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The "Axl's Voice" Thread - Please Keep All Discussion Here


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How noticeable do you think  it is for Duff And Slash? Or even Fortus and Bumblefoot who witnessed 2010 Axl then a few months later 2011 Axl.. Its night and day for us so surely they can hear Axl sounding like shit, but I guess nobody would dare bring it up in conversation with him.. I wonder does it detract from their enjoyment.

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All in all, Slash has made this reunion as big and successful as it is imo, without a doubt. He is the primary attraction. Big fan of Axl's too, just a shame he decides to sing the majority of the material in that pathetic gut wrenching falsetto of his, and it's even sadder that the majority of fans on here just accept it and defend it. He does not need to use that voice whatsoever. I saw them at Slane, great show, but I could tell clearly that his voice sounded like shit for a great proportion of it. It's quite sad, but it is what it is. 

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2 minutes ago, SevenMichaels said:

All in all, Slash has made this reunion as big and successful as it is imo, without a doubt. He is the primary attraction. Big fan of Axl's too, just a shame he decides to sing the majority of the material in that pathetic gut wrenching falsetto of his, and it's even sadder that the majority of fans on here just accept it and defend it. He does not need to use that voice whatsoever. I saw them at Slane, great show, but I could tell clearly that his voice sounded like shit for a great proportion of it. It's quite sad, but it is what it is. 

I saw the Houston show and thought it was wonderful. After looking through this forum it appears I got very lucky. Going to Denver on wed, hopefully its a good vocal performance. 

Edited by nolanjs55
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1 minute ago, nolanjs55 said:

I saw the Houston show and thought it was wonderful. After looking through this forum it appears I got very lucky. Going to Denver on wed, hopefully its a good vocal performance. 

You did get very lucky man, without a doubt. I hope so too, but I somehow think you could be disappointed. Who knows tho, it is Axl Rose after all.

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8 minutes ago, SevenMichaels said:

 He does not need to use that voice whatsoever.  

How exactly do you know that though? How do you know that it wouldn't damage Axl's voice, if he'd sing with full rasp all the time on every single show? Do you have any proof that Axl wouldn't lose his voice for good if he did that? Or are you just talking out of your ass?

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1 hour ago, Lies They Tell said:

How exactly do you know that though? How do you know that it wouldn't damage Axl's voice, if he'd sing with full rasp all the time on every single show? Do you have any proof that Axl wouldn't lose his voice for good if he did that? Or are you just talking out of your ass?

I'm not asking for him to use full rasp at all, I never stated this. So maybe you should try reading what I said, instead of talking out of your own ass.

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5 minutes ago, SevenMichaels said:

I'm not asking for him to use full rasp at all, I never stated this. So maybe you should try reading what I said, instead of talking out of your own ass.

What kind of voice should he use for example on You Could Be Mine then? When I'm watching the shows, it seems like he's using all kinds of different voices when ever he can to not sound like Mickey. But on songs like You Could Me Mine, there's not really much he can do if he's not going full rasp. He could of course sing it with a much lower voice, but I bet the majority of fans would hate that even more and people would be saying that he sings totally out of tune and he's lost his high voice. So to me the clean voice that he uses seems to be the only way to sing certain songs, unless he goes full rasp.

Or do you have a suggestion what kid of voice he should use on YCBM?

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23 minutes ago, Lies They Tell said:

What kind of voice should he use for example on You Could Be Mine then? When I'm watching the shows, it seems like he's using all kinds of different voices when ever he can to not sound like Mickey. But on songs like You Could Me Mine, there's not really much he can do if he's not going full rasp. He could of course sing it with a much lower voice, but I bet the majority of fans would hate that even more and people would be saying that he sings totally out of tune and he's lost his high voice. So to me the clean voice that he uses seems to be the only way to sing certain songs, unless he goes full rasp.

Or do you have a suggestion what kid of voice he should use on YCBM?

Firstly, I appreciate your attempts to enter into a civil discussion instead of throwing insults at me, respect man.

And secondly, given his ACDC performances, I do not think there is any reason whatsoever he cannot go full rasp on YCBM each night, I can understand sweet child and NR, but not YCBM at all.

@Lies They Tell or, actually, the voice he uses on CD.

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2 minutes ago, SevenMichaels said:

Firstly, I appreciate your attempts to enter into a civil discussion instead of throwing insults at me, respect man.

And secondly, given his ACDC performances, I do not think there is any reason whatsoever he cannot go full rasp on YCBM each night, I can understand sweet child and NR, but not YCBM at all.

Yeah, I didn't mean to be rude in the first place. I prefer civil discussion. I just don't understand why some people act like they're so sure that Axl doesn't have any good reason to use the clean voice. Let's take YCBM for example. Axl struggled with that song already in his prime. Just take a look at this performance:

It's almost raspless and it's from 1993 for fucks sake. How on earth are people expecting him to sound better NOW? There's probably many reasons why YCBM is so much harder for Axl to sing than AC/DC songs and I probably don't know all the reasons cause I'm not an expert on these things. But there seems to be more variation between higher and lower notes on YCBM and there's more stretched vowels compared to the short bursts of vocals that's typical to most AC/DC songs. He's still singing this part with rasp: "While you're breakin' down my back n' I been rackin' out my brain It don't matter how we make it 'Cause it always ends the same You can push it for more mileage But your flaps are wearin' thin..." Probably because it's the right pitch for him and he can sing it with short screaming bursts of vocals.

If Axl was just purely lazy and didn't care at all, then wouldn't it make more sense that he'd sing the whole song without rasp? To me it seems like he's singing that part with rasp, that he feels he can comfortably sing with rasp without damaging his voice in the long run. Even the AC/DC shows weren't a rasp-fest from start to finish. And those were some of his most important gigs ever cause he had to prove Angus and the whole world that he can do it. So naturally he sang his ass off. But could he sing like that all the time on every AC/DC show from now on? I don't know. AC/DC songs do fit his voice better than most GNR songs, but those were also some of his most important shows, so it's possible that in the future we might see AC/DC shows with less rasp.

Some songs, like for example Nightrain are songs that Axl can sing with rasp every night pretty effortlessly without risking his voice. But some songs need more effort to sing with a raspy voice and singing those songs with rasp every night might even cause permanent damage to his voice. Well that's my theory anyway. I'm not saying that it's a fact, cause we don't know the truth. All I'm saying is that you don't know, if Axl could sing songs like YCBM with full rasp every night, for a fact either. There's a chance that he in fact has no other real choice than to use the clean voice that he is using currently.

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10 minutes ago, Lies They Tell said:

Yeah, I didn't mean to be rude in the first place. I prefer civil discussion. I just don't understand why some people act like they're so sure that Axl doesn't have any good reason to use the clean voice. Let's take YCBM for example. Axl struggled with that song already in his prime. Just take a look at this performance:

It's almost raspless and it's from 1993 for fucks sake. How on earth are people expecting him to sound better NOW? There's probably many reasons why YCBM is so much harder for Axl to sing than AC/DC songs and I probably don't know all the reasons cause I'm not an expert on these things. But there seems to be more variation between higher and lower notes on YCBM and there's more stretched vowels compared to the short bursts of vocals that's typical to most AC/DC songs. He's still singing this part with rasp: "While you're breakin' down my back n' I been rackin' out my brain It don't matter how we make it 'Cause it always ends the same You can push it for more mileage But your flaps are wearin' thin..." Probably because it's the right pitch for him and he can sing it with short screaming bursts of vocals.

If Axl was just purely lazy and didn't care at all, then wouldn't it make more sense that he'd sing the whole song without rasp? To me it seems like he's singing that part with rasp, that he feels he can comfortably sing with rasp without damaging his voice in the long run. Even the AC/DC shows weren't a rasp-fest from start to finish. And those were some of his most important gigs ever cause he had to prove Angus and the whole world that he can do it. So naturally he sang his ass off. But could he sing like that all the time on every AC/DC show from now on? I don't know. AC/DC songs do fit his voice better than most GNR songs, but those were also some of his most important shows, so it's possible that in the future we might see AC/DC shows with less rasp.

Some songs, like for example Nightrain are songs that Axl can sing with rasp every night pretty effortlessly without risking his voice. But some songs need more effort to sing with a raspy voice and singing those songs with rasp every night might even cause permanent damage to his voice. Well that's my theory anyway. I'm not saying that it's a fact, cause we don't know the truth. All I'm saying is that you don't know, if Axl could sing songs like YCBM with full rasp every night, for a fact either. There's a chance that he in fact has no other real choice than to use the clean voice that he is using currently.

That's cool man, me too. I understand what you're saying, but then I look to the 2010 02 London performance with Duff and that whole tour and I think that speaks for itself really, he can do it, he just chooses not to, at least in my opinion.

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2 minutes ago, SevenMichaels said:

That's cool man, me too. I understand what you're saying, but then I look to the 2010 02 London performance with Duff and that whole tour and I think that speaks for itself really, he can do it, he just chooses not to, at least in my opinion.

Yes his voice was in great shape in 2010 and the performance with Duff especially was on par with some of his better performances from the nineties. Surely he sang his ass off, cause it was the first performance with Duff in a long time and he knew those videos would be all over the internet. Now I actually VERY much doubt that he even could sing like that today. But even if he could, he could most likely not do it every night without losing his voice. So yes, it might be a choice to sing with a clean voice, but a choice that he made for a good reason.

You know it's pretty cool arguing with you, cause you're respectful towards other opinions. But I really have to go to bed now because it's very late here where I live. And honestly I don't think our argument would really go anywhere from here. Neither one of us can really prove with 100% evidence that we're right, so let's just agree to disagree or whatever. :D

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20 minutes ago, Lies They Tell said:

Yes his voice was in great shape in 2010 and the performance with Duff especially was on par with some of his better performances from the nineties. Surely he sang his ass off, cause it was the first performance with Duff in a long time and he knew those videos would be all over the internet. Now I actually VERY much doubt that he even could sing like that today. But even if he could, he could most likely not do it every night without losing his voice. So yes, it might be a choice to sing with a clean voice, but a choice that he made for a good reason.

You know it's pretty cool arguing with you, cause you're respectful towards other opinions. But I really have to go to bed now because it's very late here where I live. And honestly I don't think our argument would really go anywhere from here. Neither one of us can really prove with 100% evidence that we're right, so let's just agree to disagree or whatever. :D

I beg to differ, as I watched every single ACDC show from start to finish, and he was nothing short of sensational 90% of the time, imo. He's still got it.

Okay man, that's fair enough. We'll agree to disagree, and leave it at that. Have a good one!

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I think the truth about Axl's voice lies somewhere in the middle. He hasn't lost his voice, he is capable of delivering a pretty good performance; but his capability is not unlimited, it has deteriorated (at least in regards to how he "should" sing each song, ie. as it's sung on the records and on his classic era performances) and his voice has changed (even his AC/DC rasp on the Brian Johnson songs, which people constantly use as an example, is different from his GnR signature raspy voice).

It's obvious that on some GnR songs he tries to use rasp but he can't, e.g. Rocket Queen.

But it's also obvious that on some other songs he chooses to sing clean, apparently in order to preserve what's left of his voice. He explained it in the China Exchange interview. Although he was talking about CD, what he said can be projected on the 2012-14 period as well as on today. He was in full capacity mode in 2010, but maybe that resulted to him almost blow his voice (2011), so he went to maintenance mode in 2012-14. Then came 2016, with the GnR reunion tour and AC/DC. He gave his all with AC/DC, because he wanted to be respectful to the two singers by not deviating from their style (and Brian Johnson's style, as Axl himself said, was very demanding because it's very different to his own) and went on semi-maintenance mode with GnR. There are some AC/DC songs though which he chose to sing clean (or use a clean-rasp mix) as well. Sin City, for example. I read a comment on the Billy Joel thread bringing up this song as an example of "mickey" Axl with AC/DC (and I'm sure there other people here who have the same opinion); however, I've heard many AC/DC fans who attended the shows saying that it was one of Axl's highlights.

Many people wonder why he doesn't use his AC/DC voice with GnR or demand that he uses it. Probably he can do it (not on all songs), but for how long without blowing his voice? I don't think it's the only way to sound good though (imo the "Shoot To Thrill" style doesn't fit many GnR songs anyway, it wouldn't sound good). He has other great voices he could use. For example, the mid-low raspy one he uses on parts of Mr. Brownstone and on the chorus of the CD title track seems coming out of him effortlessly; or his natural low voice. It wouldn't work on all the songs of course (e.g. Rocket Queen or the second half of Estranged), but it could use one of these voices on NR, Yesterdays and Michelle, which sound bad now (especially the latter two); at least I think so, I'm not an expert.

 

Edited by Blackstar
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2 hours ago, Blackstar said:

I think the truth about Axl's voice lies somewhere in the middle. He hasn't lost his voice, he is capable of delivering a pretty good performance; but his capability is not unlimited, it has deteriorated (at least in regards to how he "should" sing each song, ie. as it's sung on the records and on his classic era performances) and his voice has changed (even his AC/DC rasp on the Brian Johnson songs, which people constantly use as an example, is different from his GnR signature raspy voice).

It's obvious that on some GnR songs he tries to use rasp but he can't, e.g. Rocket Queen.

But it's also obvious that on some other songs he chooses to sing clean, apparently in order to preserve what's left of his voice. He explained it in the China Exchange interview. Although he was talking about CD, what he said can be projected on the 2012-14 period as well as on today. He was in full capacity mode in 2010, but maybe that resulted to him almost blow his voice (2011), so he went to maintenance mode in 2012-14. Then came 2016, with the GnR reunion tour and AC/DC. He gave his all with AC/DC, because he wanted to be respectful to the two singers by not deviating from their style (and Brian Johnson's style, as Axl himself said, was very demanding because it's very different to his own) and went on semi-maintenance mode with GnR. There are some AC/DC songs though which he chose to sing clean (or use a clean-rasp mix) as well. Sin City, for example. I read a comment on the Billy Joel thread bringing up this song as an example of "mickey" Axl with AC/DC (and I'm sure there other people here who have the same opinion); however, I've heard many AC/DC fans who attended the shows saying that it was one of Axl's highlights.

Many people wonder why he doesn't use his AC/DC voice with GnR or demand that he uses it. Probably he can do it (not on all songs), but for how long without blowing his voice? I don't think it's the only way to sound good though (imo the "Shoot To Thrill" style doesn't fit many GnR songs anyway, it wouldn't sound good). He has other great voices he could use. For example, the mid-low raspy one he uses on parts of Mr. Brownstone and on the chorus of the CD title track seems coming out of him effortlessly; or his natural low voice. It wouldn't work on all the songs of course (e.g. Rocket Queen or the second half of Estranged), but it could use one of these voices on NR, Yesterdays and Michelle, which sound bad now (especially the latter two); at least I think so, I'm not an expert.

 

So he decided to "give it his all" for AC/DC out of respect for the band's 2 singers(one who probably wouldn't give a shit if Axl fell off a cliff), but decided to go on maintenance mode for a fan base that remained loyal for 25 years that were dreaming of this moment? Went on maintenance mode for the entity that made him rich and made him a rock legend?

 

Was your post supposed to defend him?

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4 minutes ago, SWINGTRADER said:

So he decided to "give it his all" for AC/DC out of respect for the band's 2 singers(one who probably wouldn't give a shit if Axl fell off a cliff), but decided to go on maintenance mode for a fan base that remained loyal for 25 years that were dreaming of this moment? Went on maintenance mode for the entity that made him rich and made him a rock legend?

 

Was your post supposed to defend him?

It wasn't supposed to defend him or accuse him. Just some thoughts and an attempt to provide a reasoning behind the situation.

With AC/DC he had a limited number of shows (and even those probably affected his vocal chords),not a 2 year tour (so far it's about 85 shows with GnR and he still has a lot ahead.

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On 29.7.2017 at 10:49 PM, Lies They Tell said:

Yeah, I didn't mean to be rude in the first place. I prefer civil discussion. I just don't understand why some people act like they're so sure that Axl doesn't have any good reason to use the clean voice. Let's take YCBM for example. Axl struggled with that song already in his prime. Just take a look at this performance:

It's almost raspless and it's from 1993 for fucks sake. How on earth are people expecting him to sound better NOW? There's probably many reasons why YCBM is so much harder for Axl to sing than AC/DC songs and I probably don't know all the reasons cause I'm not an expert on these things. But there seems to be more variation between higher and lower notes on YCBM and there's more stretched vowels compared to the short bursts of vocals that's typical to most AC/DC songs. He's still singing this part with rasp: "While you're breakin' down my back n' I been rackin' out my brain It don't matter how we make it 'Cause it always ends the same You can push it for more mileage But your flaps are wearin' thin..." Probably because it's the right pitch for him and he can sing it with short screaming bursts of vocals.

If Axl was just purely lazy and didn't care at all, then wouldn't it make more sense that he'd sing the whole song without rasp? To me it seems like he's singing that part with rasp, that he feels he can comfortably sing with rasp without damaging his voice in the long run. Even the AC/DC shows weren't a rasp-fest from start to finish. And those were some of his most important gigs ever cause he had to prove Angus and the whole world that he can do it. So naturally he sang his ass off. But could he sing like that all the time on every AC/DC show from now on? I don't know. AC/DC songs do fit his voice better than most GNR songs, but those were also some of his most important shows, so it's possible that in the future we might see AC/DC shows with less rasp.

Some songs, like for example Nightrain are songs that Axl can sing with rasp every night pretty effortlessly without risking his voice. But some songs need more effort to sing with a raspy voice and singing those songs with rasp every night might even cause permanent damage to his voice. Well that's my theory anyway. I'm not saying that it's a fact, cause we don't know the truth. All I'm saying is that you don't know, if Axl could sing songs like YCBM with full rasp every night, for a fact either. There's a chance that he in fact has no other real choice than to use the clean voice that he is using currently.

If he would have this voice today I would be fine ;) Axl 2017 is like a bad impersonator in so many songs. 

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1 hour ago, Pedrolg said:

Didn't expect him to sound this good at this point at all. He is totally raspy, strong, on point and not cracking throughout the performance with Billy Joel. I kind of give up trying to pinpoint what's really wrong with his voice.

i think he can pull it out but in a short amount of songs, then he runs out of gas. this was just one song (big shot doesn't count)..that's why jungle sounds so good, it's the first song on the set that is demanding, and that's also why better have been played early in the set after a few gigs..he starts fresh, but after that he's back to "normal", IMO 2016 was a very busy year for axl, and now is taking its toll...

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  • 2 weeks later...

idk if it's because I went from the most recent Jungle to this one, but does anyone remember this Jungle from Nashville? His voice was in that gravely rasp territory. Idk if it's from running into the first line or what but probably the raspiest lowest toned jungle I've heard in a long long time 

just seemed like his voice went dark after 1:05 or maybe 1:14...but it sounded awesome to me. Might just be from watching some of the terrible ones from 2017 though

Edited by IncitingChaos
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Wow, how lame would I have been if I didn't enjoy all those Rush shows from '96 to 2015 if I thought Geddy Lee should sound identical to how he did when he was 24.  I'd have been a fucking fool.  I'm glad I didn't do that and haven't done that the last two times I saw awesome Guns n Roses shows along with this one on Sunday.  Great vocal performances everyone time I saw either band.  

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On ‎7‎/‎29‎/‎2017 at 4:18 AM, AxlRoseCDII said:

I think the tempos of the song sound bother me more than Axl's voice being weaker honestly. Civil War is too fast and the monologue before the last chorus sounds ridiculous with how fast he says it.

From my 8/8/17 Marlins Park show review:

I found a recording of the last hour of the 12/31/91 show in Miami on youtube.  YCBM was the second song on it.  I played that video and the one from the 2017 Marlins park show simultaneously in 2 browser tabs. I paused the 2017 right when Axl began to say "I'm" at the beginning.  Then I let the 1991 version play and restarted the 2017 version as soon as Axl began to sing in 1991.  The tempo is pretty much EXACTLY the same.  I could mute the audio on either one and Axl would be singing the exact same syllable.

Back to new commentary:

I haven't done the same with other songs.  Paradise City is the most noticeably faster than it used to be.  However, I have to think that is on purpose.  Doesn't that tempo get set by how Slash plays the opening solo before the drums kick in?  From the same show, it seems to be 10 seconds from the opening note until the first drum beat.  On the AFD recorded version it is about 12 seconds.  Slash is playing 17% faster.  He has to know he is doing this so it must be a conscious decision made by the band.

The thing with Axl's voice is that it sounds fine when you are there live and it is played at high volume through the PA system.  Everybody that I've spoken to or heard talking about the show I was at 3 nights ago in Miami said that Axl sounded great, myself included.  However, if I listen to the high quality audio of the show that Gibbo recorded and posted in the download section, I can hear the "clean" voice all over the place.  Live, the only time it stood out was at the end of Coma.  I would imagine that part was difficult for him to sing in his prime, which is probably why it wasn't regularly played on the UYI tour.  Now, I'm sure it was a concession to Slash to help patch things up and make NITL a reality.

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42 minutes ago, Gnrcane said:

From my 8/8/17 Marlins Park show review:

I found a recording of the last hour of the 12/31/91 show in Miami on youtube.  YCBM was the second song on it.  I played that video and the one from the 2017 Marlins park show simultaneously in 2 browser tabs. I paused the 2017 right when Axl began to say "I'm" at the beginning.  Then I let the 1991 version play and restarted the 2017 version as soon as Axl began to sing in 1991.  The tempo is pretty much EXACTLY the same.  I could mute the audio on either one and Axl would be singing the exact same syllable.

Back to new commentary:

I haven't done the same with other songs.  Paradise City is the most noticeably faster than it used to be.  However, I have to think that is on purpose.  Doesn't that tempo get set by how Slash plays the opening solo before the drums kick in?  From the same show, it seems to be 10 seconds from the opening note until the first drum beat.  On the AFD recorded version it is about 12 seconds.  Slash is playing 17% faster.  He has to know he is doing this so it must be a conscious decision made by the band.

The thing with Axl's voice is that it sounds fine when you are there live and it is played at high volume through the PA system.  Everybody that I've spoken to or heard talking about the show I was at 3 nights ago in Miami said that Axl sounded great, myself included.  However, if I listen to the high quality audio of the show that Gibbo recorded and posted in the download section, I can hear the "clean" voice all over the place.  Live, the only time it stood out was at the end of Coma.  I would imagine that part was difficult for him to sing in his prime, which is probably why it wasn't regularly played on the UYI tour.  Now, I'm sure it was a concession to Slash to help patch things up and make NITL a reality.

Replace the 2017 audio with the 1991 audio then! So we can hear how YCBM should sound and see it with 2017 Axl. 

Also Axl can sing Coma...he chooses to screw out up with his voice

 

Edited by IncitingChaos
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