'Serenity'
Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.
OTOH, let's face it, he also had a very butch appearance compared to -- well, really, just about any member of any hair band.
I still fondly remember a hilarious comedian's riff on Rick Astley about the sound/look dichotomy. The comic took the melody of "Never Gonna Give You Up" and sang:
Haven't reached puberty
Everybody makes fun of me
Deep black voice in the body of Howdy Doody!
My "you look like what?????" revelation goes to this guy. He's more than just blue-eyed soul.
I thought the thing with Rick Astley was not so much the masculine voice/kinda gay look but more that when you heard his voice, you assumed he was a 50 year old black man and then he turned out to be some dorky looking, Opie-fied, white boy.
The Astley song going round and round in my head is "Never gonna give you up" and I've never thought of it as Negrified.
Astley could project. The radio played "Together Forever" about the time of my original post. And it wasn't that his voice was particularly deep, or black. But he projected a commanding voice, which is a quality I'd put in the "butch" category.
His appearance wasn't particularly butch (especially when he let his hair grow around 1990), but I'd call him metrosexual before metrosexual became cool. And "metrosexual" generally ranks ahead of "uses mascara regularly" on the butch scale.
His appearance wasn't particularly butch (especially when he let his hair grow around 1990), but I'd call him metrosexual before metrosexual became cool.
It was smooth. I remember my mom saying he looked kind of Motown.
But he projected a commanding voice, which is a quality I'd put in the "butch" category.
Ooh, Nina Simone's gonna whup your ass.
I don't particularly get the whole "black" voice thing anyway. There are too many singers of different races who have what might be traditionally thought of as "black voices" (Mariah is one, Taylor Dayne, Anastacia, Teena Marie, The Righteous Brothers, etc.) for that to hold much water with me. I just seem to recall that during the Astley popularity phase there was a lot of "He's a skinny white boy, but he sounds black!" going on.
I think Astley is too dorky looking to be a metrosexual. The ears, the goofy dance. . .
Spandau Ballet -- now they were some metrosexuals.
Spandau Ballet
Whatever happened to them? IIRC, they were in one movie and got good reviews, but I don't remember anything past that.
