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Old 08-03-2008, 01:52 PM   #1
Reyngel
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Default If Billy went back to his old style of singing...

...would the next album be more successful in the eyes of fans?


I'm not saying his voice could ever return to the youthful, angelic style of Siamese Dream or anything. Clearly he's much older now, and his voice has become more whiney and less smooth, particularly his falsetto. But lately, as many have criticized him for, he's tried way too hard to contrive vibrato, and he eclipses the consonants of some words, etc, etc. If he just went back to singing like regular crap, rather than singing like forced, new crap, I feel like the next album could just generally be a whole lot better, you know?

An example would be the Infinite Sadness tour. His voice was horrendous. It cracked all the time from all the screaming, he was always off in pitch, etc. But that style seemed to work, in a weird way, because it always sounded, at least, emotional. It never sounded like he was trying too hard to sound like a classically trained singer. I feel like he could easily return to that style, because really, anyone could sing like that.

If he wants his music to be more approachable to a wider audience, he really should consider that while there were people who hated his voice 12 years ago, there are ten times that many people who hate his current voice. Would be good for him to choose the lesser of two evils.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 02:33 PM   #2
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his voice has become less smooth and more whiney because he took lessons on how to sing properly and soon after realized he sucks really bad at it. He tries to bring the snot and the screams back but as much as it has to do with his age (as you point out) i think it has more to do with him forgetting how to go back to the way he was after so long doing everything he could to make his singing voice more professional. He has his moments on the last few tours where it felt close but he probably wrote them off as mistakes and went about correcting them.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 02:40 PM   #3
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I dont know, if memory serves, his Chicago Songs set was fairly decent.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 02:53 PM   #4
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well, i think his newer voice definitely lends itself better to acoustic music but i thought we were talking full blown electric tour singing.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 02:56 PM   #5
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Zeitgeist is the only record that I have a problem with. I didn't mind his cleaned up vocals on Adore, Machina, or TFE. Zeitgeist stands by itself in terms of vocal fuckery.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 02:58 PM   #6
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that's because zeitgeist isn't so much an album as it is a recording of someone singing karaoke

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 03:02 PM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Floppy Nono View Post
well, i think his newer voice definitely lends itself better to acoustic music but i thought we were talking full blown electric tour singing.
I thought we were talking albums.

edit:forget me, its been a while since i listened to a lot of pre machina stuff.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 03:03 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Floppy Nono View Post
that's because zeitgeist isn't so much an album as it is a recording of someone singing karaoke
Someone on this board hit the nail on the head when they explained the Zeitgeist vocals as sounding like someone on the street asked Corgan what some of his new songs sounded like, and Corgan obliged by lazily singing the melodies.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 03:58 PM   #9
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I think when he relaxes and just let's himself be himself things will all fall into place.

i cannot see him without the whipsers to the deeper voice gradient though. most notable in Siamese Dream. But i dont see much screaming for him in the next album. I think that was very well covered during mcis and appropraite for the time period. maybe something like siamese dream meets zwan, meets zietgiest meets tbiteitb. maybe the sum of all plus an H+. whatever. most importantly whatever it is i dont want to just hear the sound of his voice, i want to feel it. i want it to be coming from the deepest parts of his soul and i want it to be 100% what he feels he wants to sing. oh and it would be extra special good if it was chock full of Light. =Dxo

whatever ...as long as it's coming from his soul and truest (preferably happiest and most loving) self, all should be golden. =)

Last edited by mayday : 08-03-2008 at 06:41 PM.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 04:32 PM   #10
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fuck, i'd take Tales of a Scorched Earth vox over Zeitgeist vocals.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 04:36 PM   #11
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I always thought that the sound of the vocals in particular on SD were achieved by double-tracking all of Billy's vocals, or chorusing them. You can even hear it on the b-sides, which is why I think it was only done for this album.

As for his singing style, for anyone who has lost faith in his current style, maybe you should check out Heavy Metal Machine from the AOL sessions. It's a lot better than what he's been singing recently, I'm hoping he sings more like that in newer recordings.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 04:40 PM   #12
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Quote:
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fuck, i'd take Tales of a Scorched Earth vox over Zeitgeist vocals.
Shit yeah, imagine if he whipped that wee ditty out live!

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 04:41 PM   #13
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it would sound like shit, unless as an instrumental.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 06:01 PM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by RockLobster View Post
if corgan recorded in analogue instead of digital, it would be better.
You're joking, right?

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 06:03 PM   #15
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I think Billy just needs to pursue those singing lessons to the bitter end, he's just a few steps away from vocal perfection

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 06:03 PM   #16
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Billy will never go back to his old style, but he made a mistake in the way he mixed his voice into Zeitgeist

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 06:40 PM   #17
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i agree with the poster of the thread. his 2007+ voice really grinds my gears.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 07:04 PM   #18
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yes, but it will not happen. the way i figure it billy has a problem with not being progressive, so i don't see him abandoning the past 10+ years of vocal "improvements".

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 07:27 PM   #19
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all i want is that whiny off-key cat drawl "you should want it all!" type vocal gone.

i have no issue with tarantula-like vocals or pomp vocals.

doomsday clock, 7 shades, bleeding the orchid, starz, neverlost, those vox HAVE to go.

then that Ma Belle/Superchrist high-pitched incomprehensible vocal thing is even worse.

just sing like you got a pair, billy.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 08:41 PM   #20
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if billy was still 28 the band would be good

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 10:40 PM   #21
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I think he has hit an all time low with the vocals on Superchrist. This has nothing to do with age this is his choice to sing like that.

The big mistake was when he developed his singing for TFE songs and then tried to use them on in a heavy rock and roll setting without upping the energy. It is boggling that he uses the same level of energy on Doomsday clock that he brought to a song like All Things Change.

It's ok though. He will change his singing again(as he has done so many times before) and it will be better. It definitly can't get much worse than the nonsense that is called singing in Superchrist.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 10:43 PM   #22
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I feel that Bob Dylan and corgan have many things in common. One of them is the frequent changing of singing styles and musical styles. Bob dylan is my 2nd fav artist and he has periods where I don't like his singing too. His last 3 albums have been good to phenomenal despite his voice being shot. It's about how you use it.

 
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Old 08-03-2008, 11:39 PM   #23
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This is easily his best vocal performance:


 
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Old 08-03-2008, 11:54 PM   #24
Reyngel
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To expand on what I initially meant...




...doesn't it seem like Billy is just trying too hard? It sounds like he's trying too hard to pretend he was born to sing well, or even mediocre. Sometimes I think that maybe he's under the impression that he can actually fix what was destined to be broken. And that, in effect, makes it sound terrible, if that makes any sense.

At least with his past albums vocals, it was terrible in comparison to the Trents and Kurts, but Billy was able to turn his disadvantage into an advantage by almost flaunting the fact that he couldn't sing, which made it sound "passionate," rather than "contrived."


At least, that's how I see it.




It's like this, I think.......


Siamese Dream vocals were angelic, smooth, and refined. By means of editing, multiple takes, multiple tracks... whatever. It comes off amazing.

Mellon Collie vocals were hard, brutal, and then at times, very fragile and delicate. It was like Siamese Dream, but the extreme version.

Adore vocals were, in my opinion, his best. He hit all the notes perfectly, had just enough whine, just enough angelic whispering. And, if you really closed your eyes, he actually sounded like he could compete, vocally, with his peers.

Machina vocals were so heavily over-produced and semi-experimental for him, that you really can't compare them. He sang into his guitar for effects, he had post-production fuzz them up at times, etc. Songs like Stand Inside Your Love, though, showed signs of the end of the Billy I like. His voice sounds great in it, but, you can tell in some parts that there are small traces of him starting to really force and strain the high parts. But nothing major yet.

Zwan is the beginning of the end. So many cringe-worthy vocal moments.

TheFutureEmbrace is at the heart of his voice training, I think. Really controlled, almost emotionless. The record isn't about him letting loose emotionally, though, so you can almost excuse the lack of enthousiasm. But it's definitely like nothing we'd ever heard from him before.

Zeitgeist. Too forced, too strained, too contrived. Lack of screams aside, he pretty much sounds distant from the lyrics the entire time. Not a single song on the album moves me or makes me sympathetic via vicariously relating to what he's expressing. The music has a good sound, but is torn apart when partnered with the vocals.



...and do note, I'm talking about albums. We all know that in most live settings, regardless of era, he's terrible.

 
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Old 08-04-2008, 12:30 AM   #25
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does anyone remember how during the MCIS tour he fucked up his voice so bad he had to inject steroids ("medicine") into his throat every night just to get through the concerts?
i'm sure he vowed to never do that again
which is why he had to learn to sing properly.

find me the article/quote...

 
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Old 08-04-2008, 12:59 AM   #26
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Wow, I don't recall ever reading he actually reached the point that he had to take anti-inflammatories for his vocal chords. But I guess that is quite plausible considering how long that tour went on and how loud+aggressive some of those songs were. Besides veering off key, a lot of Corgan's trouble seems to source from how thin and fragile his voice is...it really just wears out easily.

Now, to answer the question posed by this thread...NO, I don't think that going back to his "old style" of singing would really help anything. Part of the reason we're harping on the vox issue, I think, is because SP's most recent work has been weak/lacking in so many other areas but we are in a way rationalizing those less definable problems by narrowing it down to things like vocal delivery. I mean, go back The Marked era and some of Billy's vocals sound almost comedically bad...yet I can still oddly enough appreciate the music and forgive the vocals.

 
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Old 08-04-2008, 02:00 AM   #27
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stumpycat View Post
Now, to answer the question posed by this thread...NO, I don't think that going back to his "old style" of singing would really help anything. Part of the reason we're harping on the vox issue, I think, is because SP's most recent work has been weak/lacking in so many other areas but we are in a way rationalizing those less definable problems by narrowing it down to things like vocal delivery. I mean, go back The Marked era and some of Billy's vocals sound almost comedically bad...yet I can still oddly enough appreciate the music and forgive the vocals.
The vocals are probably my 2nd biggest problem with the album, right behind the songwriting. As bad as the vox production is, the delivery is even worse.

 
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Old 08-04-2008, 05:08 AM   #28
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Quote:
Originally Posted by T&T View Post
does anyone remember how during the MCIS tour he fucked up his voice so bad he had to inject steroids ("medicine") into his throat every night just to get through the concerts?
i'm sure he vowed to never do that again
which is why he had to learn to sing properly.

find me the article/quote...


I remember reading/hearing about that.


So does that mean it's a moot point?

 
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Old 08-04-2008, 05:10 AM   #29
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Or how about this....


...could it be that Billy, because he's in his 40's now, just doesn't respond to the brash, angsty, emotional vocals of his youth? Maybe he thinks they're immature now.

 
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Old 08-04-2008, 06:42 AM   #30
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The delivery is simply bad, nothing can hide that, the mix, production, songwriting has NO impact on that. Had the delivery been good, none of this would matter.

There's a moment in the last vocal line of Starz where you can tell he actually MEANS what he is saying and is emotionally connected to the performance, the rest is mere performance.

We really need a vocal tutor to comment here, but to my ears it's classic stuff, ie closed throat, lack of warmup, and far too much inhabition. Perhaps those lessons taught him nothing after all..

 
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