Whether or not it's total BS is on Derek Shulman; I wasn't there.

Regardless of when he said it, he was explaining why he was so gung-ho to convince Jon to choose Polygram over Atlantic, and how Jon's personal magnetism, or "star" quality, outweighed any concerns he might have had about technical ability. Since the contract was signed on July 1, 1983, you're right - he had to be referring to something prior to that.

I was talking about the songs in general - verses and choruses. And you're not alone, btw; a friend told me she couldn't hear it, either. So I went back and listened to the show again; and I stand by the statement that he is off-pitch a good deal of the time throughout the show. He's not off by much, granted; it's not like he's a whole step (or even a half-step) off. But he's singing "in the cracks" a lot. It's like when a guitarist bends a note before resolving it. Sometimes a vocalist will do that for effect, but they eventually resolve or "tune" it. In most of the places where I noticed it, Jon isn't tuning it.

It really has nothing to do with how many notes Jon can hit (or could hit back in the day). That's range. I wasn't referring the "5 notes" part of the quote. My concern is about pitch. It's landing on the right pitch at the right time that seems to be his problem. And "close" doesn't count; pitch is a finite value. Someone is either on pitch or they're off.

That said, I'm glad you enjoyed it and didn't notice when he was off. It wasn't my intention to rain on anybody's parade. When I said it bothered me, I wasn't criticizing. It wasn't unlistenable, by any stretch. It just concerns me that he seems to be having increasing trouble matching tones. That can't bode well for the future.