Post by Anacrusis on Mar 12, 2022 23:55:03 GMT
Ryen Slegr
Years Active: 1999 - Present
Associated Acts: Ozma, Yes Dear, Weezer
Recorded Range: F2 - E♭5
Voice Type: Aries
{Bio and Voice Summary}
LONG LIVE ‘90s WEEZER! LOOOONG LIIIIIVE NINETIES WEEEEEZERRRRRRR!!!!
No. Ryen Slegr is not in Weezer.
But his band Ozma is, or at least began as, the disciples of that pristine, spectacular sound; the eternal apex of all music by any conceivable definition; the divine intervention that we mortals have chosen to refer to as early Weezer. Oh, praise be unto Rivers, his almighty Wheeze, and his two blessed, beautiful books: the Old Testament and the New Testament, better known respectively as The Blue Album and Pinkerton! Aaaaaahhhh! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
Yes. Ozma, the synth-infused power pop band from Pasadena, CA, started out pretty much as a Weezer clone, right down to the crunchy dual guitars, the whiny proto-emo belting, the quirky falsetto octave harmonies, the dorky lyrics about unrequited love and unorganized summer hobbies, the shameless recycling of the circle-of-fourths as a chord progression (yeah, circle of fifths, but the roots of these chords all specifically travel in the order of fourths, which is a staple of melodramatic emo-adjacent music)…at first, the only thing Ozma had that Weezer didn’t was their own dedicated keyboard player, Star Wick. But seeing as Ozma were the messengers of a divine sound whose originator (Weezer) had tragically disavowed by the time Ozma released their 2000 studio debut Rock and Roll Part Three, lack of originality should not just be forgiven on their part, but also appreciated. Going into the early 2000s, while a forever-awkward and self-conscious Rivers Cuomo (the guy from Weezer) descended into Muppets-induced madness, Ozma stood tall as the survivors of the flood, at least until Tally Hall could come along and carry that torch through the late 2000s.
Still, Ozma kept that torch burning through darkness, and the special flare they chose to give it was one of theatricalism: of ballads, extended instrumentals, recurring album motifs, increasingly honest and introspective lyrics, and a sprinkle of anachronistic influences (cabaret, Russian folk, hip hop samples, video game themes, etc.) over their crunch-guitar power-pop template.
Regarding vocals, Ozma guitarist and co-singer Ryen Slegr offers a twangier, more aggressive counterpart to bandmate Daniel Brummel, almost like the Lennon to his McCartney. Although, both Slegr and Brummel are exceedingly bright baritones who wield nasal SoCal accents and a special admiration for the tenor range. They sometimes even sound identical, at least on earlier albums. For fun, you might want to look up the Ozma classic “Domino Effect” and try to figure out who sings what section without watching the music video. It stumped me for ages…
But I digress. Misplaced Bible and Beatles analogies aside, Slegr and Brummel are good singers, Ozma is a good band, and I probably still suck at notewatching.
LONG LIVE ‘90s WEEZER! LOOOONG LIIIIIVE NINETIES WEEEEEZERRRRRRR!!!!
No. Ryen Slegr is not in Weezer.
But his band Ozma is, or at least began as, the disciples of that pristine, spectacular sound; the eternal apex of all music by any conceivable definition; the divine intervention that we mortals have chosen to refer to as early Weezer. Oh, praise be unto Rivers, his almighty Wheeze, and his two blessed, beautiful books: the Old Testament and the New Testament, better known respectively as The Blue Album and Pinkerton! Aaaaaahhhh! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!
Yes. Ozma, the synth-infused power pop band from Pasadena, CA, started out pretty much as a Weezer clone, right down to the crunchy dual guitars, the whiny proto-emo belting, the quirky falsetto octave harmonies, the dorky lyrics about unrequited love and unorganized summer hobbies, the shameless recycling of the circle-of-fourths as a chord progression (yeah, circle of fifths, but the roots of these chords all specifically travel in the order of fourths, which is a staple of melodramatic emo-adjacent music)…at first, the only thing Ozma had that Weezer didn’t was their own dedicated keyboard player, Star Wick. But seeing as Ozma were the messengers of a divine sound whose originator (Weezer) had tragically disavowed by the time Ozma released their 2000 studio debut Rock and Roll Part Three, lack of originality should not just be forgiven on their part, but also appreciated. Going into the early 2000s, while a forever-awkward and self-conscious Rivers Cuomo (the guy from Weezer) descended into Muppets-induced madness, Ozma stood tall as the survivors of the flood, at least until Tally Hall could come along and carry that torch through the late 2000s.
Still, Ozma kept that torch burning through darkness, and the special flare they chose to give it was one of theatricalism: of ballads, extended instrumentals, recurring album motifs, increasingly honest and introspective lyrics, and a sprinkle of anachronistic influences (cabaret, Russian folk, hip hop samples, video game themes, etc.) over their crunch-guitar power-pop template.
Regarding vocals, Ozma guitarist and co-singer Ryen Slegr offers a twangier, more aggressive counterpart to bandmate Daniel Brummel, almost like the Lennon to his McCartney. Although, both Slegr and Brummel are exceedingly bright baritones who wield nasal SoCal accents and a special admiration for the tenor range. They sometimes even sound identical, at least on earlier albums. For fun, you might want to look up the Ozma classic “Domino Effect” and try to figure out who sings what section without watching the music video. It stumped me for ages…
But I digress. Misplaced Bible and Beatles analogies aside, Slegr and Brummel are good singers, Ozma is a good band, and I probably still suck at notewatching.
Significant High Notes:
E♭5 ("Bad Dogs", "Lorraine", "Minor Theme")
C♯5 ("Don’t Give Up")
C5 ("Antidote", "Big Baby", "Domino Effect", "Give Me the End", "Natalie Portman", "Suicide Song", "You’d Think I’d Know")
B4 ("Barriers", "Give Me the End", "In Search of 1988", "One Wish", "Orion", "Prove It", "Surf the Intensity")
B♭4 ("Barriers", "Baseball", "The Business of Getting Down", "Denise" Borderline B-side, "Fight the Darkness", "Lunchbreak (Cobras Theme)", "Rocks", "Shooting Stars", "Wake Up", "You’d Think I’d Know")
A4 ("Don’t Give Up", "Give Me the End", "Imaginary Wheels", "Orion")
G♯4 ("Apple Trees", "Barriers", "Battlescars", "Blue Love", "Come Home Andrea", "Eponine", "Fight the Darkness", "Flight of the Bootymaster", "Gameover", "In Search of 1988", "Last Dance", "Maybe in an Alternate Dimension", "Motorology 3:39", "Never Know", "One Wish", "Prove It", "Restart", "Suicide Song", "Turtleneck Coverup", "Underneath My Tree", "The Ups and Downs", "You’d Think I’d Know")
G4 ("Bad Dogs", "Baseball", "Being Lord Vanity", "Eponine", "Fight the Darkness", "Imaginary Wheels", "In Search of 1988", "Orion", "Ready to Go", "Say It Ain’t So" live 1999, "Waking the Dead", "Welcome")
F♯4 ("Alright", "Antidote", "Apple Trees", "The Business of Getting Down", "Denise" Demo, "Dinner", "Gameover", "Identify", "If I Only Had a Heart", "Landing of Yuri Gagarin", "Los Angeles", "Lunchbreak (Cobras Theme)", "Motorology 3:39", "No One Needs to Know" live Pomona, "One Wish", "Pictures of Your Bones", "Restart", "Spending Time", "Underneath My Tree", "The Ups and Downs", "You Know the Story")
F4 ("Battlescars", "Denise" Demo, "Domino Effect", "If I Only Had a Heart", "If My Amp Had Wheels", "In Search of 1988", "Last Dance", "Lorraine", "Lunchbreak (Cobras Theme)", "Natalie Portman", "Rain of the Golden Gorilla", "Ready to Go", "Suicide Song", "Underneath My Tree", "Waking the Dead", "Welcome")
Significant Low Notes:
E♭3 ("Apple Trees", "Bad Dogs", "Baseball", "Battlescars", "Come Home Andrea", "Dinner", "Flight of the Bootymaster", "Flight of Yuri Gagarin", "Iceland", "If I Only Had a Heart", "Motorology 3:39", "One Wish", "You Know the Story", "You’d Think I’d Know")
D3 ("Identify", "Imaginary Wheels", "Pictures of Your Bones", "Surf the Intensity")
C♯3 ("Apple Trees", "Battlescars", "If I Only Had a Heart", "Last Dance", "Lunchbreak (Cobras Theme)", "Restart", "Turtleneck Coverup", "Underneath My Tree", "You Know the Story")
C3 ("Bad Dogs", "Baseball", "Lorraine")
B2 ("Being Lord Vanity", "Maybe in an Alternate Dimension")
B♭2 ("Denise" Demo, "Domino Effect", "Fight the Darkness", "Landing of Yuri Gagarin", "Motorology 3:39", "Restart", "Shooting Stars")
A2 ("Pictures of Your Bones", "Spending Time")
G♯2 ("In Search of 1988", "Restart")
G2 ("Baseball", "Being Lord Vanity", "Dinner", "So Simple", "Step", "Vanity of Oz")
F♯2 ("Big Baby")
F2 ("Welcome", "Your Name")
{Questionable Notes}
B♭5 ("Dinner" [4], "Step" [4])
G♯5 ("Come Home Andrea" [2, 5] There’s a voice crack on this anyway, "Minor Theme" [4])
F5 ("Come Home Andrea" [2])
B♭4 ("Spending Time" [2])
F2 ("Lunchbreak (Cobras Theme)" [1])
E2 ("Step" [1])
D2 ("Identify" [5] The intention is there, but it’s too strained and breathy)
..................................................
1. Brief jumps into high or low range (eg. Yelps, trills, anacrusis, etc.).
2. Notes whose singer is unclear.
3. Non-melodic (ie. Spoken or off-key) notes that also lack a clear pitch.
4. Possibly pitch-shifted notes.
5. Notes that do not fit the labels above but whose quality is still unrepresentative of the singer's usual work (eg. excessively distorted screams or sustained, but non-projected vocal fry).
B♭5 ("Dinner" [4], "Step" [4])
G♯5 ("Come Home Andrea" [2, 5] There’s a voice crack on this anyway, "Minor Theme" [4])
F5 ("Come Home Andrea" [2])
B♭4 ("Spending Time" [2])
F2 ("Lunchbreak (Cobras Theme)" [1])
E2 ("Step" [1])
D2 ("Identify" [5] The intention is there, but it’s too strained and breathy)
..................................................
1. Brief jumps into high or low range (eg. Yelps, trills, anacrusis, etc.).
2. Notes whose singer is unclear.
3. Non-melodic (ie. Spoken or off-key) notes that also lack a clear pitch.
4. Possibly pitch-shifted notes.
5. Notes that do not fit the labels above but whose quality is still unrepresentative of the singer's usual work (eg. excessively distorted screams or sustained, but non-projected vocal fry).
{Range Timeline}
With Ozma:
Songs of Inaudible Trucks and Cars (1999): C3 - F♯4 - E♭5
Rock and Roll Part Three (2000): G2 - B♭4 - C5
The Doubble Donkey Disc (2001): B♭2 - G♯4 - B♭4
Spending Time on the Borderline (2003): F2 - B♭4 - E♭5
Pasadena (2007): B♭2 - B♭4 - B4
Boomtown (2014): E♭3 - C5
With Yes Dear:
Yes Dear (2005): A2 - C♯5
Solo work:
Lord Vanity (2021): F2 - G4
With Ozma:
Songs of Inaudible Trucks and Cars (1999): C3 - F♯4 - E♭5
Rock and Roll Part Three (2000): G2 - B♭4 - C5
The Doubble Donkey Disc (2001): B♭2 - G♯4 - B♭4
Spending Time on the Borderline (2003): F2 - B♭4 - E♭5
Pasadena (2007): B♭2 - B♭4 - B4
Boomtown (2014): E♭3 - C5
With Yes Dear:
Yes Dear (2005): A2 - C♯5
Solo work:
Lord Vanity (2021): F2 - G4
..................................................
• Blue: Falsetto, head voice, and/or whistle register (projected mixed voice is kept in black).
• Bold: Some of the singer's arguably most impressive notes within a given register. Click on a bolded song title to hear audio of that note.
• Italics: Non-melodic notes (ie. Spoken or off-key).
• Underlines: Notes that are buried in the song's mix or which blend together with the other voice(s) in a harmony.