To sort out his vocal performances Billy needs a producer who cares enough to be in tune with everything that made the 90s performances great.
Adore is a pretty stunningly performed record, huge conviction, accurate but emotive diction and use of the palette. But you listen to those performances and often he's barely rising above a whisper, there are lots of breaks, particularly in the lower register and lots of rough pronunciations but net effect is compelling. Which really was always his trick, heaps of air or lots of snarl and very little in-between.
Unfortunately, Rubin doesn't appear interesting in pushing Billy on this and Billy is clearly not interesting on pushing himself on it.
Age has nothing to do with it. He hasn't lost his voice. He isn't singing challenging parts (at least not on this new track) he's just not going for that tone. It's in there if he wants to access it but that's 99% of the trick.
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