Quote:
Originally Posted by TheseDaysEra
in all honesty, I think Jon's vocal state is no longer about 'not hitting the high notes' anymore. Lemme put it this way: have you every tried to sing whilst you're in the middle of an awful cold, in between coughs ?
That's what he sounds like. Struggling to even articulate words. You could lower the songs' key as much as you want (and indeed they should) but that by itself wouldn't suffice. It's more than a range problem, I'm afraid.
It may or may not be reversible. I'm a musician, singer and sound engineer but I'm by no means a doctor or vocal coach so my guess is as good as everybody else's. He sang poorly between 2003-2006 then became much better from 2007-2011 again. 2013 wasn't brilliant but it was OK then we all know what happened from 2015 onwards.
If it's really shot then he'll have to re-learn how to do certain things. Not everyone is Bruce Springsteen. Jon wrote and recorded certain songs in a key that was clearly too much for his range. He COULD hit certain notes and sounded ace but it was clearly a stretch. Prayer was a stretch and he said so himself. If you listen to stuff like Hearts Breaking Even it's clearly he's singing in a register that's not his usual.
I think he sounded awesome during the Keep The Faith/These Days era but he couldn't hold it much longer. Crush didn't sound so extreme and I think the early 2000s was when his voice became to change and become very nasal.
He clearly abused his instrument and now it may be damaged beyond repairing. I'm sorry for him but that's just what it is. I wish he'd just do records and low-key gigs from on, to be honest.
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This is pretty much spot on.
It’s not a psychological issue. It’s a physical issue which leads to him loosing confidence in his voice. Once you get to know a little bit about singing, it’s easy to tell all the signs of damaged vocal chords. Jon had a great voice, not a great technique. He’s paying the price now.
Don’t get me wrong. You can still have a great time seeing them, as I did in RIR2017. But there are so many people here in such denial stating that he sounds good live that you end up reading things like:
“He needs to get his confidence back and his voice will improve. It’s a psychological issue.” This is the same as saying that in order to heal your broken arm you should go see a therapist. Sure, you can even get a little better, but you’re still limited by the physical damage.
“When you are there you don’t notice it.” Again, you can still have a great time seeing them live. But even in Dusseldorf 2011 most everyone could tell his voice was shot (and that was miles better than today’s standards). In RIR2017 there were some really cringeworhty moments when everyone looked at each other faces, but the energy was so sky high that it didn’t matter.
“When he moves 2 feet and 3 inches away from the mic stand, and if you pause at those 2 miliseconds , you can hear him belting that note”
But for me the winner is:
“He sounded great, but it was hard to hear him in the arena”
Since 2013 there are nights when he is a little bit better, but the average has been the same: pretty bad. Is scares me how people lower their standards as time goes on.