She Doesn't Have the Range

Submission 32,401

About

"She Doesn't Have the Range" is an ironic catchphrase used on Twitter to insult celebrity singers who are highly regarded for their vocal abilities, by criticizing their alleged limitations in vocal range, or the measure of the breadth of pitches that can be produced by a human voice. It can be seen as a satire of art and cultural criticism in the age of the social media, in a similar vein to the use of the expression "2/10 Would Not Bang.".

Origin

On June 21st, 2016, Twitter user @KingBeyonceStan posted a series of tweets taking jabs at a variety of 30 celebrity pop singers, many of whom have been widely regarded as legendary vocalists by the critics and fans alike. In each tweet, @KingBeyonceStan listed two to three points of criticism about the singer before signing off with the line: "she doesn't have the vocal range."

Precursor

In the context of music criticism, "she/he doesn't have the range" means that the singer in question possesses limitations in vocal range, one of the fundamental skills for a vocalist which can be measured by the number of octaves that one can sing in. The earliest known ironic use of the critical statement can be found in a sketch from the early 2000s British TV comedy show Little Britain, which depicts a TV interview with renowned Welsh musicians Dame Shirley Bassey and Tom Jones, the latter of whom repeatedly utters the line to dismiss a variety of iconic singers and musicians, including Tina Turner, Gladys Knight, Shirley Manson and Paul McCartney, during the course of the interview.

Spread

That same day, users on Twitter began sharing their own takes aimed at other singers, as well as actors, writers and other public figures, in the style of the "she doesn't have the range" tweets. Between June 22nd and June 23rd, @KingBeyonceStan's tweetstorm was picked up by Gawker, New York Magazine, VH1, CBS Radio and The Verge, BuzzFeed, A.V. Club and Vox News. On June 23rd, "she doesn't have the range" was featured by Twitter in a Moment compilation.