The way the woman's singing during the opening and closing (and sometimes in between) is unpleasant to me, yet I notice tv show The Vikings (made in Canada) also uses the same style of female singing. Why? We can't know how Viking singing was can we?
I'm no expert on Celtic singing, but I believe that may've been preserved thru the generations, yet the Viking culture I thought mostly died out. Corrections?
Correcions?
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I went to a concert in Reykjavik which had Bjork, Of Monsters and Men, and Lykke Li - and another Icelandic all female band I can't remember the name of - and they do have a very similar singing style. I thought Fever Ray played there as I swear they did play the Vikings theme tune 'If I Had A Heart' but maybe someone covered it as I just checked and she's not on the list. The fact the styles are so similar suggests it is cultural. I imagine some Viking songs must have been passed down through the centuries. Eivor, who sings on TLK soundtrack, is from the Faroe Islands. She looks quite similar to Fever Ray!
I like the Fever Ray song but not the Last Kingdom singing so much. It sounds more like someone being tortured at times because she sounds like she's going jarringly off-key - which might be deliberate. It is reminiscent of Lisa Gerrard's singing style too - and I love most of her stuff. To me they've copied Vikings, which came out first, and should have come up with a more original soundtrack.
It's too cerebral! We're trying to make a movie here, not a film!
After 3 seasons of Vikings, I no longer cringe at it, and am starting to appreciate the female's singing; so I guess it just depends on how often one is exposed to something! And that is a good point about it reflecting their anguish at the time. (It does remind me too of North American Indian lilt and pitch of song too - so it is interesting to imagine how long this style has been passed down thru the cultural generations)....tho I still prefer my North American radio music, lol.
shareI used to love listening to my Sacred Spirit album - it all started coming out around the same time as Deep Forest and Enigma, when there was a huge surge in the music charts of chanting (celts, monks and American Indian tribal music), and then the Gladiator soundtrack was a bit similar too.
It's too cerebral! We're trying to make a movie here, not a film!
In fact I blame Gladiator for the 'if it hasn't got a wailing female, it ain't a hisotrical drama' notion.
If you enjoy this kind of music, check out Mari Boine - a Sami singer who does a bit of a cross over of traditional Sami/Scandinavian music and other styles.
After all is said and done, a lot more will have been said than done.
I'll check her out, thanks!
I love that Lisa Gerrard basically developed her own language and her music is haunting. She's got an incredible range. It's been copied often though, yes :)
It's too cerebral! We're trying to make a movie here, not a film!
the female vocal stuff is really unbearably cheesy crap, Cirque du Soleil level garbage. it ruins every scene it's in.
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