a shot in the arm

For the sake of the music industry, Lady Danville needs to get big.

If you haven't heard their music, you can find some samples here: http://www.myspace.com/ladydanville


Now, when I was listening them at UCLA, I thought it'd be nice if they broke through into the mainstream mainly because they sounded nice and they were from UCLA. However, after a recent show at Cafe du Nord in San Francisco, I realized why exactly I wanted them to get extremely popular: harmony.

Many artists use harmony to some extent, either overdubbing their own voices or having another band member occasionally pipe in. But, when was the last time you heard a great three-part harmony with three different voices on the same lines?

The more I thought about it, the more of a blank I drew. It seems harmony had been relegated in more recent years to college acapella, which, while cool-sounding at first, can get quickly irritating due to the lack of instrumentation. And, let's face it, they are by no means considered 'mainstream', not enough to get radio play, at least.

And sure, you get singers/groups who use it once in a while, but there aren't any groups that use strong harmony consistently. Looking through my music, the only other group I can find that does this is the Beatles. But somehow that doesn't seem right - it can't possibly have been 40 years since somebody harmonized like they did, right?

If anybody knows any group that does use plenty of harmony, please feel free to tell me, as I'd like to give them a listen.

But for now, I'm going to pin my hopes that Lady Danville blows up into something huge, so that an Auto Tune-filled music industry can get a healthy dose of good ol' harmony (and maybe the occasional 'Go Bruins!').