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Yet another voice thread. Axl's voice hasn't improved since 2011. It got worse, and he copes with it better


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So here I am creating yet another voice or Mickey vs Rasp thread. Being stuck at work, I've listened to loads and loads of GNR live performances from 2010 to 2017. On some of them I can clearly hear how Axl's voice, particularly the rasp and how he is able to transition from low to high notes in rasp has diminished. I don't think Axl's voice has ever improved after 2010, he just worked to do better with whatever tools he has left in 2016.

Refer below to four videos of Axl performing Madagascar from 2010 to 2012. I chose this song because I really like it and because it's a song that always has some measure of rasp in it, particularly in the beginning and the lower parts. From one video to the other, in chronological order, there are gradual, noticeable differences. 1) The rasp on the lower parts is increasingly forced and less natural. 2) the rasp on the higher notes gradually disappear, to the point of becoming full on falsetto and 3) the transition from lower rasp to high falsetto is rougher and more sudden as time goes by. In the last video, Axl even gives up on the rasp in lower notes, ending the "Can't find may way back anymore" with a good sounding but clean lower register.

I don't think it's coincidence that this song was dropped from the setlist on later years. This was the example I chose, but listening carefully shows that Axl's voice and rasp is gradually fading over the years. 2011 is a maligned year because of RIR, but he had more of it left in the tank than he does know. Any of those performances would hold up pretty well in today's reunion shows. In fact, I got a little nostalgic as, imo, they have that trademark Axl voice we simply don't hear anymore.

Lots of people put 2016 Axl above 2011-2014, and that's is somehow true. I just think that instead of getting some of the voice back, Axl has put in some work to make what he has left sound better. A lot of what makes his performances get praise these days is the fact that his clean voice sounds a lot more agreeable than it did in 2011, when he begun to be forced to use it. To be blunt, I don't think that Axl could sound like this on Madagascar these days.

Then there is Axl/DC. I just think Axl has a much easier time sounding gritty when staying on one register throughout a song, both in lower and higher notes. Transitioning though, he simply loses it.

 

 

 

 

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I think a more interesting conversation would be on rather or not Axl would have sounded so good on the North American tour if it weren't for AC/DC. 

I didn't notice Axl sounding much better at the Troubadour, or Vegas from what we saw in 14...then after The AC/DC tour ended Axl came out on fire in Detroit. He sounded good for the whole run. 

Acdc got him going imo. 

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18 minutes ago, IncitingChaos said:

I think a more interesting conversation would be on rather or not Axl would have sounded so good on the North American tour if it weren't for AC/DC. 

I didn't notice Axl sounding much better at the Troubadour, or Vegas from what we saw in 14...then after The AC/DC tour ended Axl came out on fire in Detroit. He sounded good for the whole run. 

Acdc got him going imo. 

You make interesting points and I agree with most them. I do think the work he's put in was driven by AC/DC and not GNR. I also don't think his GNR performances are the best he can do with those songs at this point, as I do think there's room for improvement.

I am, however, pretty sure that he listens to himself, knows how he sounds and I think it does bother him. Fernando even said "yes" when asked if Axl knows he sounds like Mickey sometimes. I think Axl was hit hard by whatever happened to his voice after 2010, and that he is fully aware of all the criticism. I also think that the lack of released material is directly related to that as it is pretty pointless and buzz killing for an artist to release material you are already unable to replicate at the time of release. If there was a clear way to dramatically improve his sound on GNR material I think Axl would take it, even if it took work. There probably isn't.

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49 minutes ago, Pedrolg said:

You make interesting points and I agree with most them. I do think the work he's put in was driven by AC/DC and not GNR. I also don't think his GNR performances are the best he can do with those songs at this point, as I do think there's room for improvement.

I am, however, pretty sure that he listens to himself, knows how he sounds and I think it does bother him. Fernando even said "yes" when asked if Axl knows he sounds like Mickey sometimes. I think Axl was hit hard by whatever happened to his voice after 2010, and that he is fully aware of all the criticism. I also think that the lack of released material is directly related to that as it is pretty pointless and buzz killing for an artist to release material you are already unable to replicate at the time of release. If there was a clear way to dramatically improve his sound on GNR material I think Axl would take it, even if it took work. There probably isn't.

Axl probably had surgery after 2010 that restricted his voice. 

The lack of new material came from the reception CD received. 

I think the path to improving his voice starts with his vocal coach. It's not like he has to improve on a wide range of vocal material. He could easily be better at YCBM, easily be better on November Rain, could improve Paradise City, the only one I wonder about is SCOM. He'd just have to commit to rasping it. AC/DC has shown he can bring it out at will, but for whatever reason Axl feels it sounds better when he sings in a higher falsetto...so whatever. It will be cool if he makes a conscious change to his vocals on these songs however if he doesn't it will be more of the same, which isn't bad but it's not as exciting as AXL/DC 

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13 hours ago, AxlRoseCDII said:

2016 is rated over 2011-2014 because of his stage presence. No jackets and hats, cracking jokes, etc

I miss the jokes. :( I wish there was more interaction between Axl and the audience, but i also understand the gravitas of this tour and the motivation to get the job done in a timely and professional manner. In my opinion, the semi-reunited experience is much better than the 2011 - 2014 experience, both in terms of stage presence and musical delivery.

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52 minutes ago, Live Like a Suicide said:

I miss the jokes. :( I wish there was more interaction between Axl and the audience, but i also understand the gravitas of this tour and the motivation to get the job done in a timely and professional manner. In my opinion, the semi-reunited experience is much better than the 2011 - 2014 experience, both in terms of stage presence and musical delivery.

But nothing from that can top the Axl from 2006 and the band from 2002. At least in my opinion.

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i just don't understand Axl...if he sang this in 2017 he'd Mickey the whole thing, but that voice at 1:28 is very much in his range and is a range he should sing the most in. It projects the best, it is clear, it has power...it's perfect and simple. Now when you get to 4:52 you notice how high his voice gets and that's just not possible anymore...nobody is asking Axl to sing like this. My biggest issue with Axl's vocals is he hasn't adapted GNR material to his current voice, for an experienced and talented singer like him it would be an easy transition and prolong his career. 

and another more modern example of what his voice can do when he adjust his vocals to a power projection mode. It sounds so much better live than when he does that high falsetto and disappears into the mix. I find it frustrating Bc the day is coming that they release a live pro shot and people are going to say "he lost his voice" he has a voice but it's changed and he needs to find a way to adapt those changes into the set 

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13 minutes ago, IncitingChaos said:

Now when you get to 4:52 you notice how high his voice gets and that's just not possible anymore...

Rocket Queen goes higher than that note he keeps hitting that Salt of the Earth performance. As does Back in Black

 

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Just some perspective since there are too many of these threads. http://www.northjersey.com/story/entertainment/music/2017/04/14/review-bon-jovi-madison-square-garden/100185374/

Bon Jovi’s muscles may ache but he still, at 55, has an athletic, energetic stage presence. His voice may have lost a bit of its power, but the band covers for that effectively by making virtually every chorus a group effort. Bryan, guitarists Phil X and John Shanks, bassist Hugh McDonald and percussionist Everett Bradley all chip in on backing vocals (only drummer Tico Torres doesn’t), and did so frequently throughout the evening, sometimes hitting the high notes that Jon couldn’t.

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Guys, the problem is not Axl's voice. The problem is the way he sings the songs. And that can be proved by watching any Axl/DC show from last year. Every single song Axl sang with AC/DC, he sang it with rasp. And why is that? Because he LEARNT those songs from scratch. The inclusion of a vocal trainer is very important in this. Since Axl's voice went to shit in 2011, he has never reworked the songs to fit them with his current voice. Axl NAILS low register songs like It's So Easy or Mr Browstone (since that voice hasn't changed much) but he suffers while singing songs like You Could Be Mine, Sweet Child O' Mine, November Rain, etc. Now, all Axl fanboys would say that he sings AC/DC well because the songs are "much easier to sing, have more "shouting" than GNR and that the lyrics have more space for him to breath". Yet, he absoluty crushes songs like Let There Be Rock, Whole Lotta Rosie, High Voltage, etc. AC/DC covers the same amount of "vocal styles" as GN'R. Low register: Got Some Rock N' Roll Thunder, Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. Mid register: Rock N' Roll Train, Live Wire. High register: High Voltage, Shoot To Thrill, Hell's Bells, Thunderstruck. Yet he destroys all this songs, all of them full of rasp. Axl sings the GN'R songs that i mentioned before like shit because he hasn't reworked them. He has to sit his ass and re-learn them from scratch. Find the way to sing them as best as possible according to his current voice. He goes for mickey on this songs because it's the same thing he has been doing since 2011. 2006-2010 Axl is the Axl we need for this reunion. 2016 was the closest to that though.

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5 hours ago, Mendez said:

Rocket Queen goes higher than that note he keeps hitting that Salt of the Earth performance. As does Back in Black

 

Definately his voice can still get extremely high but it's much weaker than it use to be. I'd say Back in Black is an example of singing with more power that is protected by rasp where as rocket queen he's having to sing with power that stays clean. There's nothing to mask his voice in when he goes to a higher clean sound, it's either good or not and I'm not going to fault Axl for not being as good as he was on certain notes at 54 as he was in his mid 20's. 

Ill try another example however, the voice he uses at 2:43 here has been lost since 2010. And again I'm in the ballpark that says Axl can make any song sound good with the tools he has left bc there's still so much range in his voice as proven by ACDC but I guess you lose certain things to age or surgery, whatever the case was

2:43...that's a note you just don't hear him hit anymore and carry it so well. 

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7 hours ago, Draguns said:

Just some perspective since there are too many of these threads. http://www.northjersey.com/story/entertainment/music/2017/04/14/review-bon-jovi-madison-square-garden/100185374/

Bon Jovi’s muscles may ache but he still, at 55, has an athletic, energetic stage presence. His voice may have lost a bit of its power, but the band covers for that effectively by making virtually every chorus a group effort. Bryan, guitarists Phil X and John Shanks, bassist Hugh McDonald and percussionist Everett Bradley all chip in on backing vocals (only drummer Tico Torres doesn’t), and did so frequently throughout the evening, sometimes hitting the high notes that Jon couldn’t.

Jon's voice is absolutely shot to fucking pieces. It must really suck for him to see Axl, who is older than him, out there filling stadiums with two bands and singing Axl/DC shit the way he has. 

There's even a lyric on the new (utterly rotten) Jovi record where he sings "My voice is shot." HE said on the opening night of the tour that he thought he might have been finished but he worked his ass off to be able to come out and sing Always on night one. He barely got though it whilst hanging onto the mis stand for dear life and it blew what was left of his voice out for the next few weeks. 

As for Axl, although it sucks for us that he wont sing for Guns like he will for Angus, contrary to the OP's and other's wish-thinking and general talking bollocks, Axl has proved he can sing however the fuck he wants time and time again since 2006. 

The last time he went balls-out for Guns it was when he was inspired by the Chinese stuff and had something to prove in 06-10. Since Duff, Slash, stadiums and big $ didn't inspire him the same way as Chinese and Angus did, I think it's a fair assumption that if and when he releases a new album he might get his shit together again for Guns. 

Until then, at least he's still a beast of a frontman compared to poor, sorry, neutered bastards like Johnny Bongiovi. 

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8 hours ago, Draguns said:

Bon Jovi’s muscles may ache but he still, at 55, has an athletic, energetic stage presence. 

You're kidding, right? Ozzy Osbourne spends more time away from his mic stand than Jon. The sad wanker fans at Dry County were creaming over the fact that after about a month into the tour Jon left his mic for more than 5 seconds to go into the crowd and butcher Bad Medicine. His stage presence and "moves" these days are the pitome of bad dad dancing. 

Quote

His voice may have lost a bit of its power

It's lost ALL of its power and 95% of its range. He worked his ass of to get a lot of it back in 08-11 and sang fantastically. Then he got lazy and started smashing the fags in his gob again. Barring stem cell injections or a shaman vocal coach he's going to have to give up this charade of pretending to be a live "rock" singer withing the next 3-5 years. 

Oh, and he also lip-syncs the high note in Living On A Prayer every fucking night and always closes his mouth and backs away from the mic stand before the line has even finished lol. AND someone in the truck recently accidentally pressed a button which played a conveniently cued up backing track of This House Is Not For Sale which played over the top of the band leading to speculation about just how much "magic dust" Jon uses. 

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