Psycho killerrrr, qu'est-ce que c'est

[mmcirvin]

That Language Log article on fake accents and hyper-rhoticity linked to this interesting old post from Postive Anymore on non-rhoticity in American singing. Rhoticity is, essentially, the tendency to pronounce the letter R when it is not followed by a vowel sound; most American accents are rhotic, but some are not, and most English accents are non-rhotic.

I remember wondering long ago why it was that most American rock singers affected a non-rhotic accent when singing, and only when singing; the article offers some guesses why (some combination of the "fancy" accent used by performing Americans many decades ago, and imitation of non-rhotic African-American accents).

In early Talking Heads recordings, David Byrne (who was born in Scotland but grew up in Baltimore) sometimes played with this by singing exaggeratedly rhotically, but he stopped doing it later on; this is particularly obvious if you listen to different versions of "Psycho Killer".

I think John Linnell uses some rhoticity when singing too, even though his native Massachusetts accent (which he has fun with in "Wicked Little Critta") was probably non-rhotic! Maybe it's just a characteristic of nerd rock.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Hmm, apparently Byrne actually lived in Ontario for part of his childhood too.