Tone For Days: Chloe X Halle
I just wanted to add a little preface before I go full fangirl in this post. I love an analysis. I think there’s so much to learn from other singers – really taking note and learning how we can make similar sounds in a way that works best for our bodies to ‘add to the toolbox’ and widen the scope of how we can express ourselves with our voices. Because of that, on this blog, I wanted to include mini ‘profiles’ on singers who I love and focus solely on their voices, rather than their artistry or personal lives. In the past couple of weeks, I have become OBSESSED with Chloe x Halle and their album, Ungodly Hour, so let’s start with them.
As a quick intro, Chloe x Halle are a vocal duo made up of sisters, Chloe and Halle Bailey. They’ve been acting from childhood and started posting covers on Youtube around 2011. Eventually, their cover of Pretty Hurts went viral and led to them being signed by Beyoncé’s management company. After releasing several EPs and mixtapes, as well as opening for Beyoncé on both The Formation World Tour and On The Run II, their debut album, The Kids Are Alright came out in 2018 with their sophomore album, Ungodly Hour, following in June 2020. It was announced last year that Halle had been cast as Ariel in the remake of Disney’s The Little Mermaid.
It’s so hard to not talk about their artistry and just focus on vocals, because they’re just so bloody polished all-round. I think the first thing anyone would notice, and the main reason they stand out, is how different their voices are to each other. I don’t know if people were describing her this way before she was cast in The Little Mermaid or whether they’ve just gone with it since hearing the news, but Halle truly has such a magical, siren quality to her. So airy and light, which mixes beautifully with Chloe’s beefier, rounder sound. The best thing about them is that they know how to use their voices together. With vocal duos, it’s so easy to dish out a verse each and come together for a chorus to make everything fair, but Chloe x Halle seem to have such respect for each other and their music that they assign their voices purposefully to serve the song. For just one example, in Forgive Me, without paying too much attention to the lyrics, you get a more aggressive, confrontational feeling from Chloe’s thick tone, round vowels and ‘lazy’ consonants, falling off of phrases in the verses. When Halle takes over at the chorus, it’s completely the opposite. She’s using a really clean, clippy sound. I really can’t tell if she’s in head voice or not because it’s so light. The song up to this point has been quite dramatic, but having Halle sing the chorus adds some playfulness in there. And that’s not to say that the two of them have their own, separate styles that they need to stick to. The fact that they have such different voices but blend so seamlessly is proof that they’re aware of the sounds they’re making and can adapt to show themselves off as one unit.
I think the reason they blend so well together – other than their ability to adapt and, you know, being sisters – is how naturally breathy they both seem to be. You love to hear a clean tone blend that sounds like one person, but this thing they have in common just sounds really special. A song like Lonely, sang by anyone else, could be a straight up banger. Especially when they sing in octaves, it could sound really clean and pure pop, but the amount of air they both sing with gives it such an ethereal quality. A lot of the time, singers will use a cleaner tone in ensembles because it’s (sort of) the default and easier to match, so the fact that we don’t usually hear such breathiness when it’s more than one person makes it sound so magical and changes the meaning of the song. It’s warmer; it feels like a hug and transforms this bop into a bit of an inspirational anthem.
They’re the kind of singers that you can listen to, surface level and just love the songs as songs, but listen closer and it becomes clear how much fun they have with their voices. To have that much fun requires skill. They sprinkle in so many cute mini-riffs and, as soon as you notice all the slides they’re using, there’ll be a section of super staccato, super precise phrases. If I had to pick a singular, favourite moment from the album, it would be the hook in Ungodly Hour and the flips in and out of chest. I also love that you can hear the little cry coming onto the word ‘love’. It might be stylistic, but it also prepares them to transition into head voice by accessing a higher larynx. It’s bloody genius. When I first listened to them, I was so struck by the way their individual tones worked together, that it took me a good few days to realise the amount of ornamentation that goes all the way through their songs, and I love that. I love that they’re so subtle and layered. If you’ve not already, please give them a listen and prepare to give in to a gen z, stan way of life you’ve not experienced since you were 16.