The Emptiness Machine - Could You Evaluate The Techniques Of These Three Vocalists Who Sing It?

Emily Armstrong sings most of the lead vocals on the original version of The Emptiness Machine, which went on to become an incredibly successful song with 200 million views on YouTube in the last year. Since then, both Lolli Wren and MAPHRA have both recorded very well-received covers of it.

Could you give us some insight into the vocal techniques that these three vocalists used in their respective performances of the song?

I think it's good to be able to identify what techniques are being used so that when we hear a sound we like, we have some idea of how it's being created. It's a skill I'm trying to get better at.

I'll give some brief ideas as to what singing techniques I think make their three versions of the song all sound so different from one another (in addition to all three of them having their own unique set of vocal cords and resonance chambers).

Here's the link to Emily Armstrong's band Linkin Park and their video of The Emptiness Machine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRXH9AbT280

Emily starts singing at the 1:08 mark in the Linkin park original version. It's mostly rasp or light grit from 1:08 until 1:38, when Emily's distortion becomes much more intense.

I don't have a good understanding of rasp (very light grit) techniques so I'm not going to speculate on what technique Emily may be using in the first 30 seconds of the song that have vocals performed by her.

At 1:38 and onwards, I'd say she uses sort of shouty, very loose distortion that I'd call "fall-apart" distortion with a shouty approach. Im guessing you would say her grit technique is quite far towards the decompressed end of the grit spectrum. She seems to have sort of a punk, unrefined vibe she's going for and I think she achieves it convincingly.

Lolli Wren covered The Emptiness Machine about three months ago and created a very professional video to accompany her performance. Here's the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYV5VODBeRY

Unlike Emily's version, she uses a good deal of clean singing, from the start, all the way until 2:12 into her video. While MAPHRA's clean singing on her version sounds all very much the same with few dynamics or tonal colors, Lolli Wren sings her clean vocals in a very expressive way.

Lolli starts with a breathy technique that gives an intimate sound. Later, she moves from chest to head register - not to sing higher but to give the song some dynamics, as she does with the way she transitions from using a low larynx position at 0:37 seconds and thereafter, she seems to alternate between a low larynx and a neutral larynx in her clean vocals while even increasing that very intimate feel, as if she were singing directly to you. The emotion Lolli puts into this is undeniable.

Lolli switches back and forth between chest and head registers between 0:37 and 2:12. At 1:07 Lolli uses sort of a "harsh whisper" to set up the next section, consisting of haunting harmonies, before going back into her first vocal approach to set up the next dynamic: mixed voice with more urgency starting at 1:55.

At 2:12 she starts belting notes with heavy grit.

Lolli's grit is very distinctive. I'd describe it as very compressed - the most compressed of all three of these vocalists in their renditions of this song.

I especially like how she sings: "Gave up who I am for who you wanted me to be"

On the lyric "wanted" her grit sounds different. I think it might be because she lowered her larynx. I think she changed her acoustic placement on "wanted" but I don't know what that placement would be but I'll guess that it's low and curbed.

She does a nice flip into head voice on the word in that line "be."

Lolli increases her amount of distortion at 2:25 starting with the line "Don't know why I'm hoping for what I won't receive" - probably the reason her distortion increased is she increased her volume and her amount of breath support.

After that she varies her approach with less grit in some places and clean belting in others.

The loud part of her vocals ends at 3:06 with a dramatic descending embellishment.

If you had to give a name to Lolli Wren's main grit technique, would it be Upper Grunt, Hardcore Bark or something else?

MAPHRA also released her cover of The Emptiness Machine about 3 months ago. Here's the link to the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9kwNByV-ww

MAPHRA's timbre as as different from Lolli's as could be. I suspect MAPHRA is a mezzo-soprano.

During the clean section of her cover, there are not a whole lot of dynamics. Her tone and style remains very much the same until she starts singing with grit. I have heard her cover of "Doomed" and I know she's an excellent singer, but the clean part of this vocal performance has no substantial dynamics and I don't sense a close emotional connection to the lyrics like we heard in the other two versions of the song.

At 1:08 the intensity of MAPHRA's vocals and the emotion she puts into the lyrics she's singing increases considerably.

Her first use of grit as at 1:10 at the end of the line: "Going around like a revolver." Her grit here is much less compressed than Lolli Wren's grit and has more of the Emily Armstrong style to it. This is not quite "fall-apart distortion" here. It is more compressed than Emily's grit and less compressed than Lolli's grit.

MAPHRA seems to come alive when she uses grit and her unique sounding distortion seems to be what is fueling the recent online craze about her.

The one moment where MAPHRA's grit does sound more compressed a bit more like Lolli Wren's distortion is at the 1:29 mark were she sings the lyric "already."

"Already" sounds like either Upper Grunt or Hardcore Bark to me, but I'm not sure as to how to make the distinction between the two since they're both compression based grunt. I guess the difference is that Hardcore Bark is placed a little higher in the throat and it also tends to involve the uvula but aside from maybe that higher placement and uvula engagement, to me it seems that Hardcore Bark is essentially Upper Grunt with more intensity. I'd love to know what else distinguishes Upper Grunt and Hardcore Bark. I don't hear any uvula engagement, so I'll guess this is Upper Grunt technique.

At 1:37 MAPHRA sings the chorus with what has the definitive sound of sing screaming. You can hear it's considerably less compressed than Lolli Wren's grit as there's a much more "airy" quality to MAPHRA's performance of the choruses of this song compared to Lolli Wren's performance of the choruses.

Lolli Wren's distortion is not airy sounding. It is highly compressed. It makes perfect sense that MAPHRA's grit is more airy sounding because decompressed grit is literally made by releasing air from the glottis!

Despite MAPHRA using a sing scream technique that's awfully similar to the fall-apart distortion technique that Emily Armstrong uses in her performance of the choruses to this song, Emily's distortion has a looser sound to it than MAPHRA's distortion. MAPHRA also projects it in a less "shouty" way than Emily does.

Listen to MAPHRA sing: "Don't know why I'm HOPING for WHAT I won't RECEIVE" starting at 1:48

On the lyrics that are capitalized, you hear the other big difference between MAPHRA's grit and Emily's grit.

MAPHRA's low, mezzo-soprano voice and her particular placement of where she creates her grit make her sound much darker than Emily's sound and think it's that incredibly dark sounding roar that accounts for MAPHRA's recent trendiness among YouTube reactors.

They're all doing the same thing: Listening to MAPHRA and gushing words of praise. If one of the high profile YouTue reactors were to analyze MAPHRA and be critical of her (especially of her "Doomed" cover") it could quite possibly result in the permanent destruction of the internet as we know it.

I think MAPHRA is an excellent singer, but when seemingly everyone gushes more than an uncapped oil well over her greatness, it's a little hard to believe. Like other forms of art, music is very subjective and tastes very wildly. So, when every single reactor does everything short of proclaiming her the next messiah, that's suspect.

No matter how good a singer is, there are going to be lots of people (most people actually), who aren't big fans of that singer's style. Even "The King", Elvis Presley, had plenty of detractors in his day. That's just the nature of reality. When it comes to realm of the subjective, peoples opinions will vary dramatically.

As the old adage goes: "There's no accounting for taste."

So, if you can account for everyone's taste (they all love her), ask yourself: How could such a thing happen?

Taylor Swift is the most popular singer in the world but does everybody go weak at the knees over the sound of her voice? Not quite!

When every reactor is expressing the same opinion on any singer, you can be sure that there are forces at work that are manipulating those reactions i.e., there is something to be gained by expressing nan overwhelmingly positive response whether it is genuine or not.

Also, realize these are almost all "first time reactions."

Think of all the songs you love. Did you instantly fall in love with each and every one of them the first time you heard them? No! Songs grow on people! Sometimes it's that third listen or the seventh listen that hooks someone on a song. Songs can be acquired tastes.

With a lot of my favorite songs, I'm still growing to fully appreciate them. Music can be a lot like a romantic relationship: You fall in love with someone, but it damn sure isn't always a case of "love at first sight."

Music is the same way. It's not always a case of "love at first listen." More often than not, with the songs you really love a lot, you grew to appreciate them over time.

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