jon's voice improved quite significantly !

No he doesn't sing it better, and yeah that's major bullshit. He'll never pull of the balls he had in delivering those lines in "Wanted".



That said, in all honesty I don't like much else on SWW singing wise. He improved immensely IMO on NJ, BOG, KTF, and (not power-wise but in interpretation, on TD).

He sounds like a bit of a douche on Bad Name and most of the stuff on there. I prefer NSG now than then cause he just overpronounced and butchered every word on that song. Likewise, I've never cared about the screaming at the end of Runaway or Love Lies or Livin in Sin. The fact that he "cant reach" that nowadays (when the falsetto was dubious back then too) doesn't bug me at all.

That's not struggling. Nowadays, he usually just choses not to sing the "Young guuun, yeyeyyeah" part and I don't know why. It's not that challenging to sing really, he was singing in on the LH tour and a few times he did in this year (like in Vegas) he didn't do it terrible.

I agree. I don't like his 80s singing style. He was way overusing that rasp. It sounded so unatural in a lot of songs. For example, listen to "buy back yesterday" line (here). It's absolutely ridiculous. He never used to sing like that live when he performed this song, even on NJ tour. And those little screams that appeared in some songs out of nowhere, like LYHOM. I really prefer how he sung them in 90s - flawlessly with his beautiful clean voice and not trying to dublicate those overproduved vocals he did. Although it was funny how he and John Shanks tried to imidate that 80s raspy singing style in Bells Of Freedom

He always attempts it but pulls out when he knows he can't keep the note going.

Like the other night, he tries to sing it but seems to choke a few times -

Oouch - he looked really pissed off with himself there.

The These Days performance from Dublin is pretty near spot on, if I had heard an audio bootleg of it I would have probably guessed it was from the These Days tour itself.


Andi

That's one of the things that gets annoying while listening to HAND. It's especially ridiculous in Complicated..... But then, that whole song is ridiculous. Damnit now it's stuck in my head again!!!

Really? To me that is singing with passion, like you mean it, in the angstfest that is the original IBTFY. The way Jon performs it *now* is IMO much more ridiculous because it has been reduced to such a watered down version, with the more or less autopilot smiles thrown about to the crowd around the catwalk and whatnot... (Then again, it's understandable that he doesn't possess the same passion for the song 20+ years later, with a settled and seemingly very happy family life etc... he just can't relate to it in the same way anymore.)

Anyway, it never occurred to me that people would have something against his singing style in the 80s but I guess it takes all kinds. Hmm, interesting! And truth be told, I also didn't care for his vocals on Bad Name initially when the single came out, and it took me quite a few listens to get used to them, heheh, but now I love the studio version more than any live version I've heard...

On a different note... Has anybody else paid attention to the way Jon looks now when he sings something more challenging? He looks like he is in serious pain sometimes. He really does work hard to get those notes out of his throat, and although he does indeed sound better than a decade ago, it's not a pleasant sight exactly... Not that it should matter, of course, as it is a cosmetic thing but I do love looking at the older performances from the 80s and 90s when he was able to use his facial expressions much more freely and naturally when singing.

Complicated is one of my favourites. My daughter has autism and it really sums her up.

It's better than the way he sings it nowadays, that's for sure. When he sings 'when you were down' now, it's absolutely dreadful. 'Wheeeeeee' uuuuuuuuuuuuuuu were daaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhwwwwwnnnnnnnnnn'.