– Sharon van Etten – live at Glastonbury 2015 – June 28, 2015 – BBC6 Music –
It was a little over ten years ago when I first ran across Sharon van Etten by way of a session for BBC 6 Music‘s Lauren Laverne. I was instantly taken by the haunting quality of her voice and predicted she’d be around a very long time.
Van Etten cites Ani DiFranco as a key influence, saying, “She was the first musician I had ever heard whose songs were super confessional. She could really play guitar… That was my first experience with non-pop female musicians. She made me want to start playing more.”
Van Etten possesses a contralto vocal range, which Caleb Caldwell of Slant described as “husky”. NPR described her vocals as raspy, elegant and luminous, while Consequence called it “earthy”. Music journalists of The Guardian, Rolling Stone and The Independent wrote that Van Etten’s voice and singing style sometimes evoked Siouxsie Sioux’s of Siouxsie and the Banshees. Van Etten’s music is characterized by a heavy use of harmonies. Pitchfork described her songs as having “echoes of folk tradition.” NPR Music asserts: “Her songs are heartfelt without being overly earnest; her poetry is plainspoken but not overt, and her elegant voice is wrapped in enough rasp and sorrow to keep from sounding too pure or confident.” With “Comeback Kid” and Remind Me Tomorrow, Van Etten introduced electronic sounds into her music. She has said, “I listen to a lot of OMD… I’m into a lot of the new post-punk electronic stuff.”
Van Etten has also cited Scott Walker, Cocteau Twins, Rowland S. Howard, Joy Division, Roy Orbison, and Celine Dion as some of her musical influences. In a 2020 interview, when asked about a few albums that mean the most to her, she named John Cale’s Fear (1974), Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk (1979), and Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ No More Shall We Part (2001).
No need to play loud – but listen with your eyes closed.
