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Re: Hall Of Fame Conspiracy Theory
He started losing his voice in 1991. 1992 his voice was different. Laziness wasn't the reason he "lost" his voice. Robert Plant damaged his voice because of touring, just like Axl. Not because of being lazy. Especially seeing the strain their vocal styles caused. Plus, he's gotten older.
You may not know this, but years of cocaine, booze, chain smoking, and years of screeching vocals has a very negative effect. You can get your voice back from inactivity, it's much harder from years of abuse. On top of that, those things helped shape his voice, but it can only last so long. You could make a legit argument that had he not taken off the time he did his voice would be gone. Listen to his voice on Sympathy For The Devil and tell me you can't hear a change.
This is my favorite period of Axl's voice. Perfect. But you can hear the abuse. And it was never quite like that again from the UYI tours. Nothing would have saved it. He wouldn't sound like that today, no matter what.
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Hall Of Fame Conspiracy Theory
Robert Plant damaged his voice because of touring, just like Axl.
Yeah it does show you how the business types will eat you up and spit you out too. You can bet when they scheduled those tours no one considers stuff like the damage to the vocals, it would all have been about how many billion records will the tour help to move.
Although I guess to be fair, with Slash in the band they would have been keen to tour, and the business folks were probably busy keeping them alive.
But I do think that sometimes the best interests of the label and the best interests of the artists are not one and the same.
Listen to his voice on Sympathy For The Devil and tell me you can't hear a change.
Interesting you mention that. I remember I noticed it back when I got the CD single of it back when Interview with the Vampire came out. I immediately noticed it.
Of course, there's moments on it of pure awesomeness, the "ohh yeah" after one of the solos I sometimes play to people as an example of how to bring some passion into a song...cos it's so guttural - it's like how do you even make a noise like that? It's like a jet engine. And the high pitched backing parts he sings (i think during the second verse from memory) are fun too. So it sounds pretty great...but I totally agree - the vocal tone is noticeably different from AFD/UYI.
What's cool to me is that Axl's often been able to grasp these changes and compose with them. The vocals in catcher are great, as is the outtro to TWAT - so like he seems to adapt to the changes in his vocals on new songs - so i'm hopeful that there's more out there that can suit his new tone or that he can write stuff that will.
But I do feel for Axl when people call him lazy, cos I do believe it's the result of damage and not lack of effort etc, and I figure the only thing worse than not being able to quite do what you used to, must be that and then having people tell you to try harder - when he's obviously pushing himself to replicate sounds that are unnatural to his voicebox these days.
- mickronson
- Rep: 118
Re: Hall Of Fame Conspiracy Theory
Sweet Child O Mine, 2002 cover 
that's how it's done
- monkeychow
- Rep: 661
Re: Hall Of Fame Conspiracy Theory
wow that is bad...but then as someone who's maybe tolerable on guitar these days..I will say we all started there...
- tejastech08
- Rep: 194
Re: Hall Of Fame Conspiracy Theory
Id say Axl peaked on Lies... his voice just kills on it.
Funniest thing is Axl didn't like his vocals on the album and wanted to re-record them. Early 1988 was definitely his peak. They recorded Lies during that time. There was the Ritz show in February, one of the few times he absolutely fucking NAILED Sweet Child O' Mine with a perfect little bit of rasp thrown in. And there was the Late Show in March 1988 where they played You're Crazy and Used To Love Her. He fucking nailed that performance too.
Re: Hall Of Fame Conspiracy Theory
I cannot believe the only thing out of that MASSIVE ass post people took from it was "lazy".
I'm gonna stop wasting my time.
And D is obviously not a singer and has no clue how it's done and how it works. Axl obviously sings higher today than he did in his heyday. If you don't hear that, I can't help you. Check with Beltone hearing aids.
- Mikkamakka
- Rep: 217
Re: Hall Of Fame Conspiracy Theory
He started losing his voice in 1991. 1992 his voice was different. Laziness wasn't the reason he "lost" his voice. Robert Plant damaged his voice because of touring, just like Axl. Not because of being lazy. Especially seeing the strain their vocal styles caused. Plus, he's gotten older.
You may not know this, but years of cocaine, booze, chain smoking, and years of screeching vocals has a very negative effect. You can get your voice back from inactivity, it's much harder from years of abuse. On top of that, those things helped shape his voice, but it can only last so long. You could make a legit argument that had he not taken off the time he did his voice would be gone. Listen to his voice on Sympathy For The Devil and tell me you can't hear a change.
This is my favorite period of Axl's voice. Perfect. But you can hear the abuse. And it was never quite like that again from the UYI tours. Nothing would have saved it. He wouldn't sound like that today, no matter what.
Agree on Sympathy, that's one of Axl's perfect works, among with Ain't It Fun, Black Leather, Civil War, Coma and the B-side of Lies.
I still disagree on dating his voice damage back to the early 90s. The devil inside me says that some people have a habit to date everything bad to the UYI era, just because the Ayatollah said so. Anyway... he had problems way back in the 80s, when he had to be silent for weeks. You might remember that they had to cancel shows (maybe on the Aerosmith tour?), and there was that special performance of It's So Easy with Duff on vocals.
Axl still had a very powerful and fine voice when they finished the Illusion tours. After 2 years of live performances, he was way better than in the first months, in 1991. Practice use a lot. Then, he didn't sing for YEARS. That's when he lost the power in his voice, and although learnt new technics, he came back as the Mickey Mouse of rock and roll. Practice, practice and practice, and singers can save their voice. It's still not too late, but if he doesn't do more for himself, his own art and instrument, than in a few years the only option will be lip-synchin'.
Re: Hall Of Fame Conspiracy Theory
All I know is, I went to see Guns live back in November with 9 others and every one of them said Axl sounded fantastic. But apparently that means nothing.
It means nothing because there's also people who said Axl sounded awesome at Rio.
Axl's voice is shot. Sad but true.
