History Main / LyricalTic

* Mark E. Smith of Music/TheFall is known for adding an "-ah" at the end of lines in a way similar to the Mike Doughty example above. It's not quite after ''every'' line, and generally seems to be his way of emphasizing certain lyrics. It's particularly rampant in "Repetition" - "Ah-we dig-ah, Ah-we dig-ah repetition-ah!".

** He's enough of a LargeHam to make long phrases like "I ain't lyin' to ya!" and "I'm gonna tell you one time!" work like this. [[CatchPhrase In multiple songs.]] To say nothing of the [[MemeticMutation infamous]] "GODDAMMIT BABY I AIN'T LYIN' TO YA, I'M ONLY GONNA TELL YOU ONE TIMEEEEEAAAAAAAYEEAAAAAHHH" in "Runnin' With the Devil."

[[AC: Electronic]]
* Legendary actor/singer Benjamin "Scatman" Crothers got his nickname ("Scatman") ''because'' of this trope. He'd toss in nonsense sounds and "Hey, man"s into every song he sang. A lot of the sounds he made duplicated the music being played behind his vocals, a technique known in jazz as "{{Scatting}}".

* Music/JamesBrown may very well be the Most Triumphant Example of this trope. He was famous for going "ow!". He was also famous for variations of "Hunh!", "Heh!", "Whoa", "Ooh", and (as noted in the page quote), "Hey!"
** A short-lived Twitmeme, "Radio 4 Minus One Letter", defined "From Our Ow Correspondent" as "a series of reports from across the world delivered by our reporters, interspersed with their impressions of James Brown".
** The original version of the prank known as "blasting" involves driving up behind an unsuspecting pedestrian, cranking the stereo to full volume and playing the "ow" from the beginning of "I Feel Good".
* Music/BobMarley had many, mostly involving {{Scatting}}, repeating words, saying "oooh yeah", "well" and "whoa". A good example is "So Much Things To Say" from ''{{Music/Exodus|BobMarleyAlbum}}'', which starts off laid back and quickly gets out of time because he's trying to fit so many words and noises into each line.
* Music/JoanJett is a serious abuser of this trope- nearly every one of her songs includes her "OW!". Earlier songs from her time in the Runaways include a lot of moaning and sex noises.
* Music/ShaniaTwain is famous for her gratuitous "woo!" and "uh uh" noises.
* Music/KeithUrban has one that sounds like a mix between "ooo" and "mmm". He also likes to ad-lib variants on "yes, you did" a lot.
* Music/MichaelJackson's "Whooo!", often accompanied by him grabbing his crotch. Also his "Eeee-hee" and "Chamone/Ja-mawn-eh!", and "Chk-uhh, chk-uhh". "Hoooooooo!" is another one; he started using with the music video for "Bad", but it didn't become a prominent non-lyric of his until TheNineties.

* Music/TomWaits' screaming.
* The Used's Bert [=McCracken=] often makes "mm"s "pow"s and "chk-chkow"s, some of which are reminiscent of Michael Jackson.

* Eve has "uh" and "shit".
* Music/{{The Cure|Band}}'s Robert Smith seems particulary fond of making meowing noises in a number of their songs, mostly the upbeat tracks such as 'Lovecats' and 'Mint Car'.
* Dave Chappelle immortalized Music/LilJon's "YAA-EE-AAH!" "OKAY!" and "WHAT!"
* Music/{{DMX}} made frequent use of growls, barking, "uh!", and "come on!" in his songs.
* Music/{{Eminem}} also makes a habit of this trope, albeit it's usually the "Bow Wow Wow" thing.
* [[Music/{{Beyonce}} Beyoncé]] trills her notes. A ''lot''. You can sometimes pick her songs out of a crowd just on the basis of this Lyrical Tic.
* Win Butler of Music/ArcadeFire is fond of spontaneous, often very high-pitched, 'WOOO!'s. While they at first sound like a marker for more up-tempo songs, toned-down whoops appear even in slower songs like 'Neighbourhood #4 (7 Kettles)'.
* Music/LittleRichard loved his "Whooooooh!"s and "Ah Hoooooooo!"s.
* The early Music/TheBeatles were fond of "Whoo!", in imitation of Little Richard.
** Yeah yeah yeah!
* ''Aimee Mann'' is fond of tossing the word "baby" into her songs at random.
* Music/LedZeppelin's Robert Plant had his easily recognizable array of wails and high-pitched screams, along with his randomly inserted "Oh baby"'s.
* [[Music/{{Metallica}} James Hetfield]] is well known for ending phrases with "-AH!" "All Nightmare Long" has this hilarious line at the end of the chorus: "But your [[PunctuatedForEmphasis luck! runs! out-AH!"]] He's also well known for "Yeaah-aaah!" and the occasional "Go!" as a new riff or portion of a song kicks in.
** He is also fond of "Yeah!" or "Yeah-eah!". Someone actually took the time to [[https://soundcloud.com/kcclips/hetfield-grunts compile all of them]].
* Japan's ridiculous debut album ''Adolescent Sex'' has David Sylvian saying "whoa babe" and "dancing" a lot.

* It seems sometimes that Creator/WillSmith can't begin a song without a "Whooooo!", "Uhn!", or "Ha ha!". For that matter, he doesn't seem able to end a song without one, either.
* Music/BuddyHolly had the glottal stop, as in "We-eh-ell, the little things you say and do, make me want to be with you-uh-oo."
* Mike Doughty of Soul Coughing almost always pronounces an additional vowel at the ends of words which end stanzas. It's rather unusual at first, but eventually, you can't imagine Soul Coughing music without it.

* Wynonna Judd uses a lot of "Uhn" in her songs, and sometimes actually ''hisses" in her songs. No, really, she hisses. Like a snake.
* The Misfits have been fond of various "Whoa's" and "Oh's" in all incarnations.
* Music/RoyOrbison's signature cat growl. "Rrawrr!" In the liner notes for a song in which it was sampled, it was referred to as "the Mercy growl". Guess his other (less frequently used) tic.
* Travie [=McCoy=] of Music/GymClassHeroes threw a lot of "So sexy"'s in random places on the ''As Cruel As School Children'' album.
* Boyz II Men had a sound shared with many black male R&B groups of the time, "Nayhooooo!"
* Immature had "Yeyeh".
* Glenn Gould was a classical pianist who involuntarily hummed along to the music. On many of his recordings, his humming is audible; many critics complained that it ruined many otherwise fine performances.
** Maurizio Pollini has done the same thing.
** Keith Jarrett fits too, with added grunting.
* Legendary actor/singer Benjamin "Scatman" Crothers got his nickname ("Scatman") ''because'' of this trope. He'd toss in nonsense sounds and "Hey, man"s into every song he sang. A lot of the sounds he made duplicated the music being played behind his vocals, a technique known in jazz as "{{Scatting}}".
* Jazz musician Phil Harris had a habit of tossing in the occasional "Oh", "Hey", "Tell me" and "Yeah, man" on every song he sang. Like the aforementioned Scatman Crothers, he would also make sounds that mimicked the music that was backing him (like going "ba-pa-pa-pa-ba-dah" to accompany a trumpet flourish). When he and Scatman Crothers duetted on "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4guRiNZLGQ Everybody Wants to Be a Cat]]" (from the Disney film ''WesternAnimation/TheAristocats''), its a veritable garden of throw-it-in sounds and {{Scatting}}.
** 4 years earlier, Harris and Louis Prima did a similar "scatting duel" on "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFcoC1FJOhA I Wanna Be Like You]]" from ''WesternAnimation/TheJungleBook1967''.
* Mark E. Smith of Music/TheFall is known for adding an "-ah" at the end of lines in a way similar to the Mike Doughty example above. It's not quite after ''every'' line, and generally seems to be his way of emphasizing certain lyrics. It's particularly rampant in "Repetition" - "Ah-we dig-ah, Ah-we dig-ah repetition-ah!".
** British comedians Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer labelled this ''The Club Singer Style'' after inept singers in [[Series/PhoenixNights Northern working mens' clubs]], and took it to a particularly incoherent extreme on their Series/ShootingStars spoof game show.
* Redman always starts his songs (or at least his own verse when rapping on someone else's track) with one or more "Yo's".
* The Kaiser Chiefs seem to like going, "Wooooaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!"

* Music/RonnieJamesDio was fond of "Lookout!"
* Till Lindemann of German band Music/{{Rammstein}} usually rolls his R's. Also, when he sings ''"ach"'', it sounds like a growl.
* Matisyahu never fails to drop a "Yaiyo!" or "Yiggi yiggi yo!" or two into his songs.
* Steven Tyler of Music/{{Aerosmith}} seems to favor the "Weeeaooows".
* Less so in later years, but on Music/SystemOfADown's first album, Serj Tankian was notorious for this. The song DDevil is a good example.
* Michael Stipe would often go 'ho''ooh' or 'whoa' in the early Music/{{REM}} songs, for instance in "Harborcoat" and "Just A Touch". He would often stretch these noises over the melody for harmony purposes. Another one, which he still does, is shout some of the words in a particular line rather than sing them (for instance in "Just A Touch" and "Discoverer").
* New artist Awolnation (a.k.a Aaron Bruno) enjoys randomly screaming "Yeah!" or "Hey!" between verses, the beginning of the song 'Soul Wars' being a prime example.
* Stray From The Path's Drew York does this a lot with "Bleagh".
* David Draiman of Music/{{Disturbed}} is known for a guttural, animal-like sort of growl/scream, which opened 'Down With the Sickness', Perfect Insanity and 'Stricken', among others. This is often rendered as 'O-wa-wa-a' or 'Uwawawa' or something similar in text.

* Music/BillyIdol is rather fond of "ow!"

* Brazilian singer Samuel Rosa, from the band Skank, is an expert in {{Scatting}}. His most repeated one is "Ehhhhh!".
* In the case of Music/{{Evanescence}} Amy Lee uses AH AH AH rather a lot on their 2011 album.
* Music/ImogenHeap was rather fond of "Da da ooooom" in her early years. It seems to have carried on in the Music/FrouFrou cover of {{Holding out for a Hero}} and in Speak For Yourself's Loose Ends, albeit with the "oom" changed to "dum" and with more "da da".
* Music/DavidLeeRoth has many, including "OH YEEEAAAH" and "woo!".
** He's enough of a LargeHam to make long phrases like "I ain't lyin' to ya!" and "I'm gonna tell you one time!" work like this. [[CatchPhrase In multiple songs.]] To say nothing of the [[MemeticMutation infamous]] "GODDAMMIT BABY I AIN'T LYIN' TO YA, I'M ONLY GONNA TELL YOU ONE TIMEEEEEAAAAAAAYEEAAAAAHHH" in "Runnin' With the Devil."
* Music/SayAnything's lead singer Max Bemis tends to use "woah!" as a filler -- played with in the song "Woe".
* Shaggy: "SHAGGY!"
* Damo Suzuki of ''Music/{{Can}}'' loves manic yelling and high pitched shrieks. He sounds particularly deranged on "Peking O" and "Soup". He also did a James Brown-esque "uh!" at the start of "Halleluwah".
* Music/BobDylan is fond of starting out lyric lines with "Well,..."
* Music/EmilieAutumn likes rolling her Rs. She also has her voice break intentionally a lot (like in "Liar" and "If I Burn"), usually when transitioning from normal singing to CarefulWithThatAxe. (the voice break is a sign that she's going to scream at some point)
* Finding a song by Music/TheOffspring in which singer Dexter Holland doesn't shout "woah" or "yeah" is like finding a needle in a haystack. Only there is no needle and the haystack lied to you.
* Music/BingCrosby's "bubuhbaboom".
* Music/DeltaGoodrem, as of 2007, when in doubt, put an AH/EH in there; Waiting For Forever, Dancing With A Broken Heart, Angels In The Room, One Day, Sitting On Top Of the World, Touch and You Will Only Break My Heart.
* [[Music/ThePolice Sting]] seems to have a thing for stretching out the coda of songs with "ee-oh"'s. See, for instance, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aENX1Sf3fgQ&t=2m52s "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic"]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Nt8dJ6rMZI&t=3m42s "Walking On the Moon"]] or [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Hip-X7kQ9w&t=4m07s "Message In a Bottle"]] when performed live. Probably related are the two "eh-ey-ohh"'s he sings at the beginning of "Synchronicity II".
* Jeno Ringler, vocalist for Isle of Q, ended almost every single line with a descending grunt. "I'm not part of your little scene-ugh!"
* Although the members of Music/RascalFlatts only write a small portion of their own songs, lead singer Gary [=LeVox=] is fond of ending every song on a bunch of "yeah"s and "ooh"s, often in falsetto.

* Music/{{Ash}} are fond of the "woah"s and "ooh"s and a lot of their lyrics refer to space, stars or the galaxy. For example Sometimes ("Saturn's decline in the star sign, seasonal adjustments stars realign"), Shining Light ("A constellation once seen, over Royal David's City"), Angel Interceptor ("Angel Interceptor, Apollo 21, Uri Gagarin, flew into the sun") and "Jack Names The Planets".
* Chance The Rapper's use of "Igh!"
* Music/EllaFitzgerald was also well known for scatting.
* You could almost always tell when Ric Ocasek was singing lead on any Cars song, especially on ''Heartbeat City''; listen for an "uh-oh."
* Music/TechN9ne (chah!) punctuates all of his lines (chah!) with one of these at the end(chah!) outside of the chorus.
* Michelle Branch does something similar to Soul Coughing in her song "Everywhere": "Just tell me how I got this far-uh"
* Music/VanMorrison has a whole vocabulary of expressively soulful grunts, moans and vocal expressions for when the words fail him. A classic would be the conclusion of ''Moondance''
-->In the moonlight! On a magic night.. ''(presses microphone into fleshy underside of chin)'' Brrrrr...brrr-mmmmmm,ahhh,aahhhh, ''(moves mic back to more conventional singing position)'' In the moonlight! Can - I - just - have - one - more - Moondance - with - you....... my love.....
* A rare example of this happening with a band that mostly played ''instrumentals''. Latin-jazz bandleader Perez Prado was known for two of these: ''"¡Dílo!"'' (Say it!), usually shouted just before the horns break in; and "¡Aaaa''aaaAAAHH!''" The latter was left in as a sample when Lou Bega set lyrics to Prado's "Mambo No.5".
* Series/WhoseLineIsItAnyway's Creator/WayneBrady starts a lot of songs with the word "Because."

* Alexi Laiho of Music/ChildrenOfBodom likes to go "YA-YOW!" a lot.
* Music/JerryLeeLewis would often substitute the word "me" in lyrics with "Jerry Lee", i.e. "If you see Corrina, send her on home to Jerry Lee..."
* Music/TomWaits often interjects his more percussive songs with a guttural "Hah!"

* Music/CelticFrost's Tom G. Warrior's "ugh".
* Isaac Brock from Music/ModestMouse has "Well!"
* Music/TendonLevey has his ''"HELL!"'' and ''"HEH!"''.
* Bobby "Blue" Bland's phlegm-filled "YOW!", which he called an "eagle snort".
* Stuart Adamson of Music/BigCountry would often shout "HUP!" "HA!" and "SHA!" in the middle of songs.
* There's a tic known as the involving the "wa" and "oh" sounds in 2010s pop music which has become so ubiquitous it has come to be known as the "Millennial Whoop".
* When Music/OwlCity puts {{Scatting}} in his songs, it's almost always repeated "da"s.
* The ''Music/{{Songdrops}}'' songs, by Bryant Oden, often have "Bom", "Bum", or "Ba-dum" in between the lyrics.
* Music/JCole has a tendency to punctuate some of his lines with a quiet "huh".
* Ian Astbury of Music/TheCult is quite fond of ending lyric lines with "Well..." Example from "Sun King": "I was thinking, what I've been missing/I'll tell you truthfully, well..."
* Zac de la Rocha of Music/RageAgainstTheMachine loves to shout "UGH!" both in the studio and onstage.
* Music/{{Metallica}}'s James Hetfield [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHJCVlymVUs sure loves]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yEMWTIqqBY "YEAH!"]] (and at times extended to the point it sound like two syllables!)
* Music/{{Pitbull}} has two: a loud '''WHOOOOOOOWEEE!''' that often starts verses, and "Dalé" (Spanish for "Let's go") as a punctuation to end them.
* Pusha T: ''YUUGH!''
* Music/MasterP is infamous for his "Frankenstein's monster groan", which he interjects into his music at seemingly random moments. He even built one song entirely around it, "Make 'Em Say Uhhhh".
* Vanessa Carlton combined trying to sound like a little girl with a crying wail on every other lyric. It doesn't help that her "Pretty Baby" is creepy in content to start with.
* Music/{{Spiritualized}}'s J. Spaceman's "Come on!"
* Music/{{Eminem}}:
** Slim Shady is associated with vocalised disc scratching noices, particularly "''chkka-chkka''" and "''chk, chk''", usually when entering or leaving a song. Occasionally he uses disc scratches to set up a new rhyme scheme or as rhythmic filler.
** The incarnation of Slim Shady used on ''Music/{{Relapse}}'' has a signature adlib where he cries "''ohh!''" in a plaintive way.
** In his work in the second half of TheNewTens, Eminem uses his AnnoyingLaugh, or "get it?", to highlight a pun he's made.

-->-- '''Creator/EddieMurphy''', from his 1983 stage show ''Delirious''.

* Music/BobMarley had many, mostly involving {{Scatting}}, repeating words, saying "oooh yeah", "well" and "whoa". A good example is "So Much Things To Say" from ''[[Music/ExodusAlbum Exodus]]'', which starts off laid back and quickly gets out of time because he's trying to fit so many words and noises into each line.

* Music/TheCure's Robert Smith seems particulary fond of making meowing noises in a number of their songs, mostly the upbeat tracks such as 'Lovecats' and 'Mint Car'.

* Music/LittleRichard loves his "Whooooooh!"s and "Ah Hoooooooo!"s.

* Music/DeltaGoodrem, as of, 2007, when in doubt, put an AH/EH in there; Waiting For Forever, Dancing With A Broken Heart, Angels In The Room, One Day, Sitting On Top Of the World, Touch and You Will Only Break My Heart.

* Music/{{DMX}} makes frequent use of growls, barking, "uh!", and "come on!" in his songs.