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Axl's voice thread 2021


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I really wonder how much of his current voice is irreparable damage and how much of it is due to lifestyle, training, and rehearsing. Rob Halford of Judas Priest is 10 years older than Axl and he came out in 2018/19 sounding the best he'd been since the early 2000s with Halford and since the Painkiller tour with Judas Priest.

Before that Rob sounded pretty bad at times on certain songs like Painkiller, the Sentinel, and Freewheel Burning to name a few.

The rasp might be gone but Axl can still try to sing with power even with his cleaner voice. It sounds recently like even that's failing him.

Edited by mystery
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46 minutes ago, Ak1nney said:

One thing I know for sure... it looks like Axl is trying his best and at least he's not lip-syncing ENTIRE concerts like Paul Stanley of KISS right now.

For real?

Lenny Kravitz lip-synchs too. Kinda pathetic for an artist just standing still singing. Unless you're Michael Jackson hanging off a crane and dancing your ass off, there's really no excuse for that shit.

Edited by Towelie
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9 hours ago, Ak1nney said:

One thing I know for sure... it looks like Axl is trying his best and at least he's not lip-syncing ENTIRE concerts like Paul Stanley of KISS right now.

All the flaws show he isn't lip synching at all.  The screams in absurd are pre-recorded but he doesn't pretend to sing them.  If Axl was going to lip sync, he'd do it for the bridge in YCBM for sure.

There were a few times at the Missoula, MT show I recently attended where,  a couple of times on popular songs, he just mouthed a line or two of the chorus while the audience sang but there was no lead vocal at all.

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I don’t think the Mickey thing is a voice crack or anything like that. It’s a vocal technique. Sounds horrible, but it’s technique. 
I’d rather a shorter setlist and with more rational choices (bad obsession, pretty tied up, rotating YCBM with RQ, etc) singing in full rasp than a 3+ hour show with Mickey all over the place.

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14 hours ago, mystery said:

The rasp might be gone but Axl can still try to sing with power even with his cleaner voice. It sounds recently like even that's failing him.

I agree, one good comparison is his 2001/2002 performances where he sings really clean with power, and on some CD songs. Comparing Absurd live where he sounds like a yelling old man vs Silkworms 20 years ago, it was higher. 

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18 minutes ago, ChrisMaciel said:

I don’t think the Mickey thing is a voice crack or anything like that. It’s a vocal technique. Sounds horrible, but it’s technique. 
I’d rather a shorter setlist and with more rational choices (bad obsession, pretty tied up, rotating YCBM with RQ, etc) singing in full rasp than a 3+ hour show with Mickey all over the place.

I don't think he could sing full rasp for a whole show even if they shortened it.  Sometimes he has rasp in parts of a song but not the whole song.  I'd rather the long show to get my money's worth and enjoy Slash and Duff.  I'd prefer more songs to the 20 minute versions of RQ and KOHD.

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10 hours ago, Towelie said:

For real?

Lenny Kravitz lip-synchs too. Kinda pathetic for an artist just standing still singing. Unless you're Michael Jackson hanging off a crane and dancing your ass off, there's really no excuse for that shit.

And even someone like MJ could sing. The Bad Tour is mostly him singing live while dancing which is why its my favorite tour of his. By the HIStory tour he probably sang 3 or 4 songs live at most. 

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Just now, mystery said:

And even someone like MJ could sing. The Bad Tour is mostly him singing live while dancing which is why its my favorite tour of his. By the HIStory tour he probably sang 3 or 4 songs live at most. 

Yeah, I kind of didn't begrudge it the same with MJ. Obviously I would always prefer live vocals, but there is a difference between MJ lip-synching while putting on a huge spectacle and someone like Lenny Kravitz who doesn't dance and is literally just faking it without putting in any effort in other areas of performance. 

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4 minutes ago, Towelie said:

Yeah, I kind of didn't begrudge it the same with MJ. Obviously I would always prefer live vocals, but there is a difference between MJ lip-synching while putting on a huge spectacle and someone like Lenny Kravitz who doesn't dance and is literally just faking it without putting in any effort in other areas of performance. 

I think Meatloaf recently got a younger singer to sing his songs while he tells stories in between. I get it with some artists. You age and your voice just can't match what it was 30 or 40 years ago. I don't have a problem with a backing track or something as long as they're singing with it. 

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2 minutes ago, mystery said:

I think Meatloaf recently got a younger singer to sing his songs while he tells stories in between. I get it with some artists. You age and your voice just can't match what it was 30 or 40 years ago. I don't have a problem with a backing track or something as long as they're singing with it. 

Yeah, I think Meatloaf has no business still touring when it's gotten to that stage. :lol:

 

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42 minutes ago, janrichmond said:

Is this a recent thing? He's still a sexy dude, no dad bod there ;)

 

yeah i'm shallow :lol:

 

Not sure when it started. Was thinking about seeing him on his last tour and watched a few videos of him live and he was lip-synching so I didn't bother. 

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I didn't initially believe that about Paul Stanley, mostly because anything I've listened to in recent years he's sounded like garbage, but it seems to be true. I thought, no way is he faking it - surely he'd fake it to some better vocals? But I just checked out some stuff from their recent dates and it's obvious. He seems to sing the first verse of Detroit Rock City live and then the second verse has the pre-recorded vocals kick in. Unreal. The vocal quality shoots up twenty notches in timbre and clarity and makes it painfully obvious.

They've been using tracks for his rhythm guitar for years, not unlike Motley Crue, but the vocals surprise me. Eric Singer had been covering his ass for many years on the high bits but I guess he wanted to make sure this tour went flawlessly.

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4 hours ago, James Bond said:

I didn't initially believe that about Paul Stanley, mostly because anything I've listened to in recent years he's sounded like garbage, but it seems to be true. I thought, no way is he faking it - surely he'd fake it to some better vocals? But I just checked out some stuff from their recent dates and it's obvious. He seems to sing the first verse of Detroit Rock City live and then the second verse has the pre-recorded vocals kick in. Unreal. The vocal quality shoots up twenty notches in timbre and clarity and makes it painfully obvious.

They've been using tracks for his rhythm guitar for years, not unlike Motley Crue, but the vocals surprise me. Eric Singer had been covering his ass for many years on the high bits but I guess he wanted to make sure this tour went flawlessly.

Good to see you did your research. Yeah, I still have a soft spot for the real early KISS albums. They are straight forward rock until Dynasty. It's sad that time has finally told Paul he's done. He had a great voice until like the late 2000's, then they had to tune down. When it's your time to go, it's your time to go... Axl can still put on a great show, they just need to switch some songs up. 

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12 minutes ago, Ak1nney said:

Good to see you did your research. Yeah, I still have a soft spot for the real early KISS albums. They are straight forward rock until Dynasty. It's sad that time has finally told Paul he's done. He had a great voice until like the late 2000's, then they had to tune down. When it's your time to go, it's your time to go... Axl can still put on a great show, they just need to switch some songs up. 

Paul definitely had a good run with his voice. My KISS fandom peaked around 2009/2010. After they tuned down the sets got shorter, Gene carried the show, and I mostly checked out. The weird thing about his voice isn't so much that he lost range but that he can barely sustain a note anymore. At best he just barely gets away with the Soul Station stuff.

I think pride got the best of him. He was always so careful to preserve his voice as much as he could and I think it's incredibly hard for him to accept that he can't quite do it anymore.

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3 hours ago, James Bond said:

Paul definitely had a good run with his voice. My KISS fandom peaked around 2009/2010. After they tuned down the sets got shorter, Gene carried the show, and I mostly checked out. The weird thing about his voice isn't so much that he lost range but that he can barely sustain a note anymore. At best he just barely gets away with the Soul Station stuff.

I think pride got the best of him. He was always so careful to preserve his voice as much as he could and I think it's incredibly hard for him to accept that he can't quite do it anymore.

Pride, and they probably haven't sold one less ticket despite the quality of his voice. Kiss has never hidden the fact that they are a business first and musicians second. As long as the money keeps rolling in, why stop it? I mean... how many farewell tours have they done now?

 

Unfortunately, I'm starting to get the same feeling from GNR. I think the days of any artistic merit behind this beast are long gone. The pay day must be enormous to just get on stage with a few guys playing for a few hours and then getting treated like royalty. There's worse ways to make a living! 

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Best I ever heard Axl was at an amphitheater in 2013 in Lubbock Texas haha go pull up a YouTube video of paradise city or jungle. He was on. Haha what I saw in 2016 was a complete performance from a great band. I do like to listen to ACDC performances with Axl on songs like Rock n roll Damnation and High Voltage. Those are songs he would Mickey with GNR but sounded incredible on in ACDC. 
 

Love these threads haha 

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59 minutes ago, IncitingChaos said:

Best I ever heard Axl was at an amphitheater in 2013 in Lubbock Texas haha go pull up a YouTube video of paradise city or jungle. He was on. Haha what I saw in 2016 was a complete performance from a great band. I do like to listen to ACDC performances with Axl on songs like Rock n roll Damnation and High Voltage. Those are songs he would Mickey with GNR but sounded incredible on in ACDC. 
 

Love these threads haha 

Yesterday I was mentioned of that specific show by @Gordon Comstock. Estranged was probably Axl’s raspiest version since the 90s (I always recommended Chile 2011 but I think this one beats it). A truly mindblowing performance :) 

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19 minutes ago, GNRfanMILO said:

Yesterday I was mentioned of that specific show by @Gordon Comstock. Estranged was probably Axl’s raspiest version since the 90s (I always recommended Chile 2011 but I think this one beats it). A truly mindblowing performance :) 

 

It seemed so effortless for him to sing it that way too, barely any 'mickey' lol. It's definitely one of the better performances of that song since 2011...

https://streamable.com/3gpbcs

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I saw Guns at the Hard rock Hotel in Vegas in 2006, and Axl sounded incredible to me...like in his prime. 
 

I saw him in Nashville in 2016 and he sounded pretty good, but not great.
 

I didn't think he would ever sound like his old self again and then he toured with ACDC, and he sounded insane! The notes he hit on that tour were incredible.
 

How did he do it? I'm curious why he can't sound like that more often with Guns. 

 

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