Her demeanour – the gruesome hairdo, the tight temper, the voice – is contrived to shock.
But for all its dreaminess, it never seems fey or contrived – there's a grain to her voice that almost catches a Karen Dalton hardness, a Sibylle Baier grief.
This was partly a case of finding the right time for the gentle acoustic reveries, though she has had a remarkable impact on a new generation of solo artists, most notably Katie Melua, who wrote "Faraway Voice" about her and last year contrived to duet with Cassidy on her Christmas single, a cover of Louis Armstrong's "What A Wonderful World".
The narrative dilemmas posed by the stories might seem contrived, but the cool assurance of Martin's voice, and her capacity to say surprising things about ordinary feelings — envy, rage, and despair figure prominently — makes the collection a triumph.
It's worth noting that Governor Perry has dismissed global warming as "one contrived, phony mess" and that many of the voices calling most loudly for change at the University of Texas are from the Tea Party fringe.
In other words, Donald's supporting evidence is his own voice parroted back to him to as a contrived click bait-lead "defence", supplying a media market composed primarily of people who think he is wrong.
The voice he found with Tortilla Flat was not his own at all - it was a Hispanic voice, and in order to make it seem authentic, Steinbeck contrived a strange device.
After the year Goldman has had, Mr Blankfein cannot be far off hearing imaginary voices.On December 18th the investment bank unveiled full-year results that contrived to be both widely expected and astonishing.
She might be some elaborately contrived puppet, a figure of fun in a Punch and Judy show, with her falsetto voice, painted face and sliding step, which suggests there must be wheels instead of feet beneath her floor-length skirt.
A jolie laide with hard, bony features and a startlingly long nose, she contrived through sheer force of will to persuade audiences that she was a great beauty with an even greater voice.
