While I can’t possibly call myself a master of all things music, I can definitely call myself the authoritative authority of songs I like. While my preference lies in 80’s, 90’s and old-school Nintendo game soundtracks, a few pop songs come around that strike my fancy as well. One of these songs is Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T’s.
*breathes in*
Like most top 40 radio hits, Hey There Delilah is a simple song; the lyrics are easy to understand, the rhythm is soft and uncomplicated and the singer’s voice compliments the guitar background to create a nice harmony. Despite all that, there’s a flaw in the song I only noticed recently.
*breathes in*
I don’t exactly know when I noticed it, but after I did, the repeating flaw was the only part of this otherwise good song my ear could focus on. I heard it once and now whenever the song is playing, I anticipate the flaw and point it out to anyone in earshot so they can notice it, too. Then those people can obsess about it and tell all their friends about it.
*breathes in*
Just in case you didn’t figure it out by now, the flaw in the song is that THE SINGER TAKES A HEAVY BREATH BEFORE EACH VERSE OF THE SONG.
Jesus Fuck. A perfectly good song ruined by the singer not hiding his breaths and either the band or the label not doing some post-production to take out the offending noise. The Plain White T’s should take a lesson from Tay Zonday, writer and performer of Chocolate Rain; he knows how to professionally produce songs.
By the way, I just checked their official web site to make sure the singer doesn’t have some kind of weird disability that would make me look like an asshole, but I was assaulted with the song and had to pull the plug on my computer before the singing part started. But, I’m thorough in my fact checking, and their MySpace page confirms he’s perfectly capable of singing the song the right way and just didn’t.
(Preemptive: You may say that him breathing into the mic adds to the whole “this song is really sad” vibe, but I still think it sounds stupid and distracts too much.)