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Guys, what "non-masculine" songs do you like?

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GriffinGuitar12
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22 Jul 2009, 3:35 pm

DarrylZero wrote:
GriffinGuitar12 wrote:
Sarah McLachlan and Paula Cole? Yeah they're a bit more of what I would consider feminine - but that being said you probably haven't heard Sarah's late '80s/early '90s material, which IMO sounds vastly different from most of her popular songs. Her early stuff had more of a Peter Gabriel-meets-Kate Bush sorta sound than the poor man's Joni Mitchell vibe of her later stuff.


Touch is a great album, and definitely much different from her later work (the sound of which was largely inspired by her producer, Pierre Marchand). Though if you listen to "Ben's Song" you can hear some foreshadowing of her later albums' sound.


I have not heard "Ben's Song". But I LOOOOOVE everything I've heard off of "Touch". "Vox" and "Steaming" are both AMAZING songs!! :D Her cover of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" (released on the single version of "Steaming") is also really good. She's got a couple other songs that came afterwards that I like too. For instance, "Into the Fire" is great and would have fit quite nicely on to "Touch" IMO. And "Path of Thorns" is also really good to me - it's a bit more like her later work than the other songs I mentioned but still a fantastic song to me. The Music Choice Adult Alt. channel, which I listen to pretty much on a regular basis, tends to play more of her stuff than the average Adult Alt. station. They even played an obscure track off her "breakthrough" album (Fumbling Towards Ecstasy) called "Black And White" a couple days ago. And once in a while they'll play another early Sarah track called "I Will Not Forget You" (not to be confused with "I Will Remember You", lol :P ) but I don't like that one as much as her other early material.



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22 Jul 2009, 3:41 pm

Owendust wrote:
GriffinGuitar12 wrote:
Honestly I don't consider her "feminine". She's a bit too quirky to me to be considered an artist marketed to a specific gender. I know plenty of males who like her music, and I'm one of 'em! If Regina's "feminine" then so is Joanna Newsom and I KNOW she's got a pretty big male fanbase!! (once again, I'm one of 'em)


I bet that if you played "Fidelity" to random guys on the street and asked them if it sounded masculine or feminine, the vast majority of them would say that it sounds feminine. That's not to say that men can't enjoy it.

Also, I'd say that the determination of the predominant "gender of a song" should be made on a song-by-song basis, rather than simply classifying every song by a certain artist as always being linked to a specific gender.

Anyways, the OP asked for songs guys liked that were "non-masculine", which doesn't necessarily have to mean feminine (in the same way that non-republican doesn't necessarily mean democrat).


I honestly think Regina's trying to spoof the typical music associated with her gender in "Fidelity" - she has a couple other songs like that, like "Hotel Song". It's a bit comparable to how Steely Dan were said to have been spoofing "smooth jazz" or "lounge music" on their "Aja" record, and that definitely appealed to people who typically didn't listen to "smooth jazz" or "lounge music" (why else would 4 of the songs on that album be getting airplay on classic rock stations across the country?) And I know Regina has appealed to many fans of "indie" and "alternative" music. IMO Steely Dan's fans know that what they're doing on the "Aja" record is a spoof and Regina's fans know that what she's doing on "Fidelity" and "Hotel Song" is a spoof. And both of them have harder-edged songs, too. Regina has the punky, Strokes-ish "That Time", and Steely Dan, of course, has the hard-rocking (IMO) Thin Lizzy-ish guitar anthem "Reelin' In the Years".



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22 Jul 2009, 5:22 pm

GriffinGuitar12 wrote:
I honestly think Regina's trying to spoof the typical music associated with her gender in "Fidelity" - she has a couple other songs like that, like "Hotel Song". It's a bit comparable to how Steely Dan were said to have been spoofing "smooth jazz" or "lounge music" on their "Aja" record, and that definitely appealed to people who typically didn't listen to "smooth jazz" or "lounge music" (why else would 4 of the songs on that album be getting airplay on classic rock stations across the country?) And I know Regina has appealed to many fans of "indie" and "alternative" music. IMO Steely Dan's fans know that what they're doing on the "Aja" record is a spoof and Regina's fans know that what she's doing on "Fidelity" and "Hotel Song" is a spoof. And both of them have harder-edged songs, too. Regina has the punky, Strokes-ish "That Time", and Steely Dan, of course, has the hard-rocking (IMO) Thin Lizzy-ish guitar anthem "Reelin' In the Years".


So in other words, she was trying to make the song sound feminine.

Whether or not it's supposed to be meant as an inside joke to her hardcore fans is beside the point. The end result is still a song that sounds feminine to the casual listener.

As someone who has only really heard two of her songs ("fidelity" and "us"), any convoluted, over-analyzed reasoning involving the knowledge of her other work, is irrelevant. The end result is still a song that sounds feminine (or, as it was posed in the question I originally responded to, "non-masculine").

The idea that Regina appeals to many fans of "indie" and "alternative" music is also irrelevant in this conversation as neither genre lays claim to a specific gender-identity.



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23 Jul 2009, 3:19 am

Non masculine song? Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps - Doris Day. :oops: :lol:

Forced to listen to it in High School, it was part of our set work to watch the movie which contained it. After listening to it a few times, it kinda grew on me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOORypV8HKY



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23 Jul 2009, 12:42 pm

Owendust wrote:

So in other words, she was trying to make the song sound feminine.



Yup she was :P As for "Us", that's a song that, to me, is very bittersweet, and I'm a sucker for bittersweet songs (sighs contentedly). Fits in the same category as a typical ('90s) Tori Amos song, and even sounds like one for that matter! There are plenty of men who have done songs that IMO are just as bittersweet - Jose Gonzalez, Nick Drake, and Damien Rice are masters at it to me, and R.E.M. have "Nightswimming" and "Everybody Hurts". I dunno. Unless it's like Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, or a "boy band", I wouldn't consider any particular music to be "feminine". And unless it's heavy metal or rap, I wouldn't consider any particular music to be "masculine" either.



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23 Jul 2009, 5:46 pm

It pretty much all just boils down to our personal idea of what we consider to be feminine and what we consider to be masculine. :)



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23 Jul 2009, 9:10 pm

GriffinGuitar12 wrote:
Blasty wrote:
I recently picked up an LP of Debbie Harry's (of Blondie) "Rockbird." I actually like quite a few songs on that record....



Blondie and Heart? FAAAAAAR from being considered feminine esp. if you are referring to the material both bands did in the '70s. Just 'cuz a girl does a song doesn't automatically make it "girly".


A bunch of the stuff on Rockbird really isn't typical "guy" music, or at least I don't feel that it is. In my mind it just seems the most feminine of anything I have. Yeah, quite a bit is probably due to female vocals since my collection is mostly male vocals or instrumental.

I'm not very familiar with the rest of Blondie, I just have this one solo album. I decided I liked Debbie Harry's voice after watching the obscure 1983 animated movie "Rock and Rule" featuring her vocals. I just happened across this album while browsing a shop one day, and picked it up on a whim.

I'll give you Heart though, I just included it because, again, female vocals in a predominantly male collection.



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23 Jul 2009, 11:37 pm

pat2rome wrote:
GriffinGuitar12 wrote:
Prof_Pretorius wrote:
Queen, "A Night At The Opera" and "A Day At The Races", not exactly manly tunes ....


Queen themselves are DEFINITELY NOT feminine/non-masculine. There is NOTHING feminine AT ALL about "Fat-Bottomed Girls", IMO the lyrics are pretty sexist and the guitar playing is very boastful and aggressive. Yet there are other aspects of Freddie Mercury that definitely seem feminine. Do you suppose he was bisexual?


Um, Freddie Mercury was gay.


I was thinking of the Millionaire Waltz ....
(Or "Somebody To Love", which is VERY femmy.)


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Last edited by Prof_Pretorius on 28 Jul 2009, 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.

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24 Jul 2009, 4:16 pm

MDD123 wrote:
1. Mssing Persons- Words

2. ??- West End Girls

3. Tears for Fears- Head Over Heals

4. Black Eyed Peas - My Humps

5. ?? - American Boy

6. ??- Take a walk on the wildside

7. Boys don't Cry - I wanna be a cowboy
"American Boy" is performed by Estelle and Kanye West.

There are a couple of 'non-masculine' songs I really like, including 'Stop' by Sam Brown, and even 'Miss Independent' by Kelly Clarkson... (yes, I do). At some point a couple of years ago, I was going over my favourite songs and found that a number of them were songs that would be considered 'girl power' anthems - whether pre- or post-dating the Spice Girls. :)


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28 Jul 2009, 8:00 pm

I really love Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach ' for some weird reason.
The opening i can enjoy anytime.


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28 Jul 2009, 11:41 pm

JPanzer wrote:
I really love Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach ' for some weird reason.
The opening i can enjoy anytime.


Now that's femmy ...


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01 Aug 2009, 1:20 pm

JPanzer wrote:
I really love Madonna's 'Papa Don't Preach ' for some weird reason.
The opening i can enjoy anytime.


I really really like "Like a Prayer", Madonna's a great artist.

Also, a couple of days ago I watched Adventures in Babysitting on VH1 Classic and I now have this song to add to my list.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cE_jOD2Fxvs[/youtube]


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02 Aug 2009, 1:13 am

GriffinGuitar12 wrote:
I have not heard "Ben's Song". But I LOOOOOVE everything I've heard off of "Touch". "Vox" and "Steaming" are both AMAZING songs!! :D


"Ben's Song" is the last track off Touch. It's my favorite off that album. I even learned how to play it on piano (though I couldn't play it now :( ). It's a song about a childhood friend of hers that died. Here's the music video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKd5UMYdRjU[/youtube]

Note: Fumbling Towards Ecstacy is my all-time favorite album. EVERY track is great, IMO.



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03 Aug 2009, 5:06 am

The donnas- I don't want to know



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18 Aug 2009, 4:15 am

Most stuff by Evanescence, Within Temptation, and t.A.T.u., but I love "Total Eclipse of the Heart" as well. Oh, and I like Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up". No, I am not joking. I love that song. Takes the wind out of someone's sails when they try to RickRoll me and I start singing along/humming along/dancing.

-TB


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18 Aug 2009, 4:29 am

"non-masculine"??? I really don't know how to react to that. Metal is usually considered a "masculine" genre, I guess, but then what about bands like Lacuna Coil or Within Temptation? How would you "genderize" them?

There's a lot of "non-masculine" music out there. Classical music, for example. Nothing at all manly about it. I guess, to humor the question, I'll say that I enjoy Sarah McLachlan.


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