That's an example of when it was something different and new. Here we are 18 years later with loads of substandard imitators. I don't even slightly blame Norah Jones for that.
Hollie Fullbrook/Tiny Ruins sang like that when she was performing solo, as though she was about to fall asleep (unlistenable, I could only get through Side 1 of her debut album), but has a much improved, direct vocal style now with a full band behind her.
This style is called "hip-singing," and there are several videos that make fun of it. Below is the funniest one (to me). Here is a link to another. (Update: This might be the most clever video about this subject.) I trace this style back to Elizabeth Frasier of Cocteau Twins, specifically the way she started to sing around 1990. I think Amy Winehouse and Regina Spektor were channeling her when they developed their styles.
Dylan impersonating was the go to for crap singers for years! Unusually, Lou Reed was a good singer until he wasn't.
It definitely right to give a 16 year old a break, but what's wrong with disliking polar opposites? Given the choice I'd take the overproduced glitz, at least it's usually unashamedly throwaway pop, not trying to put across an authenticity that often sounds more contrived than chart pop and says just as little.
It made me laugh though, especially the percussionist who seemed to be playing an infant child's toy. Have you ever heard or seen a more boring drummer? The percussionist was probably there to try and compensate for the drummer being crap. It didn't work.
I mentioned several years ago that in talking to younger people (early - mid 20s) about music, they strongly preferred singing that did not sound professional as it seemed fake to them. So if you regard anything professional or technically assured as fake in terms of emotional content, you will presumably gravitate to those styles and voices which sound the least professional and accomplished. I suppose there are a number of ways to not sound like a professional singer and we are just cycling through those possibilities.
The indie scene is a big cliché since long ago. It's the backlash of the "amateur", "DIY" thing...in the 1980s it could be charming but now it's a tired trick. Professionality please
To some extent, professionalism without creativity or charisma is repulsive. I don't mind the idea of people with only the slightest ability to play getting a group together and moving quickly. It's the lack of interesting or original ideas, sound and personality that's the problem.
All The Pretty Horses is a lovely little song, just a simple folk tune. That is as good a rendition as any, the singing style fits it well, I would rather hear it like this than overdone by a "great singer". I enjoy that scratchy plaintive broken sound. At least she isn't completely morphing the syllables, like "Auull the Preaatty Liaattle Hooiirse-ahs" . . lol. Which bugged me at first, but now try to sing along, it isn't easy!
Maybe the OP's example is folk, but you hear this kind of "detached" singing in a lot of advertisements and on current TV dramas. and in that context it is almost never folk. Not my thing, but I like it more than autotune.
I definitely hear some Feist there, thank for that. And it's not just boomers that make fun of vocal fry.
Which (I'm sure no one here cares) hasn't really been feted on the show in a long time. Nowadays they push this style of singing, I believe Maddie Poppe who won two years ago is like this, and country singers.
