Quote:
Originally Posted by Rdkopper
I was just listening to some live tunes from the 80's and a few obvious things I've noticed... Forgive me if my verbiage is off, I'm not a vocalist by any means
1. His natural tone is higher back then... Obviously! He's singing in the same voice as he is today but the tones are just naturally higher... He's not trying back then, it's just a higher pitched voice... You could notice his voice deepening as he continues from a boy to a man... Is the deepening his natural progression coming with age? or is it from damage (bad technique, smoking, etc)... What's his dad's voice like? I think it's a bit of both...
2. His technique is horrible. If you listen to Lay Your Hands On Me for example, he's literally talking his way through it maybe even worse than today... I kinda get why in 2007, Jon said and Richie agreed that Jon is singing better than ever... He improved his technique from back then....
3. What makes the songs sound so good is the raw power he once had which is now completely gone... He could belt out a scream like no other... In addition, he knew how to deliver with passion... He lost all power, confidence, and how to deliver with passion... If you listen to I Believe, the song is nothing until Jon start screaming... Then you're like oh ****!!!!
Bringing this full circle, his voice has deepened so much which now makes it almost impossible for him to reach the notes he once did... It's kinda sad cause Jon's still a great writer... As much as I like the new album, I always question "are these songs the TLFR versions of what could have been AMAZING songs if they were sung 20 years prior"
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1. His deepened voice is pretty much due to his age and his genes:
There they talk about the SWW tour and you just need to compare Tico's voice to the one of Jon's dad. They're both almost equally deep - so that shows where this journey will go.
2. I agree, he had no proper technique back then and I'd say that even until Blaze of Glory he was shouting his way up to the high notes rather than singing them. He just relied on his power and given his age that was absolutely okay. Sure, he had a vocal coach on the SWW tour but I still think these were just some emergency tactics to somehow get him through the tour, rather than working out some proper singing habits. As pointed out before, he probably didn't even think he'd still be doing this in 2000.
In this case I think it's interesting what Olli (lead singer of Bounce) told me about the BJ songs. Since he has a quite wide range, he said that the 80's songs are not really challenging in terms of singing, not even LOAP. He told me that Jon really upped his game vocally with KTF and TD and that In These Arms in its original key is the hardest song for him to sing, in fact much harder than the key change in LOAP.