Pop Graphs

What are good pop songs for a soprano to sing?

i usually sing to soprano broadway tunes, but i love pop more than anything. What are some good songs for me? ps- i can belt pretty well.

Public Comments

1. yuckk! stay away from pop music! it is wayy oversung, and usually shows no music talent whatsoever. Stick with the broadway tunes like Legally Blonde, Grease, even HSM, as annoying as it is, it is somewhat close to pop!
2. Anything by Christina Aguilera, Karina Pasian, and you may even try Jennifer Hudson. Although, in general, pop has a lighter sound to it so the singers don't usually sing like they mean it. There's more high pitch in an R&B song.
3. It's the same now as it has been all through history: (1) the most "typical" female voice is the mezzo soprano; and (2) most pop songs are written for a voice register of less than an octave. If you're a "real" soprano, you can sing just about anything. You just have to select the correct key for YOUR voice. To get the maximum mileage out of the pop scene, make sure you can sing parts well. I know it's a cliche, but because their voice part is usually on top of everything, the world is filled with sopranos who can can only sing the melody. On your way to pop stardom, you can have a lot of fun with some incredible female backup vocals IF you can hold down a part (and if you already can, FANTASTIC). Best of luck
4. I would definitely recommend sticking with show tunes, there's much more quality stuff on broadway. But as far as pop goes you can go for anything by Christina Aguilera.
5. If you’re a Sopranos fan (and, really, what excuse do you have at this point unless you’re Martin Scorsese?), then the show’s music has probably played a key role in your obsession. I’m not necessarily talking about the now ubiquitous opening theme, “Woke Up This Morning.” Good as it is, A3’s techno-ized blues is slick and familiar in a way that the best Sopranos music isn’t. I’m talking about the little snippets of pop songs that float through the show, their identities familiar but elusive, always counterpointing the dramatic action. Your average Hollywood bad-boy action flick goes for the obvious, either massive contemporary hits (Metallica, Blink-182, anything by the Stones), or Tarantino-esque retro (George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone,” Link Wray’s “Rumble,” Dick Dale, anything by the Stones). But the first episode of the Sopranos ended with “The Beast in Me” — a grim ballad that was making inroads at the time because Johnny Cash had recently recorded it for Rick Rubin’s American label. Except that this wasn’t even Johnny — it was the song’s author, Nick Lowe. Like everything else about The Sopranos, it was just-left-of-mainstream pop. And it was in a league with any number of mood-enhancing Sopranos offerings, from Johnny Thunders to the Latin Playboys to Mazzy Star. In that regard, the first CD culled from the HBO TV series was a bit of a disappointment — Dylan, Cream, Springsteen, Bo Diddley, and the mob-show-requisite Frank Sinatra track. All fine, but where was Johnny Thunders? Now the show’s producers have returned with a double-CD sequel, The Sopranos: Peppers & Eggs (Columbia), and this one fares better, though there’s still no Thunders. (Dominic Chianese, the show’s redoubtable septuagenarian, Uncle Junior, has also come out with his first solo album; it’s called, uh, Hits, but more on that later.) For a show as hip as The Sopranos, some songs are no-brainers. It figures that series creator and capo di tutti capi David Chase would go for the twisted Delta blues of R.L. Burnside, whose “Shuck Dub” remix here harks back to first season’s (and first CD’s) “It’s Bad You Know.” No Bruce this time, but the Jersey locale and the E Street Band connection continue with series regular Steven Van Zandt’s Stonesy “Affection” and E Streeter Nils Lofgren’s “Black Books.” The latter is surprisingly un-Stonesy (and un–E Street) and affecting, a synth-and-drums ballad with a poignant major-to-minor key shift, a typically understated comment on Tony Soprano’s car-wreck love life. When we do get the Stones, it’s not Mick but Keith, with his “Make No Mistake,” and, more effectively, his scraped guitar chords and equally weathered vocal cords crooning “Waitin’ on a call from you” (“Thru and Thru,” from Voodoo Lounge) as we, and Tony, ponder the whereabouts of once-trusted lieutenant Big Pussy Bompensiero. What’s more, Van Zandt’s early-’90s tune (with his band the Lost Boys) hadn’t been released till now, and Bob Dylan’s entry is a remake of the Dean Martin hit “Return to Me” that was recorded especially for The Sopranos and in which, yes, Bob sings in Italian. Okay, there are a few obvious choices. I could do without the album’s curtain-raising interpolation of Henry Mancini’s theme from Peter Gunn with the Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” or even Elvis Costello’s “High Fidelity,” but hey, that’s show biz. And Van Morrison returns with an overplayed classic, but after all, the name of Tony’s fatally attracted girlfriend is Gloria. No, the glories here, the echt Sopranos songs, are Keith singing “Thru and Thru,” Pigeonhed’s tech-nasty “Battle Flag” (conjuring Tony’s temper tantrum at the Ba-da Bing!, where he pounded a bartender’s head over and over with a telephone receiver), Kasey Chambers’s cracked-voice masochistic country ballad “The Captain” (which in timbre matches the voice of daughter Meadow Soprano but in theme fits all the women in Tony’s life), the lounge stupor of the Tindersticks’ “Tiny Tears” (reflecting Tony’s vertiginous depression in the “Isabella” episode), and the trip-hoppy lounge of Lorenzo Jovanotti’s “Piove.” Yes, it’s hard to separate the soundtrack from the show, but I think this is a good collection that works on its own, with some inspired, or at least crafty, segues. The sequence of “Black Books” to Cake’s “Frank Sinatra” to Sinatra’s bossa-beat “Baubles, Bangles, and Beads” to Keith’s “Thru and Thru” speaks to both theme and music — tempo shifts, rhythms, mood. On CD #2 the producers get to Cecilia Bartoli’s breathtaking Vivaldi (“Sposa son disprezzata,” with spare piano accompaniment) via Vue’s garagy, organ-based “Girl” and then follow it up with Ben E. King’s operatic, string-enhanced “I Who Have Nothing.” Really not a bad way to cover vastly disparate material. The album closes with an unlisted reprise of A3’s “Woke Up This Morning” and a selection of Sopranos dialogue, including Uncle Junior’s now legendary “I’ve got federal marshals so far up my ass I can tas