Is IU a good vocalist?
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I don’t know if I should compare with soloist or girl groups though that’s the thing
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I don’t know if I should compare with soloist or girl groups though that’s the thing
Like I'm not including singers like Sohyang who might be better than her. Compare to anyone, still probably less than 3.
To me, probably Hyolyn. The others are maybe close but to me still below them both
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IU is great. She certainly knows how to use her voice for the music she makes. She perfected that. You can’t take that away from her. She’s a great vocalist, high up there.
But Ailee’s vocals are on a different level and out of this world. Unless I’m unaware of someone else, the only one who comes close would be Mamamoo’s Solar.
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Ailee's range is defo wider than IU's but it doesn't mean IU isn't a good vocalist
For vocalists it's very important to know their range and to not go beyond it ....IU handles herself very well and she's very stable
It doesn't mean she has small range tho, it's just Ailee's is wider
I recommend watching this
She nailed the high notes beautifully
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Okay, fair.
I need to study this more.
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Like I actually cannot tell, like compared to someone like Ailee etc. is her range good?
Obviously being high note belter don’t mean shit, but can she?
IU has never been a technical vocalist — she has the basics but that’s all she really needs to really maneuver that sound...her strength is what she does with her voice rather than the technique itself. IU is very careful because her sound is basically partially created by strain — her songs have a lot of vocal layering so she’s able to pull them off with the exception of Good Day — a song she HATES for that exact reason. Those three high notes were....bad. And she knows it (note she had to sing those with no accompaniment so it was worse) which is why she doesn’t sing it as often anymore. She’s an average vocalist.
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IU is great. She certainly knows how to use her voice for the music she makes. She perfected that. You can’t take that away from her. She’s a great vocalist, high up there.
But Ailee’s vocals are on a different level and out of this world. Unless I’m unaware of someone else, the only one who comes close would be Mamamoo’s Solar.
Ailee? Wouldn’t her counterpart be Big Mama’s Lee Youngheun? She’d actually be stronger but again she’s not an idol.
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from what i remember she is an average vocalist technic wise. and ailed is like competent or even better.
the ranking is like weak>average>average to above average>above average>competent>good?
But IU's voice is unique and beautiful. Like it's hard to find a voice la hers. Her vocal color until today in unmatched. And if she stays in her range, she is pretty fine. She doesn't need to belt crazy high notes to be the most relevant female singer in Korea right now. In songs like Friday, Heart, The shower, Through the night, The meaning of you etc.
on the other hand, Taeyeon has the most soothing and emotional voice. she is an emotional maestro. better at pure ballads like A poem titled you and If. And her technic is pretty good too, she is also competent.
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It is funny, on one side, we have WhyKnock complaining that IU caused Kpop to shift towards vocalists and then these discussions, doubting her abilities as a Vocalist.
But anyway,
Yes, she is a good vocalist, in her own field i.e. Kpop and associated music genres.
But not to be compared with say musical theater singers or opera singers e.g. Sohyang. Barely any Kpop singer can get to that levels.
It is simplistic to judge vocal ability merely on the basis of range, like judging basketball players on their height-reach.
A non-dancing soloist simply can't last at IU's levels of success for so long, without being a good vocalist.
An average vocalist can't deliver years of live concerts - 4/5 hours long, holding the attention of large audiences.
Sales, success and popularity apart.
Professional vocal trainers like Kim Sung Eun (trainer for BTS/Twice, Produce 101) have credited her abilities.
Look at competition shows, where vocalists choose her songs to compete - Kingdom's Mayfly used "Love Poem" and Girls Planet "My Sea". And I have lost count of idols, trainees attempting to cover "Hold my hand"
Her vocal abilities are kind of analogues to her position in K-pop itself.
Kpop is dominated by groups and bops, but she stands apart from that domination, yet is highly successful.
Similarly vocalists are known by high notes, range etc., but she takes up falsetto/aspirated sounds, which others try avoid and is successful with that.
Unique.
And it is not by accident, her singing voice is different from speaking and she has explained how she uses breath control, saliva etc. to achieve the effect. So she knows her art well.
Vocal abilities is like have different tools - some vocalists have multi-tool, some might have kitchen knives, some surgical knives etc. But what matters more is how they use and know what to use which tool for.
And IU has been fantastic in that.
So without doubt she is one of the top vocalists in Kpop for the past decade.
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It is funny, on one side, we have WhyKnock complaining that IU caused Kpop to shift towards vocalists and then these discussions, doubting her abilities as a Vocalists.
But anyway,
Yes, she is a good vocalist, in her own field i.e. Kpop and associated music genres.
But not to be compared with say musical theater singers or opera singers e.g. Sohyang. Barely any Kpop singer can get to that levels.
It is simplistic to judge vocal ability merely on the basis of range, like judging basketball players on their height-reach.
A non-dancing soloist simply can't last at IU's levels of success for so long, without being a good vocalists.
Sales, success and popularity apart.
Professional vocal trainers like Kim Sung Eun (trainer for BTS/Twice, Produce 101) have credited her abilities.
Look at competition shows, where vocalists choose her songs to compete - Kingdom's Mayfly used "Love Poem" and Girls Planet "My Sea". And I have lost count of idols, trainees attempting to cover "Hold my hand"
Her vocal abilities are kind of analogues to her position in K-pop itself.
Kpop is dominated by groups and bops, but she stands apart from that domination, yet is highly successful.
Similarly vocalists are known by high notes, range etc., but she takes up falsetto/aspirated sounds, which others try avoid and is successful with that.
Unique.
And it is not by accident, her singing voice is different from speaking and she has explained how she uses breath control, saliva etc. to achieve the effect. So she knows her art well.
Vocal abilities is like have different tools - some vocalists have multi-tool, some might have kitchen knives, some surgical knives etc. But what matters more is how they use and know what to use which tool for.
And IU has been fantastic in that.
So without doubt she is one of the top vocalists on Kpop for the past decade.
It depends upon how 'vocal' is defined.
People like Sohyang, Son Seungyeon, Hyorin or Ailee have strong vocals.
However they are not as popular as idol group members, because while their vocals are strong and make the listeners impressed, their songs do not have the 'repeat' value'.
IU's vocals are rather weak, as seen in her famous duel against Hyorin where the latter crushed IU so thoroughly that IU has never appeared on the Immortal Songs again, but she is good at the subtleness, significantly increasing the chance of repeat listeners.
About the subtleness, IU has no equal in KPop, and probably in the world as well.
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Like I actually cannot tell, like compared to someone like Ailee etc. is her range good?
Obviously being high note belter don’t mean shit, but can she?
Lee Jieun's high note era ended with You & I.
She is actually quite better in the 'whispering' genre like Through the Night.
There are better vocals than her, but on subtleness, she probably has no equal on earth.
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Ailee's songs are more powerful but IU has more repeat customers than everyone, except maybe BTS, in Kpop.
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It depends upon how 'vocal' is defined.
People like Sohyang, Son Seungyeon, Hyorin or Ailee have strong vocals.
However they are not as popular as idol group members, because while their vocals are strong and make the listeners impressed, their songs do not have the 'repeat' value'.
IU's vocals are rather weak, as seen in her famous duel against Hyorin where the latter crushed IU so thoroughly that IU has never appeared on the Immortal Songs again, but she is good at the subtleness, significantly increasing the chance of repeat listeners.
About the subtleness, IU has no equal in KPop, and probably in the world as well.
That is conflicting assessment.
Subtlety and strength are both aspects of vocals.
IU would be a surgical knife, while Hyorin a broadsword.
Sure the broadsword will crush the lancet in a battle, but where subtlety is needed, the broadsword is useless.
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IU is great. She certainly knows how to use her voice for the music she makes. She perfected that. You can’t take that away from her. She’s a great vocalist, high up there.
But Ailee’s vocals are on a different level and out of this world. Unless I’m unaware of someone else, the only one who comes close would be Mamamoo’s Solar.
If we compare IU and Ailee, etc to pitchers, Ailee, etc are power pitchers, who throw strong fastballs to overwhelm the batters, while IU is like someone who is good at curveball and changeups to fool the batter, albeit with slower ball speed.
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she is never known for being a powerful or technical vocalist.
there is a vocal analysis on her albeit it is old.
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IU is weaker at technique because her vocal tone is unique that she can win battles without using too many tricks
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Ailee's range is defo wider than IU's but it doesn't mean IU isn't a good vocalist
For vocalists it's very important to know their range and to not go beyond it ....IU handles herself very well and she's very stable
It doesn't mean she has small range tho, it's just Ailee's is wider
I recommend watching this
She nailed the high notes beautifully
External Content www.youtube.comContent embedded from external sources will not be displayed without your consent.Through the activation of external content, you agree that personal data may be transferred to third party platforms. We have provided more information on this in our privacy policy.In wars, she does not fight with bigger weapons - she relies more on stratagem.
Lee Jieun knows she has no equal on the whispering style so that's what she does all the time recently.
She is good at creating repeat customers.
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she is never known for being a powerful or technical vocalist.
there is a vocal analysis on her albeit it is old.
https://kpopvocalanalysis.net/2015/05/01/ius-vocal-analysis/
Yes but on that blog, although I don't know who is the first person in the picture, she appears second before everyone else
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It is funny, on one side, we have WhyKnock complaining that IU caused Kpop to shift towards vocalists and then these discussions, doubting her abilities as a Vocalists.
But anyway,
Yes, she is a good vocalist, in her own field i.e. Kpop and associated music genres.
But not to be compared with say musical theater singers or opera singers e.g. Sohyang. Barely any Kpop singer can get to that levels.
It is simplistic to judge vocal ability merely on the basis of range, like judging basketball players on their height-reach.
A non-dancing soloist simply can't last at IU's levels of success for so long, without being a good vocalists.
Sales, success and popularity apart.
Professional vocal trainers like Kim Sung Eun (trainer for BTS/Twice, Produce 101) have credited her abilities.
Look at competition shows, where vocalists choose her songs to compete - Kingdom's Mayfly used "Love Poem" and Girls Planet "My Sea". And I have lost count of idols, trainees attempting to cover "Hold my hand"
Her vocal abilities are kind of analogues to her position in K-pop itself.
Kpop is dominated by groups and bops, but she stands apart from that domination, yet is highly successful.
Similarly vocalists are known by high notes, range etc., but she takes up falsetto/aspirated sounds, which others try avoid and is successful with that.
Unique.
And it is not by accident, her singing voice is different from speaking and she has explained how she uses breath control, saliva etc. to achieve the effect. So she knows her art well.
Vocal abilities is like have different tools - some vocalists have multi-tool, some might have kitchen knives, some surgical knives etc. But what matters more is how they use and know what to use which tool for.
And IU has been fantastic in that.
So without doubt she is one of the top vocalists on Kpop for the past decade.
No one's denying that she's a great singer. But if you pick it out one by one, you'dsee that technique-wise, she's quite average. Nevertheless, she's a very good singer that KNOWS HER STRENGTH. People don't just mindlessly rank someone higher just because of their range. Range is nothing if you hit that with strain. IU aside, if a soprano, but can't support, let's say, an A4, it's obvious that they'd be quite weaker than average since they have a naturally higher tessitura.
Also, tbh, many of Average+ singers know their technicalities very well, that's including IU.
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No one's denying that she's a great singer. But if you pick it out one by one, you'dsee that technique-wise, she's quite average. Nevertheless, she's a very good singer that KNOWS HER STRENGTH. People don't just mindlessly rank someone higher just because of their range. Range is nothing if you hit that with strain. IU aside, if a soprano, but can't support, let's say, an A4, it's obvious that they'd be quite weaker than average since they have a naturally higher tessitura.
Also, tbh, many of Average+ singers know their technicalities very well, that's including IU.
The question was not whether IU is better than Ailee, Sohyang etc. But whether she is a good vocalist?
And to assess that, there are only two criteria here,
1. Consistent success - which actually is "people" that matter and only a fool will deny IU there.
2. Professional assessment - while this varies, enough vocal professionals have confirmed her abilities.
Rest is all amateur chatter, internet opinions, people showing off.
I don't bother about that.
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she relies more on stratagem.
she can win battles without using too many tricks
You are all over the place - contradictory answers.
Strategic, but does not use tricks - well in general usage, using strategies instead of power, is considered tricky.
Anyway, I don't disagree, and that is why I think she is a good vocalist.
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She picks her battles and uses it in a way before the battle. In other words, she does not use tactics but uses a grand stratege.
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Yes, I criticise her for all the harm she did to kpop, but the badges looked good so I bought them
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Great analogy!
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