The Anonymous Economist lent me a copy of the most recent album from Anastacia (or Shouty Woman, as my officemate Jo calls her). The main producer credited is Glen Ballard. Having listened to the tracks [if I still had dreadlocks they would have trailed back from my head horizontally while I sat in front of the speakers] I think the real perpetrator is that poodle-permed Captain Caveman lookalike who Tina Turner used to keep in a cage during her live shows and let out occasionally to play a sax solo. They are all so LOUD. A typical number goes something like this:

  1. quiet acoustic guitar strumming
  2. clichéd psychobabble intro lyric that doesn’t scan: “I am a shouty woman and you gone done me wrong / I’m all out of therapy and my shrink wants points for his part in this song.”
  3. real string section, layered with a roomful of expensive synthesizers
  4. anguished pre-chorus with Led Zep-proportioned drums
  5. thumping verse build-up: “I’m a shouty woman on an empty street / A shouty woman you left incomplete / A shouty woman all drained of tears / But I’m a shouty woman and I’ll SHOUT DOWN MY FEARS.
  6. velociraptor tom roll
  7. fifteen gospel choirs and three orchestras file into the biggest space in studio complex for the main chorus, introduced by a Tyrannosaurus rex drum fill: “I-Y-AM A SHOUTY SHOUTY WOMAN!”
  8. apocalyptic drum crescendo
  9. super-anguished verse: “You beat me, cheat me, use your mouse to delete me, till I can’t shout no more!”
  10. “But I’ll hang on, I’ll be strong / I’ll open Word and write another muthaf**kin’ loud song / I-y-am a shouty shouty SHOUTY WOMAN!”
  11. knobs-to-eleven chorus: “…SHOU-T-AY WO-MA-Y-N! SHOU-T-AY WO-MA-Y-N!…”
  12. muted, loop-based contemporary break to lull you into a false sense of security: “You turned my shout to a whisper / When you turned away to kiss her”
  13. then, bam!: TURN UP THOSE COMPRESSORS, SCOTTY!
  14. I CANNAE CHANGE THE LAWS OF ACOUSTICS, CAPTAIN CAVEMAN!
  15. MORE LIMITING! I MUST HAVE MORE LIMITING!
  16. SHE’S IN THE RED, CAP’N.
  17. WE NEED MAXIMUM POWER TO COMPETE WITH ANA’S CLIMAX. JUST HOLD IT TOGETHER UNTIL THE OUTRO.
  18. …WE’RE NEARLY THERE, CAP…
  19. NOW! UNLEASH THE AXEMAN!
  20. huge overdriven Les Paul guitar parachutes in from both sides of the stereo field simultaneously, played by a cloned West Coast session man plucking the strings with his perfectly straight teeth while he uses his feet to do his accounts with Microsoft Money.
  21. just in time for the final chorus, God (having restricted Himself to smaller percussion instruments until this point) starts hitting the timpani like He means it
  22. “IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT, ON THE EDGE OF CRAZY /I NEED SOME MORE IMPACT AND A CHANGE IN KEY IS KIND OF LAZY / YEAH, I’M A SHOUTY, SHOUTY WOMAN!”
  23. the entire heavenly host comes in for the repeat: “…SHOU-T-AY WO-MA-Y-N! SHOU-T-AY WO-MA-Y-N!…”
  24. dizzyingly steep diminuendo
  25. tinkly piano and croaky vox to fade: “Before you went away I shouted in our home / When you left I shouted down the phone / But now I’m shouting, SHOUT-A-Y-A-Y-ING … all … al-o-n-e…”

Whatever else you think about her, you’ve got to admit her voice is some kind of physiological marvel. In another age she would be a freak show star: “Dr Caractacus Glennworthy Ballard presents, ‘The Impossibly Infinitesimal Miss Anastacia Shoutywoman: The Human Vocal TARDIS!'”.