again final beautiful consonant and interesting uh in d could be a voice consonant it could be n right a d in that situation could be voiced but if you're doing something that's much quieter and you want to have a delicate touch you can sing it as a t hand which is exactly what she does she really has a beautiful decrescendo in this i like the way she's switching into her head voice there to have this like tender sound like a lot of loss that shattering it makes you have that feeling of loss and this really to me this emotional attachment and messaging makes so much sense considering what she had just been through when writing this song you heal you feel um like the shattering of life expectations when someone you know that's close to you has killed themselves like that must just be such an awful moment to go through and also to have it uh another person close to die in that same time period wow just wow so i really hear when she goes up into hand you know instead of having this big full moment that's out here it's like a feeling of so much loss and a just uh disappointment and you hear it just fading away and then this t at the end that's perfectly placed on a beat it really is a good choice instead of the voiced d so all of these things are adding to a beautiful beautiful [Applause] [Music] hmm i love the choice there of fading out the piano it was a very long fade again i know that she removed herself from public spotlight after chris cornell's passing and just to sort of uh change the grip on the world and and uh deal with some things i think that's totally respectable and you hear that fading away in the piano i think it's so beautiful and it can be interpreted in tons of different ways as well wonderful choice for how to end this and the innocence and sadness in those last few lines was really really palpable overall i love the emotion that she adds into this performance and into the song it feels raw feels real uh and i love the way she's interwoven this harsh vocal line within uh clean singing and yes she does go into some distortion but that word is completely distorted and it's such a good use of vocal expression i'm very curious what else she has done i would love love to hear more of her so if you guys have suggestions please write those in the comments down below additionally if you want to join our patreon there is a way to suggest songs there and this came directly from their suggestions so you can check that out on patreon just the charismatic voice you can find us here every monday tuesday and friday at 8 a.m arizona time you can also find me online for courses about music in general and singing at thecharismaticvoice.com thank you so much for joining us here today [Music]

Channel: The Charismatic Voice

Views: 212,116

Keywords: the pretty reckless, taylor momsen, reaction video, the charismatic voice, elizabeth zharoff, the charismatic voice the pretty reckless, 25, the pretty reckless reaction, music video, the pretty reckless reaction video, the pretty reckless 25 reaction, 25 reaction video, the charismatic voice reaction, taylor momsen reaction video, taylor momsen 25 reaction

Id: xsXMvfq60jI

Length: 24min 27sec (1467 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021