— Listicles —

Most Tortured Pitchfork Descriptions of Singers’ Voices

… like Ray Charles crossbred with Otis Redding’s Shih Tzu.

… like Björk if she were on a bus driven by Leslie Feist that only stopped at Ronnie Spector’s smoke-filled diner.

Imagine Fela Kuti climbing inside David Byrne’s mother’s womb, replacing Byrne’s upper range with his own—on helium—then discovering he couldn’t get out and swallowing walrus oil in despair.

… like Shakira if she were serving on President Liza Minnelli’s war cabinet and wandered into the Lincoln Bedroom where Maria Callas’s ghost was hiding.

… early Springsteen trapped in Schrödinger’s box, if it were made of rubber, except near the top, where Eric Burdon is putting in metal siding, and when Springsteen writes Burdon a bad check for the job, Gary Numan declares that both cheapwad Springsteen and solvent Springsteen occupy the box at the same time.

It’s as if Will Oldham went back in time and prevented Bowie from being stung by a mosquito and then came back to his own time and discovered that all human beings had been replaced by Sly Stone. Also, the time machine was designed by Captain Beefheart.