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What do you think of Peter Gabriel's voice?
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Blacksword View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Sacro_Porgo Sacro_Porgo wrote:

I love Gabriel's voice! From the quirky characters on Get Em Out By Friday, to the heart-on-sleeve balladry and shouting in Supper's Ready, to the subtler inflections of The Carpet Crawlers and The Lamia, to the nightmarish narrations of Family Snapshot and Intruder, to the heartwrenching serenade that is In Your Eyes, and beyond. He's one of my favorite singers.


Yeah, he does have a versatile and expressive voice, more so than Phil's I guess. He sings 'character' parts better.

Get em out by Friday is one my favourite Gabriel performances in that regard. For pure feeling and emotion, my top pick would be Chamber of 32 Doors.
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Originally posted by I prophesy disaster I prophesy disaster wrote:

When it comes to vocals, I prefer the "other" Peter. Both Gabriel and Hammill are quite theatrical in their singing styles. But the way I see it, the difference between them is that it is more difficult to take Peter Gabriel seriously.
 
 

I've only heard Pawn Hearts from VDGG, but from Hammill's performance on that album I'll much more inclined to take Gabriel seriously than Hammill. Just how I'm hearing it though.
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Originally posted by lazland lazland wrote:

Originally posted by superQuizzie superQuizzie wrote:

I know that his vocals are QUITE English. A very strong accent comes through in any song he's doing, where that's just not the case for most singers anyhwere. You know of any examples of peak Peter Gabriel?

His vocals are extremely English. This is strongly related to the truth that he is, in fact, English.

I would recommend that you try the third solo album, Melt as it was named over the pond. There are some gems on that, and it is, perhaps, as accessible as Gabriel got.

I'd say So is more accessible than Melt, but I suppose if your on a prog site Melt might be less irritating to some than So, lol.
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I love Gabriel's voice! From the quirky characters on Get Em Out By Friday, to the heart-on-sleeve balladry and shouting in Supper's Ready, to the subtler inflections of The Carpet Crawlers and The Lamia, to the nightmarish narrations of Family Snapshot and Intruder, to the heartwrenching serenade that is In Your Eyes, and beyond. He's one of my favorite singers.
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True story....I was living and working in Tulsa, Oklahoma USA, in the mid to late 1980s, playing bass and guitar in various bands and art projects, and bumped into late guitarist Michael Hedges at the Tulsa Center for Contemporary Arts (which hosted shows by Adrian Belew, Guitar Craft, Chick Corea Electrik Band etc.).

Michael (a native of Oklahoma) was holding court, and opined about Peter's voice.  "You should hear it in the studio without any processing or delay," he said, "F-ing horrible!" 

LOL  I kid you not. 

I like how Peter does a little goat-sound at the end of some phrases, and his thick-as-Thames-Mud British accent is a scream!!  My college roommate used to stomp out of the room, he hated it so much.  Now, he is Gabriel's biggest fan.  

Repeat after me:  "I....RRRRRREPRESENT a firm of gentle-men who rrrrecently pur-chased this house and all the others in the row...."  
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Originally posted by Blacksword Blacksword wrote:

I like his voice a lot, but I probably prefer Phil's by a slim margin. That said, some early Genesis songs should probably only be sung by Pete!
This....I really do enjoy and like Gabriel's voice. I actually prefer Gabriel's normal speaking voice over Phil's like when he does interviews.
Both are consistently great vocalists, few to no low points IMO. I really don't have much issue with any vocalists within the progressive rock genre, Gabriel is easily one of my top pics. H is also one I rate very high..
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I, for one, LOVE the characters. It's why I adore Epping Forest and The Lamb. Big influence on me, but I'm also an actor :).
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It is fine I guess, but sometimes he is overdoing it or getting theatrical ("Back in N.Y.C.", the character voices in "The Battle of Epping Forest").
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Originally posted by HackettFan HackettFan wrote:

I love Gabriel's voice. It's the tone and soulfulness that cut through. He has a sensitive inner emotional quality mixed with enough darkness for it to remain cool.





This!
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Points: 7024 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hercules Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2020 at 09:19
I like Peter Gabriel's voice as much as I loathe Peter Hamill's. And that's a lot.
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I like Peter Gabriel's, but only when it comes from Peter Gabriel.

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This has been duscussed to death since music forums started on the web.
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I like his voice a lot, but I probably prefer Phil's by a slim margin. That said, some early Genesis songs should probably only be sung by Pete!
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Points: 11611 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Grumpyprogfan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: April 28 2020 at 05:33
It's okay not to like someone's voice. I think PG is amazing, but no one can, or should, change your mind.
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It's all subjective, I like his voice, some don't.
 
Collins is a good singer as well but I prefer the tone of Gabriel. Compare and contrast "Carpet Crawlers" on TLLDOB and Seconds Out, particularly Collins and his "stickleback, back, back, back" which I find annoying.
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Originally posted by superQuizzie superQuizzie wrote:

I know that his vocals are QUITE English. A very strong accent comes through in any song he's doing, where that's just not the case for most singers anyhwere. You know of any examples of peak Peter Gabriel?

so what Genesis albums have you listened so far? Or his solo career? 
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I like Gabriel's voice and I think he uses it very well.  He doesn't force it on you, he makes it work with the music.  Now if you want a really bad voice try to listen to Geddy Lee.  The true definition of fingernails on a chalkboard.
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When it comes to vocals, I prefer the "other" Peter. Both Gabriel and Hammill are quite theatrical in their singing styles. But the way I see it, the difference between them is that it is more difficult to take Peter Gabriel seriously.
 
 
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Originally posted by superQuizzie superQuizzie wrote:

Hi, I'll admit I don't listen to a ton of Genesis, and it's mostly for one reason:

I don't like Peter Gabriel's voice.

There are some of his songs that sound quite good (Carpet Crawlers), but take for example Firth of Fifth, the line "the sheep remain inside their pen" it makes me cringe. That's how I hear most of his songs, but am I simply missing something? From what I understand of the Prog community, Peter Gabriel is regarded as the best or the 2nd best Prog singer. For me, I'd give that spot to Jon Anderson, and it really baffles me to compare the two and even have it close.


For the record, I'm not saying this to slander Peter Gabriel, I am genuinely curious to know if I'm just missing something, or maybe I haven't heard his best vocal performance.



Oh, also on the subject on Peter Gabriel, did Phil Collins steal the melody from the middle bit of Mad Man Moon: "Hey man, I'm the Sandman, and boy I've got trouble for you..."? From what I recognize Phil Collins doing the Tarzan soundtrack for Disney did a song: "Strangers like Me" and the Chorus sounds nearly identical to that. I was wondering if my suspicions were well founded.

Thanks for reading!

He used a particular kind of vocal placement that is peculiar to Britain (Jonathan Higgs of Everything Everything stretches it to the absolute, unpalatable extreme). It can be off putting in the beginning but if you take out Gabriel, you pretty much take out the soul of Genesis. Now don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to hear Gabriel singing soul, the music genre, I mean.  But in the context of symphonic prog of a very theatrical persuasion (unlike, say, the lofty spiritualism of Yes), his singing is perfect. Other than Back In the NYC (which was the one time he overreached), I haven't heard too many songs where other singers improved on his renditions for Genesis. 


Edited by rogerthat - April 28 2020 at 03:51
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One can talk about abilities, technicality, flexibility, range etc., but ultimately you can emotionally connect to a singer's voice or you can't (at least at a certain point in time), and this is then just how it is. I didn't like Gabriel in the very beginning but now he is one of my favourite singers. Soulfulness, that nails it. I'd want to have Gabriel to sing on my favourite album of all time, Holger Czukay's Movies, which has OK and fun vocals but Gabriel would be another dimension. Of course that's never going to happen (not anyway with Holger now resting in peace), but I'd pick Gabriel above all others for that task. Then I can't stand Geddy Lee as a singer, but that's just how it is, subjective emotions.
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