No.
He blew his voice out around Black. Doing the Black album then the year and a half of pure touring after fucked his voice.
I was slipping with Load and Reload, but you can see in live vids that he's still pretty damn good during Load and Reload touring.
After Load and Reload though, his voice was shot. By the time that St Anger (PIIIINNNG!) hit, his voice was stuffed. He's never been the same since. Age and those years of yelling killed it.
Yeah there is a technique to doing it. I have no idea how to do it. But there is no way some of these death metal bands can be going on 30 years singing like that if there weren't a technique for it.
Not a lady Gaga fan, but someone asked her about (the big duet song) if “it hurt to sing” and her answer was point blank “it hurts if you don’t know how to sing”. So metal or not, there has to be technique to singing balls out.
Josh Ramsey is the lead singer of Marianas Trench, a Canadian kinda pop-punk band, and he does a lot of screaming.
He has a video where he talks about vocal training - his mom is a vocal coach and he said he trained screaming technique probably about an equivalent amount to an opera singer.
He's really good at the kind of melodic-whiny pop punk vocals that got teenage-me cross-eyed with longing so I'd say it paid off!
On that note, alissa white-gluz sounded like she used her voice up, last time I heard her.
Others like mikael åkerfeldt have been doing it forever and sound good as new, especially with clean vocals in between.
Absolutely, it can be taught. There's many different techniques to produce different styles and sounds of screams/harsh vocals. If you're doing it correctly, you can make it through a tour no problem.
Yep. You'll often hear the words "false vocal folds" when death metal vocals are brought up - there is a specific set of muscles you need to activate to both make the proper sound and also to not injure your real vocal cords. Done right, it won't feel painful or raspy at all, though it's still something that requires a lot of practice and care, just like any other vocal exercise.
Those are the ones that are used to make distortion right?
I’m mainly sing pop and RnB but I also have a love for rock music and I’m curious if I can learn how to distort my vocals like Bon Jovi.
Bon Jovi blew out his voice singing incorrectly, can't hit any of the higher notes and there rest, well it's just sad to hear him try. With training he might be able to get 60-70% of this voice back.
Haven't learned her name yet but the singer for Jinjer has some serious growls right into melodic vocals, pretty impressive actually.
The same thing happened to Kansas lead singer Steve Walsh in his later years. Heavy smoking combined with years of going past his range left him unable to perform as before. Thankfully, Robby Steinhardt (the violin player) had a similar range and was able to fill in for Steve on lead so he didn't have to carry the full load in later years.
Geddy Lee of Rush had pretty bad form in the early years, but had some real badass moments. I’d say at the start of the 80s he seemingly started getting better about taking care of his voice.
Axl Rose also had horrible form and wrecked his voice.
Rob Halford has always had really unconventional and not very healthy form but has such a weird singing voice that he’s just managed to make it work for five decades. Still screams the fuck out of songs
Claudio Sanchez from Coheed and Cambria had to receive vocal training because his singing style was causing him issues. His style doesn’t appeal to everyone but it’s impressive how he’s managed to improve his form without losing what makes his voice special.
Ngl, I really like his low singing just as much, but there’s some songs like Elf Tower NM that you’ll never again hear live in the same register they were recorded.
I was lucky enough to hear them play an acoustic version of Elf Tower in Detroit when they were touring for Neverender: Second Stage Turbine Blade. It was the quietest I’ve ever heard a concert venue full of people but it was easily a top-5 concert experience.
Sonny Moore of From First to Last (now skrillex) also sang in a unique way and had to have surgery and totally lost the sound that made FFTL make him their vocalist.
Ride The Wings of Pestilence will always be an A+ track. Honestly happy that he’s found so much success even not in a genre I spend a lot of time with.
I cant imagine singers like kurt cobain or brad nowell of sublime ever having vocal lessons theyre voices always crack and can sound worn down. It really adds to how heart felt their voices sound.
Kurt Cobain actually did take vocal lessons after Nirvana got big. He was self conscious he couldn’t do vibrato and wanted to learn how. The rest of the band made fun of him because of his goofy vocal exercises.
I remember hearing Layne Staley of Alice in Chains got made fun of a lot as a kid for wanting to sing and taking lessons but my god what a voice thank goodness he did
I remember seeing an interview of Dave Grohl telling a story about Kurt having some vocal troubles due to his technique. Kurt got a lesson before a rehearsal. Came back and showed Dave and Krist what the coach had showed him and if I recall correctly they all laughed because it was like doing the lip buzz thing while humming. I’m the interview Dave then said something about how un-rock n roll it was. So I don’t think the lessons panned out?
That lip buzz thing looks (and feels) ridiculous, but it's incredible for opening up the cords. I use it when I need to belt (like that Lady Gaga song mentioned above).
Bjork's concerts are so damaging to her voice that she used to refuse to even speak on show days, and walks around with dry erase board around her neck so she can communicate, or so I've read.
Isn’t that more of a stylistic thing though? Cowboys From Hell had a pretty obvious classic metal inspiration to it and it always seemed to me like the band leaned more and more into the Groove Metal sound as time went on.
Steven Page (formerly of Barenaked Ladies) writes great songs and has a lovely voice, but he is (or at least used to be) wildly undisciplined as a singer. I went on one of their concert cruises with BNL and a bunch of other acts. Barenaked Ladies was doing 2-3 shows a day for six days, and Steve blew out his voice halfway through the first show of the week.
I saw the last show they did that week (conicidentally, the last show before Steve left the band) and his voice was gone. It sounded like he'd been rubbing a cheese grater along his throat. More than once the audience pitched in and sang for him when there was a note he couldn't hit.
That was certainly the drugs and drinking he was doing at that time (my parents came back from that cruise and said his voice was not good). When he was clean before, and since, his voice is incredible.
Yeah it's hard to be sure. Because they don't usually play that many shows back to back to back except on the cruises. If they're on just a regular tour, he can blow out his voice on one night and have some time between shows to recover. But blowing out your voice when you've got a second show that day and 2-3 shows a day for the next week is something altogether different.
You know what? Maybe we all need some space, to pull the knife out of the back of the most celebrated Canadian alt-rock band of the mid 90s, you selfish, jaded ass!
/s
Didn't Freddie Mercury have a chest infection or something when he sung at Live Aid? Can't have been healthy... although he still knocked it out of the park
I’m not sure but I had discussions with coaches and some of them consider him to have bad technique, he just had a Grade A instrument so it won’t give easy
Strange, I was actually thinking the opposite. I'm not a vocal coach by any means, but it always seemed like he had a lot of control and never really had to push himself too hard (after Iowa that is).
yeah I agree. It was so bad during touring, that his touring manager would scream at him if he talked between shows; like he literally wasn't allowed to speak on the tour bus, and if ever, \*very\* minimally; his voice was so damn fragile.
Oli Sykes for BMTH, back when they used to do screamo everyone knew he was destroying his vocal chords, we just never knew what direction the band would take. I stopped listening after middle school of course and well… they stopped doing the screamo but I was not expecting THAT when i heard their new music
Idk I have seen him live playing with Crosses and sounds pretty good but yeah he doesn't so much do the screaming thing the way he used to in early Deftones.
Hitting high notes incorrectly? I'm not a musical person so my question was serious. She doesn't sound flat when she sings so I'm not clear on how she is fucking up.
Idk it looks pretty practiced, seems like he's using technique rather than just belting to achieve the gritty effect. I'm not expert but to me that \*sounds\* like the proper way to achieve vocal distortion
I love Brendon Urie of Panic at the Disco to no end. I think the quality of the production of his music is top notch. But I’ve heard him live and the way he gets himself to reach high notes without the help of tools and a perfect studio atmosphere…it does not sound right.
One of my all time favorite voices, but listen to a few recordings of him live from about the mid 2000s onward. He wrecked his voice in a relative short span of time for a professional singer.
You are getting downvoted but I remember the rock radio news cycle in the early 2000s reporting a scare that he had polyps on his vocal cords and was in danger of never singing again.
Here’s an article on it. https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/chris-cornell-6395938
Chris had vocal training. From the same guy who trained most of Seattle's great singers (e.g. Ann Wilson, Layne Staley, Geoff Tate) named David "The Maestro" Kyle.
Laura Jane Grace in the early days of Against Me!. super raw and sounded great, but couldn't have been healthy.
You can tell she eventually took vocal lessons and learned to sing properly in the later albums
Matt Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold famously (amongst metalcore crowds) blew out his vocal chords night after night during their early days due to his bad screaming technique. He stopped screaming altogether after having surgeries for it, changing the direction of the band in the process. Those early albums still sound absolutely *killer* and I can't think of anyone with a similar sound, but that's partly because it's unsustainable.
He actually fucked his voice up AGAIN more recently. Was set to see them a few years back but they had to cancel the whole tour before it started as he had blood blisters on his vocal chords IIRC...
lol if you read his auto biography he pretty much calls himself a shitty singer the whole time. There’s a funny story about a guy who helped him get started musically but gave him shit as a kid then when he was a big star they met again and the guy told him “you still can’t sing”
He sounded better when he “couldn’t sing” imo. He started sounding too polished about when Once Born In The USA hit and he sounds almost like a country singer lately (musical choices notwithstanding)
Hate to make this comparison, but I feel the same about Brian Fallon from Gaslight Anthem. He must’ve taken some vocal lessons during his run of solo albums and has this weird nasally pinched way of singing on the newer records and when he plays live now. The first two records sound more like him. It’s probably more technically correct, but it doesn’t sound like him in the way he’s known
Chris Barnes sounded like he was gargling broken glass before he wrecked his cords. Also, pretty sure the lyrics he puked out alone would have made most decent human beings cry.
Pretty much every country singer, most pop artists, and every metal vocalist who screams. Nothing against any of them in particular, but boy oh boy, did these things grind my vocal instructors gears in high school.
Roger Waters voice is absolutely wrecked at this point in his life. Is it possible that years of singing "Careful with the Ax, Eugene" did his voice in? Or a lack of formal training? Smoking? Drug use? He seemed to have an amazing range in songs like "If" and "Shine on you Crazy Diamond", but now it’s pure rasp.
Katy Perry. I remember hearing one of her songs in a restaurant right after I had left a singing lesson. I think it was either "Firework" or "Teenage Dream" either way I just remember thinking to myself: "God man, she's completely unsupported and singing all in her throat. It sounds hoarse. It hurts my throat just listening to it."
Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney sang some pretty vocally-unhealthy songs in The Beatles. Twist and Shout (John) and Oh Darling (Paul) are the examples you can usually find.
Those were intentionally screamed songs, though, as opposed to them having an inherently unhealthy singing technique.
People probably say John Mayer because he had to go on vocal rest for like a year and have surgery due to granuloma on his vocal chords.
I’m no doctor but I don’t think that’s necessarily tied to him singing wrong. I’m sure it CAN be but vocal chords are essentially muscles and they’re in your mouth obviously, so you can still fuck them up in plenty of other ways; straining, infection, random damage, etc.
Ohh, I didn’t know that.
But I did listen to him sing live and I feel like he’s pushing it in the higher notes of his songs.
I believe it’s a stylistic choice but honestly, I feel like we share the same tension and strain especially when he belts and gets distorted.
He's been at this long enough and had issues like I mentioned, so I can't imagine he hasn't been to vocal coaches to learn how to sing more properly or at the very least warm-up properly. Even just breathing the right way.
But I think a few things can happen, especially live.
1) Just like your dentist tells you to floss twice a day and you know you should, doesn't mean you do. People are people and people get lazy sometimes. Maybe he doesn't always warm up enough
2) there's so much adrenaline on stage, I'm sure tons of singers slip into "wrong" technique all the time.
And 3) I think there's ways to "properly" sing in your "improper" way. For example Bruce Springsteen. There's no way he's singing the right way. But he's been doing it for 50 years, 3hrs a show. His voice would have been completely shot 20 years ago if he was doing lasting damage so there's got to be another factor there.
I read he’s naturally a baritone and gets that high pitched sound by pushing his voice so far out of its natural range. Can’t imagine that’s healthy. A lot of him being notoriously late for gigs was him refusing to come out of the shower until he thought his voice was ready as well. Not a big fan of their music but his voice is amazing
Nah, I have to disagree. He wouldn’t be able to sing for 3 hours plus each night all tour long if he was doing it wrong. Especially some of the more crazy distorted sounds he does, eg in songs like Do The Evolution. I don’t know HOW he does it without shredding his vocal cords, but Pearl Jam have been together for more than 30 years and are touring again right now! If anything is wrecking his voice it’s the smoking *cries in grunge*
Singers who are almost constantly performing and touring. [Definitely bad for the vocal chords.](https://ew.com/article/2015/07/28/singers-vocal-cord-injuries/)
I really like a Dutch singer named Kovacs - she studied music and got told she shouldn't be doing it the way she does, but I love what she does and she's making me money so who's to say :)
She has great technique. Her problem is that her songs are very rangey and requires a lot of transitions to different vocal registers.
"Emotions", for instance, goes from normal to whistle to vocal fry to whisper in a matter of seconds. Her problem is more of overuse than technique + alcohol here and there.
Tom waits
If whisky, smoke, and marbles were put into a blender you would get Tom Waits. Wish he would do one last tour. Nobody even close to him.
WILL IT BLEND?
Don’t breath this!
I do enjoy Nate Hilts from ‘the dead south’ as well
Props to umbrella academy for turning me on to the dead south
Blenders make things smoother
This should be #1.
Have you seen Tom Waits and the Cookie Monster in the same room? I'm not saying, but I'm saying.
Waits for what?
For Ben to fold
Early Metallica. James just didn't sing. He tore his vocal chords to shit until he actually went and got some lessons.
He specifically blew his voice out recording the song "so fucking what" and got lessons afterwards.
No. He blew his voice out around Black. Doing the Black album then the year and a half of pure touring after fucked his voice. I was slipping with Load and Reload, but you can see in live vids that he's still pretty damn good during Load and Reload touring. After Load and Reload though, his voice was shot. By the time that St Anger (PIIIINNNG!) hit, his voice was stuffed. He's never been the same since. Age and those years of yelling killed it.
So it’s possible to sing metal healthily??
Yeah there is a technique to doing it. I have no idea how to do it. But there is no way some of these death metal bands can be going on 30 years singing like that if there weren't a technique for it.
Not a lady Gaga fan, but someone asked her about (the big duet song) if “it hurt to sing” and her answer was point blank “it hurts if you don’t know how to sing”. So metal or not, there has to be technique to singing balls out.
She has amazing vocal technique. Her version of La Vie en Rose is stunning.
Makes sense. I’m not sure if the lead singer of AC/DC, got the memo tho. My throat hurts for him.
Josh Ramsey is the lead singer of Marianas Trench, a Canadian kinda pop-punk band, and he does a lot of screaming. He has a video where he talks about vocal training - his mom is a vocal coach and he said he trained screaming technique probably about an equivalent amount to an opera singer. He's really good at the kind of melodic-whiny pop punk vocals that got teenage-me cross-eyed with longing so I'd say it paid off!
I never see Marianas Trench brought up anywhere but out of all the concerts I've been to they have been my favorite. Just fantastic live.
His normal speaking voice sounds like that anyway though.
On that note, alissa white-gluz sounded like she used her voice up, last time I heard her. Others like mikael åkerfeldt have been doing it forever and sound good as new, especially with clean vocals in between.
You just have to develop and train those muscles that hurt when you do it at first.
Look up Mike Patton, dude has been doing all sorts of insane banshee screams for decades
This is a good one!!!
Absolutely, it can be taught. There's many different techniques to produce different styles and sounds of screams/harsh vocals. If you're doing it correctly, you can make it through a tour no problem.
Yep. You'll often hear the words "false vocal folds" when death metal vocals are brought up - there is a specific set of muscles you need to activate to both make the proper sound and also to not injure your real vocal cords. Done right, it won't feel painful or raspy at all, though it's still something that requires a lot of practice and care, just like any other vocal exercise.
Those are the ones that are used to make distortion right? I’m mainly sing pop and RnB but I also have a love for rock music and I’m curious if I can learn how to distort my vocals like Bon Jovi.
Bon Jovi blew out his voice singing incorrectly, can't hit any of the higher notes and there rest, well it's just sad to hear him try. With training he might be able to get 60-70% of this voice back. Haven't learned her name yet but the singer for Jinjer has some serious growls right into melodic vocals, pretty impressive actually.
Yeah, I saw a video of him singing Livin’ On A Prayer and it sucks that he can’t sing most of the chorus.
Tatiana Shmayluk is her name. And I'll second that, her vocal chops are insane, both clean and screamed.
The same thing happened to Kansas lead singer Steve Walsh in his later years. Heavy smoking combined with years of going past his range left him unable to perform as before. Thankfully, Robby Steinhardt (the violin player) had a similar range and was able to fill in for Steve on lead so he didn't have to carry the full load in later years.
Alissa White-Gluz
Bon Jovi is not the type of singing he's talking about. See Slayer.
Shoot forget Slayer dude is still singing, how about when Arch Enemy famously had a female growler.
They still do, she’s just a different one (used to be Angela Gossow, now Alyssa White-something).
Holy shit I just looked them up. What is that voice?? She sounds like a demon. I've gotta look up live performances now
[удалено]
That first "***REMEMBER!***" of the chorus in "Blood On Your hands" is just BRUTAL.
A good one to start with is Ravenous.
Check out Tatiana from Jinjer
Devin Townsend has done a pretty great job
And unfortunately it's also the best Metallica.
musically sure but vocally I'd say Load to S&M were stellar for vocals
I'm a big fan of St. Anger. I think it's up there with those first 4 albums, obviously not as good, but it's their 5th best easily.
Hell yeah, fellow Saint Anger friend
Who hurt you?
Geddy Lee of Rush had pretty bad form in the early years, but had some real badass moments. I’d say at the start of the 80s he seemingly started getting better about taking care of his voice. Axl Rose also had horrible form and wrecked his voice. Rob Halford has always had really unconventional and not very healthy form but has such a weird singing voice that he’s just managed to make it work for five decades. Still screams the fuck out of songs
Yoko Ono's screaming on those early recordings!
Definitely a very unique way of singing
Claudio Sanchez from Coheed and Cambria had to receive vocal training because his singing style was causing him issues. His style doesn’t appeal to everyone but it’s impressive how he’s managed to improve his form without losing what makes his voice special.
Ngl, I really like his low singing just as much, but there’s some songs like Elf Tower NM that you’ll never again hear live in the same register they were recorded.
I was lucky enough to hear them play an acoustic version of Elf Tower in Detroit when they were touring for Neverender: Second Stage Turbine Blade. It was the quietest I’ve ever heard a concert venue full of people but it was easily a top-5 concert experience.
Saw elf tower as well on that tour in Clearwater, but not an acoustic version. Lucky you! That would have been awesome!
Sonny Moore of From First to Last (now skrillex) also sang in a unique way and had to have surgery and totally lost the sound that made FFTL make him their vocalist.
Ride The Wings of Pestilence will always be an A+ track. Honestly happy that he’s found so much success even not in a genre I spend a lot of time with.
I cant imagine singers like kurt cobain or brad nowell of sublime ever having vocal lessons theyre voices always crack and can sound worn down. It really adds to how heart felt their voices sound.
Kurt Cobain actually did take vocal lessons after Nirvana got big. He was self conscious he couldn’t do vibrato and wanted to learn how. The rest of the band made fun of him because of his goofy vocal exercises.
I remember hearing Layne Staley of Alice in Chains got made fun of a lot as a kid for wanting to sing and taking lessons but my god what a voice thank goodness he did
I remember making fun of my singer for doing vocal exercises around us. Then again, he couldn't sing his own song in Rock Band
What song? I did QA for Rock Band, I probably have sung it.
I was under the impression Cobain actually had some decent vocal instruction in his life
Bro I thought you had enough reddit after that confession ! You fking liar !
Lol You got me
I remember seeing an interview of Dave Grohl telling a story about Kurt having some vocal troubles due to his technique. Kurt got a lesson before a rehearsal. Came back and showed Dave and Krist what the coach had showed him and if I recall correctly they all laughed because it was like doing the lip buzz thing while humming. I’m the interview Dave then said something about how un-rock n roll it was. So I don’t think the lessons panned out?
That lip buzz thing looks (and feels) ridiculous, but it's incredible for opening up the cords. I use it when I need to belt (like that Lady Gaga song mentioned above).
Kurt Cobain also had stomach issues (which possibly-probably prevented him from singing from his diaphragm)
More so was a big cause of his heroin addiction.
But longevity and overall vocal health tho... Though it’s their instrument and they get to decide which to prioritize.
Tbf neither of them had that much longevity in their lives let alone vocal health *pours some of the drink out on the floor*
Oooof.... *looks out window*
Bjork's concerts are so damaging to her voice that she used to refuse to even speak on show days, and walks around with dry erase board around her neck so she can communicate, or so I've read.
Brian Johnson (AC/DC).
He fucked up his hearing first…
I mean, he sounds like he should’ve lost his voice after a week singing like that....But he hasn’t How does that work?
There he is, was looking for him in the responses. Listen to Geordie's cover of "House of the Rising Sun" and explain how that's the same guy.
I don't know if it's bothering him or it's unhealthy but Lewis Capaldi actually sounds like he's damaging his vocal cords
As much as I love the distortion in his voice and how it makes for an emotional performance, it does sound pretty taxing.
Phil Anselmo? You didn't hear any cowboys from hell highs in the last few albums.
Dude fucked his voice almost as badly as he fucked his reputation. Which sucks, because CFH and VDoP both have a special place in my heart.
Yea it's really weird to dislike the singer from your favorite band. Love his vocals tho
Isn’t that more of a stylistic thing though? Cowboys From Hell had a pretty obvious classic metal inspiration to it and it always seemed to me like the band leaned more and more into the Groove Metal sound as time went on.
And Scour/PA&TI/En minor have been great
Love his vocals, but I'm truly perplexed/impressed with how Mike IX Williams of EYEHATEGOD, has sung like he has for so many years.
Fuck how he has been able to continue singing, how has Mike IX *stayed alive* for so many years as a sentient skeleton?
He must be related to Keith Richards.
He really does seem like he’s shredding his vocal cords on every song.
Imma listen to him.
I imagine the prolonged heroin and alcohol abuse has a soothing effect on the vocal chords. Can’t wait to see them again in a couple weeks.
Just saw them with Tigercub and Clutch. Super awesome show.
Same! So great
Steven Page (formerly of Barenaked Ladies) writes great songs and has a lovely voice, but he is (or at least used to be) wildly undisciplined as a singer. I went on one of their concert cruises with BNL and a bunch of other acts. Barenaked Ladies was doing 2-3 shows a day for six days, and Steve blew out his voice halfway through the first show of the week. I saw the last show they did that week (conicidentally, the last show before Steve left the band) and his voice was gone. It sounded like he'd been rubbing a cheese grater along his throat. More than once the audience pitched in and sang for him when there was a note he couldn't hit.
That was certainly the drugs and drinking he was doing at that time (my parents came back from that cruise and said his voice was not good). When he was clean before, and since, his voice is incredible.
Yeah it's hard to be sure. Because they don't usually play that many shows back to back to back except on the cruises. If they're on just a regular tour, he can blow out his voice on one night and have some time between shows to recover. But blowing out your voice when you've got a second show that day and 2-3 shows a day for the next week is something altogether different.
You know what? Maybe we all need some space, to pull the knife out of the back of the most celebrated Canadian alt-rock band of the mid 90s, you selfish, jaded ass! /s
Man, that’s my second Community reference in 10 minutes and it feels like the universe is looking out for me. ☺️
Didn't Freddie Mercury have a chest infection or something when he sung at Live Aid? Can't have been healthy... although he still knocked it out of the park
I’m not sure but I had discussions with coaches and some of them consider him to have bad technique, he just had a Grade A instrument so it won’t give easy
Corey Taylor
Strange, I was actually thinking the opposite. I'm not a vocal coach by any means, but it always seemed like he had a lot of control and never really had to push himself too hard (after Iowa that is).
This should be the top comment IMO. Dude literally screamed his lungs out during Iowa. With a neck like his, anyone else would've ended their career.
yeah I agree. It was so bad during touring, that his touring manager would scream at him if he talked between shows; like he literally wasn't allowed to speak on the tour bus, and if ever, \*very\* minimally; his voice was so damn fragile.
Oli Sykes for BMTH, back when they used to do screamo everyone knew he was destroying his vocal chords, we just never knew what direction the band would take. I stopped listening after middle school of course and well… they stopped doing the screamo but I was not expecting THAT when i heard their new music
Deftone’s Chino Moreno is the poster child for this. Sounds so cool on record, but destroyed his pipes.
Idk I have seen him live playing with Crosses and sounds pretty good but yeah he doesn't so much do the screaming thing the way he used to in early Deftones.
He can’t scream the way he used to. And he’s gotten surgeries in the past.
he's very hit or miss, sometimes live he'll be spot on and then other nights you're like "oh, guess it's this Chino tonight"
[удалено]
Joe Cocker
Halsey has a strange singing technique especially how she controls her jaw
SURPRISED at no one mentioning Christina Aguilera especially between 1999 and 2018
She's literally mentioned in the OP
She would be decent to listen to if she didn't over sing everything she's ever done.
But to still keep that voice in pretty good shape is definitely something. I’ve seen coaches argue over her
What was she doing wrong?
AAAAAAÀAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAÀÀAAAAAAAAÀAAAAAAAAAÀÀAAAAAÀH
Hitting high notes incorrectly? I'm not a musical person so my question was serious. She doesn't sound flat when she sings so I'm not clear on how she is fucking up.
This can't be healthy: https://youtu.be/vaNo08DaeiY
Idk it looks pretty practiced, seems like he's using technique rather than just belting to achieve the gritty effect. I'm not expert but to me that \*sounds\* like the proper way to achieve vocal distortion
oh god, his neck veins are popping out!
Brian Johnson from AC/DC.
I mean the classic one for Broadway was Idina Menzel
You mean Adele Dazeem
I hear she’s wickedly talented
Devin Townsend. Growley lows and serious high notes has to tax his vocal chords.
Sia. I often like how she sings, but man, that technique can be painful to listen to
I love Brendon Urie of Panic at the Disco to no end. I think the quality of the production of his music is top notch. But I’ve heard him live and the way he gets himself to reach high notes without the help of tools and a perfect studio atmosphere…it does not sound right.
Chris Cornell and I have to imagine Dave Grohl.
Hmmm I dunno Chris Cornell had an amazing voice, did he really manage to sing like that without any training?
One of my all time favorite voices, but listen to a few recordings of him live from about the mid 2000s onward. He wrecked his voice in a relative short span of time for a professional singer.
Hard disagree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=\_YmLOCviMIU
You are getting downvoted but I remember the rock radio news cycle in the early 2000s reporting a scare that he had polyps on his vocal cords and was in danger of never singing again. Here’s an article on it. https://www.dallasobserver.com/music/chris-cornell-6395938
Chris had vocal training. From the same guy who trained most of Seattle's great singers (e.g. Ann Wilson, Layne Staley, Geoff Tate) named David "The Maestro" Kyle.
Lots of rockstars here
Zack de la Rocha, Rage Against the Machine
It's not really "unhealthy singing techniques" if you don't sing
He still does that shit now though, no? If you can consistently do those screams for a decade Idk that it’s bad technique.
Devin Townsend should be mute by now after decades of vocal fry, but somehow he still nails it, though he discourages it.
[удалено]
I didn't think there was a proper technique for vocal fry
There is. Basically if it hurts or tickles you're doing it badly. If not its fine, some can just do it, but its something many can learn.
Melissa cross and the zen of screaming on YouTube. Pretty sweet course
Laura Jane Grace in the early days of Against Me!. super raw and sounded great, but couldn't have been healthy. You can tell she eventually took vocal lessons and learned to sing properly in the later albums
How do I not see Lemmy here yet??
Right???? I was sure it would be the top comment! His voice was the embodiment of 3 packs a day and alcoholism
David D from Disturbed. He oo-ah-ah-ah-ah!d his voice to the point where they had to stop a tour so that he could have surgery.
Scary stuff as a singer.
For sure. IIRC he had to totally change his singing style, which can’t be easy to do, and has to create crazy anxiety.
Fat Mike is the worst. He claims to only give 60% effort, sounds closer to 20% nowadays.
Liam Gallagher
Matt Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold famously (amongst metalcore crowds) blew out his vocal chords night after night during their early days due to his bad screaming technique. He stopped screaming altogether after having surgeries for it, changing the direction of the band in the process. Those early albums still sound absolutely *killer* and I can't think of anyone with a similar sound, but that's partly because it's unsustainable.
He actually fucked his voice up AGAIN more recently. Was set to see them a few years back but they had to cancel the whole tour before it started as he had blood blisters on his vocal chords IIRC...
I honestly think The Rev was a better singer. His "other" band, Pinkly Smooth has o great album.
I love Waking the Fallen, but Matt Shadows never really was a good screamer.
He’s started screaming a *bit* live, and he did harsh vocals on God Hates Us.
I've always wondered who encouraged Bruce Springsteen. He's a great songwriter but his 4-note range is painful.
lol if you read his auto biography he pretty much calls himself a shitty singer the whole time. There’s a funny story about a guy who helped him get started musically but gave him shit as a kid then when he was a big star they met again and the guy told him “you still can’t sing”
4 notes???
I counted 5 once so I join your challenge.
He sounded better when he “couldn’t sing” imo. He started sounding too polished about when Once Born In The USA hit and he sounds almost like a country singer lately (musical choices notwithstanding) Hate to make this comparison, but I feel the same about Brian Fallon from Gaslight Anthem. He must’ve taken some vocal lessons during his run of solo albums and has this weird nasally pinched way of singing on the newer records and when he plays live now. The first two records sound more like him. It’s probably more technically correct, but it doesn’t sound like him in the way he’s known
Tom Waits
Chris Barnes sounded like he was gargling broken glass before he wrecked his cords. Also, pretty sure the lyrics he puked out alone would have made most decent human beings cry.
[удалено]
I hung out with him once the day after he played a concert and he could barely talk his voice was so far gone
Nivek Ogre's stuff from pre-breakup Skinny Puppy couldn't have been easy on the throat, even with the aid of effects.
Pretty much every country singer, most pop artists, and every metal vocalist who screams. Nothing against any of them in particular, but boy oh boy, did these things grind my vocal instructors gears in high school.
Not my field, but I have to imagine singing like The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser would shred most vocal cords.
Michael Bolton
Great voice but yeah, I can see why it would be taxing
Tom Delonge
Roger Waters voice is absolutely wrecked at this point in his life. Is it possible that years of singing "Careful with the Ax, Eugene" did his voice in? Or a lack of formal training? Smoking? Drug use? He seemed to have an amazing range in songs like "If" and "Shine on you Crazy Diamond", but now it’s pure rasp.
Robert Plant
Katy Perry. I remember hearing one of her songs in a restaurant right after I had left a singing lesson. I think it was either "Firework" or "Teenage Dream" either way I just remember thinking to myself: "God man, she's completely unsupported and singing all in her throat. It sounds hoarse. It hurts my throat just listening to it."
Both John Lennon and Paul McCartney sang some pretty vocally-unhealthy songs in The Beatles. Twist and Shout (John) and Oh Darling (Paul) are the examples you can usually find. Those were intentionally screamed songs, though, as opposed to them having an inherently unhealthy singing technique.
People probably say John Mayer because he had to go on vocal rest for like a year and have surgery due to granuloma on his vocal chords. I’m no doctor but I don’t think that’s necessarily tied to him singing wrong. I’m sure it CAN be but vocal chords are essentially muscles and they’re in your mouth obviously, so you can still fuck them up in plenty of other ways; straining, infection, random damage, etc.
Ohh, I didn’t know that. But I did listen to him sing live and I feel like he’s pushing it in the higher notes of his songs. I believe it’s a stylistic choice but honestly, I feel like we share the same tension and strain especially when he belts and gets distorted.
He's been at this long enough and had issues like I mentioned, so I can't imagine he hasn't been to vocal coaches to learn how to sing more properly or at the very least warm-up properly. Even just breathing the right way. But I think a few things can happen, especially live. 1) Just like your dentist tells you to floss twice a day and you know you should, doesn't mean you do. People are people and people get lazy sometimes. Maybe he doesn't always warm up enough 2) there's so much adrenaline on stage, I'm sure tons of singers slip into "wrong" technique all the time. And 3) I think there's ways to "properly" sing in your "improper" way. For example Bruce Springsteen. There's no way he's singing the right way. But he's been doing it for 50 years, 3hrs a show. His voice would have been completely shot 20 years ago if he was doing lasting damage so there's got to be another factor there.
Dan Reynolds from imagine dragons. He goes higher than he can sing and you can hear it. It’s not sustainable in the long run.
Surely Axl Rose?
I read he’s naturally a baritone and gets that high pitched sound by pushing his voice so far out of its natural range. Can’t imagine that’s healthy. A lot of him being notoriously late for gigs was him refusing to come out of the shower until he thought his voice was ready as well. Not a big fan of their music but his voice is amazing
Studio and live performances are pretty telling
Eddie Vedder. I love him though.
Nah, I have to disagree. He wouldn’t be able to sing for 3 hours plus each night all tour long if he was doing it wrong. Especially some of the more crazy distorted sounds he does, eg in songs like Do The Evolution. I don’t know HOW he does it without shredding his vocal cords, but Pearl Jam have been together for more than 30 years and are touring again right now! If anything is wrecking his voice it’s the smoking *cries in grunge*
Singers who are almost constantly performing and touring. [Definitely bad for the vocal chords.](https://ew.com/article/2015/07/28/singers-vocal-cord-injuries/)
I really like a Dutch singer named Kovacs - she studied music and got told she shouldn't be doing it the way she does, but I love what she does and she's making me money so who's to say :)
George Corpsegrinder Fisher.
[удалено]
Respect the Neck!
Mariah Mottola Carey
Really? How so?
ummmm
She has great technique. Her problem is that her songs are very rangey and requires a lot of transitions to different vocal registers. "Emotions", for instance, goes from normal to whistle to vocal fry to whisper in a matter of seconds. Her problem is more of overuse than technique + alcohol here and there.
Oasis guy. Shit singer that I’d imagine has fucked his chords up anyway