Americans have a tendency to narrow the focus of everything: chardonnay is the only wine, Friends is the only sitcom, and opera singers with “creamy, smooth,” pop-influenced voices are the only stars. “It’s a world where the serviceably ‘pretty’ has become the definition of the beautiful, threatening to crowd out all the other categories of beauty, for instance, the exotic, the interesting, the gothic.” But there are still a few singers out there willing to break the mold American audiences are locked into, if only we’re willing to give them a chance.