Alison Goldfrapp (4,717 views)

[Alex61]

Alison Elizabeth Margaret Goldfrapp
Vocal Range: C♯3 – E♭6

Significant High Notes:
E♭6 ("Twist")
D6 ("Slippage")
C♯6 ("Impossible", "Utopia" live Later... with Jools Holland)
C6 ("Lovely Head" acoustic version, "Twist", "Utopia", "Voicething")
B5 ("Crystalline Green")
B♭5 ("Halo" Goldfrapp remix, "Happiness", "Slide In" live Rock Werchter Festival 2008, "Twist", "You Never Know")
A5 ("Alive", "The Beat Divine", "Caravan Girl", "UK Girls (Physical)", "Utopia", "Voicething")
G♯5 ("Crystalline Green", "Koko", "NeverStop", "Shiny and Warm", "Thea", "Total All Out Water")
G5 ("Caravan Girl", "Felt Mountain", "Hunt", "I Wanna Life", "Lovely 2 C U", "Monster Love", "The Night", "Oompa Radar", "A Pain That I'm Used To" Goldfrapp remix, "Rocket", "Slide In", "Systemagic", "Winter Wonderland")
F♯5 ("Bodo", "Cologne Cerrone Houdini", "Gatto Gelato", "Hotel (Suite 23)", "Little Bird", "Fondue Knight" live Berlin 2001, "Subterfuge", "We Radiate", "You Never Know")
F5 ("A&E", "The Beat Divine", "Digging Deeper Now", "Everything is Never Enough", "Gatto Gelato", "Gone to Earth", "Head First", "I Wanna Life", "Ocean", "Shiny and Warm", "So Hard So Hot", "Some People", "Strict Machine", "Systemagic", "Thea", "Twist", "Winter Wonderland")
E5 ("Clowns", "Dreaming", "Everything is Never Enough", "Fever (This Is the Real Thing)", "Stranger", "Tigerman", "UK Girls (Physical)", "Utopia", "We Radiate")
E♭5 ("A&E", "Big Black Cloud, Little White Lie", "Black Cherry", "Digging Deeper Now", "Fever (This Is the Real Thing)", "Gone to Earth", "Halo" Goldfrapp remix, "Happiness", "Head First", "Hunt", "Koko", "Love Invention", "Monster Love", "NeverStop", "Oompa Radar", "Road to Somewhere", "SloFlo", "Some People", "Strict Machine", "Thea", "Tiptoe", "You Never Know")
D5 ("Alive", "Alvar", "Annabel", "Are We Here?", "Beautiful", "Become the One", "Believer", "Black Cherry", "Cologne Cerrone Houdini", "Deer Stop", "Drew", "Eat Yourself", "Felt Mountain", "Forever", "Horse Tears", "Human", "I Wanna Life", "In Electric Blue", "Little Bird", "Lovely 2 C U", "Melancholy Sky", "Monster Love", "The Night", "A Pain That I'm Used To" Goldfrapp remix, "Ride a White Horse", "Sad But True", "Sartorius" live Wonderful Electric: Live in London, "Satin Chic", "Simone", "Slippage", "Stranger", "This Is the New Shit" Goldfrapp remix, "UK Girls (Physical)", "Ulla", "The W.A.N.D." Supernaturalistic – Goldfrapp remix, "Winter Wonderland", "Zodiac Black")
C♯5 ("Alive", "All Night Operator (Part 1)", "Anymore", "Are We Here?", "Bodo", "Clay", "Clowns", "Digging Deeper Now", "Fever (This Is the Real Thing)", "Fly Me Away", "Fondue Knight" live Berlin 2001, "Forever", "Hotel (Suite 23)", "Jo", "Moon in Your Mouth", "NeverStop", "Pumpkin", "Slide In", "Yellow Halo", "Zodiac Black")
C5 ("A&E", "Alvar", "The Beat Divine", "Believer", "Caravan Girl", "Cologne Cerrone Houdini", "Deep Honey", "Deer Stop", "Dreaming", "Faux Suede Drifter", "The Good, the Bad and the Dread", "Happiness", "Head First", "Eat Yourself", "Horse Tears", "Human", "Hunt", "Impossible", "Koko", "Merry Christmas From Goldfrapp", "Oompa Radar", "A Pain That I'm Used To" Goldfrapp remix, "Road to Somewhere", "Rocket", "Sad But True", "Sartorius" live Wonderful Electric: Live in London, "Simone", "SloFlo", "So Hard So Hot", "Some People", "Strict Machine", "Time Out from the World", "Train", "Voicething", "White Soft Rope")

Significant Low Notes:
B3 ("Beast That Never Was", "Big Black Cloud, Little White Lie", "Fever (This Is the Real Thing)", "Fondue Knight" live Berlin 2001, "Forever", "Hairy Trees", "Hotel (Suite 23)", "I Wanna Life", "In Electric Blue", "It's Not Over Yet" live BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge 2008, "Simone", "Some Velvet Morning" live Royal Albert Hall 2014, "Stranger", "Ulla", "We Radiate", "Zodiac Black")
B♭3 ("Anymore", "Black Cherry", "Cologne Cerrone Houdini", "Deep Honey", "Deer Stop", "Faux Suede Drifter", "Felt Mountain", "Gatto Gelato", "Jo", "Laurel", "Let It Take You", "Love Invention", "Lovely Head", "Melancholy Sky", "Monster Love", "Road to Somewhere", "Sartorius" live Wonderful Electric: Live in London, "Slide In", "Some People", "Train", "Yellow Halo", "You Never Know")
A3 ("Alive", "All Night Operator (Part 1)", "Alvar", "Annabel", "Beautiful", "Boys Will Be Boys", "Dreaming", "Drew", "Eat Yourself", "Everything is Never Enough", "Forever", "Head First", "Lee", "Little Bird", "Stranger", "Tigerman", "Time Out from the World", "UK Girls (Physical)", "Utopia", "We Radiate")
G♯3 ("A&E", "Anymore", "Bodo", "Clowns", "Fever (This Is the Real Thing)", "Gone to Earth", "Jo", "Koko", "Laurel", "Little Death" live Wonderful Electric: Live in London, "Moon in Your Mouth", "NeverStop", "Number 1", "Orchard", "Paper Bag", "Pumpkin", "Shiny and Warm", "Subterfuge", "Thea", "This Is the New Shit" Goldfrapp remix, "Train", "Yes Sir", "You Never Know")
G3 ("Alvar", "Annabel", "The Beat Divine", "Believer", "Caravan Girl", "Cologne Cerrone Houdini", "Deer Stop", "Dreaming", "Drew", "Eat Yourself", "Gone to Earth", "The Good, the Bad and the Dread", "Happiness", "Horse Tears", "Human", "Hunt", "Let It Take You", "Lovely 2 C U", "Merry Christmas From Goldfrapp", "The Night", "Ooh La La", "Paper Bag", "Ride a White Horse", "Sad But True", "Sartorius" live Wonderful Electric: Live in London, "Simone", "So Hard So Hot", "Systemagic", "Utopia", "White Soft Rope")
F♯3 ("All Night Operator (Part 1)", "Become the One", "Boys Will Be Boys", "Clay", "Clowns", "Digging Deeper Now", "Everything is Never Enough", "Fever (This Is the Real Thing)", "Fly Me Away", "Fondue Knight" live Berlin 2001, "Happiness", "Hotel (Suite 23)", "I Wanna Life", "In Electric Blue", "Little Bird", "Lovely Head", "NeverStop", "Ocean", "Pilots", "Pumpkin", "Stranger", "Yes Sir")
F3 ("Believer", "Cologne Cerrone Houdini", "Impossible", "Lovely 2 C U", "Laurel", "Lovely Head", "Melancholy Sky", "Monster Love", "Number 1", "Pilots", "Ride a White Horse", "Road to Somewhere", "Rocket", "Satin Chic", "Shiny and Warm", "Some People", "Systemagic", "Thea", "Twist")
E3 ("Beautiful", "Become the One", "Boys Will Be Boys", "Drew", "Fly Me Away", "Horse Tears", "Human", "Lee", "Merry Christmas From Goldfrapp", "Ooh La La", "Paper Bag", "Simone", "Tigerman", "Time Out from the World", "Twist")
E♭3 ("A&E", "Clay", "Digging Deeper Now", "Koko", "Little Death" live Wonderful Electric: Live in London, "Ocean", "Pilots", "Pumpkin" Ambient version, "Road to Somewhere", "Tiptoe", "Twist", "Yes Sir", "You Never Know")
D3 ("Human", "Merry Christmas From Goldfrapp", "Ooh La La" iTunes Originals version, "Little Bird", "Orchard", "This Is the New Shit" Goldfrapp remix)
C♯3 ("Tiptoe")
..................................................................
• Bold marks notes or passages that are particularly outstanding (relative to the singer).
• Italics mark non-melodic notes.
• Underlines mark notes that are obscured in the song mix.

A prominent name in indie music for some time now, Alison Goldfrapp forms one half of eponymous electropop duo Goldfrapp, known for their eclectic musical style and hits "Ooh La La" and "A&E". Alison is known for her sultry vocal approach, mostly singing in a sultry, breathy chest voice. A low(ish) soprano, she has an extensive, quasi-operatic head voice which she uses to great effect on earlier Goldfrapp tracks like "Utopia". Her lower register, though, is a remarkably strong one - Alison frequently sings rather comfortably in the lower third octave, her more recent albums in particular showcase her dark lower notes. Alison's vocal approach may be somewhat unorthodox, though the chameleonic nature of her voice undoubtedly makes her an incredibly interesting singer.

SPOILER: Click to show

{A Few Examples of Her Voice}
Rather solid low notes down to D3 and a climactic higher section later on reaching up to F♯5!


Lovely high notes at the start and towards the end - the rest is a nice display of her warm, breathy chest voice.


An exceptionally pleasant vocal performance. Strong lows down to E♭3 and a lovely higher passage later on reaching up to F5.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Questionable Notes}
F6 ("Twist" live Black Sessions^[1])
E6 ("Horse Tears"^[2], "Pilots"^[2])
E♭6 ("Happiness"^[2])
C6 ("Lovely Head"^[2])
E♭5 ("Little Death" live Wonderful Electric: Live in London^[2])
B2 ("Become the One"^[2])
B♭2 ("Monster Love"^[2])
A2 ("Ooh La La"^[2])
F2 ("Ride a White Horse"^[2])
...................................................................
1. Questionable non-melodic notes (screams, vocal slides, etc.).
2. Questionable identity and/or legitimacy.
...................................................................
Questionable notes are any notes of questionable significance. In short, this spoiler acknowledges notes that I am aware exist, but do not want to contribute to the singer's range. These involve (but are not limited to) notes of questionable identity, notes of questionable legitimacy and notes of significantly poor quality.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Notewatching Credits & Other Info}
Alex61
Solo@
The Love Invention (2023): E♭3 – G♯5

Goldfrapp:
Felt Mountain (2000): D3 – C6
Black Cherry (2003): C♯3 – E♭6
Supernature (2005): E♭3 – B♭5
Seventh Tree (2008): D3 – B♭5
Head First (2010): F3 – C6
Tales of Us (2013): E♭3 – G♯5
Silver Eye (2017): E♭3 – G5

Notewatching of other performances not listed above done by Alex61.

[samhinchliffe91]

Thanks so much for this and the update.

According to this vocal range video she hits a faint G#2 in 'Number 1' and a G2 in 'Ride a White Horse' don't know accurate they are, but thought it was interesting:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUelfUL0gtA

[Alex61]

Indeed, I have heard those notes and seen that video before - they're pitch-shifted. In fact, the "Ride a White Horse" low note is mentioned in Questionable Notes.

[glo]

youtu.be/GymvmQ2Y0Cg

Lots of mid-to-low range, down to A3, G3, and E3. From 1986!

youtu.be/xrHoyKqvMjc

E3 to E5! Lots of sustained G3s and a good several C5s. Also from 1986. Displays the sultriness of her voice from a very early age.

(High quality recordings too!)

youtu.be/ekdvN8E6EJk

Unsure what to make of this one. I hear a dark crooning at C♯3 and a clear cut-up of Alison’s voice up at G♯4, but it’s also a very processed track.

youtu.be/vXNIqhS9U1Y

Fairly strong E3s and D3s in this track. Alison in lead. Strong & silky B4s in here too in what seems like the refrain, but obviously that wouldn’t be listed. Ooh! Harmonies up to F#5 near the end as well. A3s and B3s abound here too.

All from the same channel, Alan Aurmont. It seems to show that Alison had a very mature soprano instrument by age 20, with a formidable and charismatic lower range to boot. Very compelling vocals throughout.

[samhinchliffe91]

Never heard these before, thanks glo.

"All from the same channel, Alan Aurmont. It seems to show that Alison had a very mature soprano instrument by age 20, with a formidable and charismatic lower range to boot. Very compelling vocals throughout."

I thought she was a Soprano sfogato (I know that the creators of this channel don't care for voice type) but always assumed that this hybrid voice type is essentially a Soprano voice with a Contralto's lower register and vice-vesa.

[glo]

Feb 17, 2020 21:33:27 GMT samhinchliffe91 said:

Never heard these before, thanks glo.

"All from the same channel, Alan Aurmont. It seems to show that Alison had a very mature soprano instrument by age 20, with a formidable and charismatic lower range to boot. Very compelling vocals throughout."

I thought she was a Soprano sfogato (I know that the creators of this channel don't care for voice type) but always assumed that this hybrid voice type is essentially a Soprano voice with a Contralto's lower register and vice-vesa.

Haha, I know you love this topic. For a while I have too. But I know it’s not critical to understanding a vocalist. Much more important is how they use their instrument — their technique, what they say through the passion of their voice, the power and vocal control they exhibit, and the range that they enjoy most to sing in... and their full usable range too, as well as the voice’s tonal color.

That said, I take risk to discuss this on here as the site is understandably not preferential to focusing on voice types, but I’ll say that Alison is at first hard to type so specifically, and others might come to different conclusions.

What I know is she has a dark and earthy tone in her lower to mid range that seems very natural to her, yet her voice is fairly light in volume; it gets brighter as it goes up and seems to shine very brightly as it enters the fifth and sixth octaves, even though it carries strength and character in the third and fourth — likely not without the help of a lowered larynx though. In fact, that her voice begins to change color as it descends below D4-F4, even becoming airy and darkened, suggests a lot about her voice and being naturally a soprano with a strong low register, rather than a contralto with soprano extension like Happy Rhodes (lyric contralto) or a true hybrid like Mina or Diamanda Galás (both of whom are best typed dramatic sopranos), and that her voice becomes bright and even piercing as it ascends, with a high tessitura as far as where it shines most, adds more to the description of her voice as far as type. Her low register is strong enough to give a contralto which makes it have some soprano sfogato qualities, which is why it fooled me in the past. In later years she’s sung with even more emphasis on it — her last record ranged from B2-E3 up only to G5. Her voice seems like it carries most purely around A3 to B5, even though she has a strong chest voice for having that much resonance.

I’d likely type her as a lyric coloratura soprano now because of her capacity for such high passages (“Crystalline Green”, “Utopia”, “Pilots”), the delicateness of her voice, and that it sounds like she likes to use a low larynx placement to naturally augment her lower range. It’s much warmer than it is metallic, and it becomes very bright and youthful in the upper ranges. But the thing is that another could look at her lower register and type her as a full-lyric soprano just for having such a mature and rich-sounding instrument. I almost did. When her larynx isn’t in a low placement it seems to carry a somewhat girlish or ingenue-like, earthy tone, very gentle and delicate. A full lyric voice would likely have more weight. A spinto soprano would be much bigger and darker-sounding, and a dramatic voice would be metallic and almost mezzo-like, larynx lowered or not. And a dramatic coloratura voice, rarer than them all, would be more like Diamanda Galás’ voice — strikingly dark & metallic, large in weight and with a much richer lower range than even Alison has (Tiffany Mosley, Cheryl Lynn).

There’s a chance I get flak for posting this here, but it was brought up. And I do have interest in the topic, and I am at least more aware of how much I needed to learn ever since I last posted about such things here. I remember the post I made about soprano sfogatos in pop music, and it was essentially a list of people who could enrich the tone of their chest voice as much as sing to the upper ends of head register, as well as have a strong mixed voice. This is basically in principle with the soprano sfogato concept, but it doesn’t imply that they embody that voice type. A soprano sfogato would in theory have a contralto-rich lower range, a mezzo-powerful middle register, and a coloratura-like upper head voice. Some would argue Mariah Carey as one; others would say her voice is much too light — though it does sound like she trained her voice to become much lighter & brighter than it would have been. Happy Rhodes could be argued as one, but some would likely say her tessitura sits much too low (around C3 to D5). R&B singer Jean Carn would likely qualify, with her five-octave range and deep, resonant lows as common as her girlish yet powerful soprano range. Mina Mazzini also qualifies, having a powerful voice that spans solidly from baritone C to soprano C. Arcadian 4.5-octave singer Phoebe Legere might also count too, though her voice is quite dramatic. But because of how voices work, that the voice generally has to let go of weight to sing to soprano heights, and build weight to sing low, and lose fullness to gain agility & vice-versa, true soprano sfogatos / assolutas are exceedingly rare as you know — for the same reason that dramatic coloratura sopranos, who carry spinto or dramatic weight on a coloratura instrument, are exceedingly rare too.

[glo]

Oh my, I’ve had my share of characters through the years. All still live in me. Here’s a new release from Alison.
I believe I heard G3 to F5 or G5 in this, lead and harmonies.