From ABBA in the 1970s to Robyn in the present day, Scandinavia in general and Sweden especially has deservedly earned a reputation as the motherland of pop sounds. Yet as a vocalist, musician and lyricist, Lykke Li is worlds apart from her compatriots. So explicitly emotional are the songs of her recent debut album Youth [...]

Incest. When a friend of mine was trying to convince me at BBQ #19374 of last week’s ‘ominous-for-Glastonbury’ heatwave that it should be legal, I never thought I’d be taking her side, in the public domain no less. But in order to marry Laura Marling’s strikingly gorgeous voice, this is an unfortunate but necessary pre-requisite. [...]

It is thirty years and a month since Sandy Denny fell down the stairs, suffering a fatal brain haemorrhage and bringing a successful singing career to a tragic close. And thankfully, the media have been running fitting tributes to the singer who truly possessed the voice I, logic permitting, would happily marry. Born Alexandra Elene [...]

It’s Friday, November 3rd 2006. I’ve rushed down to the London Astoria straight from work in Manchester, and am up in the gods peering at the stage below. I haven’t seen Guillemots live before. I have listened to their debut album Through the Windowpane and some of their early EP tracks, and, judging by the [...]

I first became aware of Miss Murphy’s voice when I heard Moloko’s 1999 hit Sing it Back. I didn’t like it. But, as with all great relationships, hate turned to love with the arrival of the follow up single The Time is Now. Roisin’s voice played powerfully across the disjointed background music to utterly seduce [...]

I admit I struggled at first to find a voice I’d happily yoke myself to for all eternity. My research, a jaunt to the ‘shuffle songs’ option on my mp3 player, uncovered many red herrings and false trials, songs which all seemed a l’il too glib, and a bit too modish; more exhilarating one-night-stand than [...]

When one thinks about marriage, it is easy to get caught up in a daydream about pretty frocks and horse-drawn carriages and elaborate table decorations, forgetting that in thirty years’ time you will still require a loving companion to hold your hair back as you hurl into a toilet bowl. There are many voices that [...]

Following on from previous IMTV subject Ray Lamontagne, my choice of voice is that of the former beard monster Caleb Followill of Tennessee-based family band Kings of Leon. Like many others, the first I heard of one of the most intriguing voices in modern music was on the band’s now iconic breakthrough single Molly’s Chambers. [...]

The name, I expect, is not familiar. The name of the band he fronts, Sigur Rós, might not even ring any bells. But such is my fondness for this Icelandic four-piece I can pinpoint the moment this love affair began. There I was, watching the final scene of Cameron Crowe’s film Vanilla Sky, moments before [...]

I think its fair to say that not only would I marry beardy American folk god Raycharles ‘Ray’ LaMontagne’s voice, I’d also have its little beardy babies. If those babies only adopted half of their father’s vocal talent, they would still be untouchable. I first came across Ray and his beard in 2004 when he [...]