What do you think of Peter Gabriel's voice?

Overrated are you having a  you must smoke so weird stuff! Gabriel era Genesis is far superior than the pop-spat of later Collins era! 

Hi,

Absolutely, and this is the part that I'm calling "acting" the words, instead of "singing" them. In many ways, Peter Hammill is like this for quite some time, but he head really good way of voicing his words and many times just seemed like speaking them, which fits a lot of music, probably better/easier than having to stay on the right note.

I, personally, do not think that at 18, 19 or 20 when a lot of this music came out that we all were that much on top of music and "knew" the music like some college folks might, but when all this is looked at through today's glasses and ideas, I would imagine that we think that many of them are not good singers ... but it didn't hurt them or the music a whole lot ... and is remembered far better than a lot of music that was note perfect and had so much bleach in it, that it stunk! The "color" was gone for ideas about "notes" .... but I have a feeling that the whole thing was literally because most folks that came into the studio had their songs, but not their "music".  In those days, I think it was more about the music, than the song, and it made a huge difference. As soon as we started on "singing", "music" and a lot of other musical details and "laws" (as I call it), a lot of this stuff lost its taste ... and some folks have said that progressive music has died since.

I like the idea of us throwing away the "book", and go free trying anything again. It worked then, and should work now, but we have to let go of commercial instincts and the fear that one comment on PA ends up killing the band ... kind of thing ... and this is where I find too many bands/musicians not ready for prime time ... I imagine that PG was already having many comments about his voice then (time to dig up those MM articles!) ... but it would not explain his doing well on at least 4 or 5 solo albums.

Something is missing here!

Hi,

I would almost think that this explains his not being able to do a lot of work in the past few years ... I think his voice has likely given out and he feels useless without being able to do his words and comments.

It's a sad way to go, for someone that got that well known, but it might also suggest that he could/should have taken some voice lessons, or singing work, in order to improve that, or make adjustments so that he could get away with some of those moments ... but if he "hid" all that ... eventually he will get caught, and I don't know if there is an answer or recipe for fixing it.

My guess, is that he is not capable of actually singing, and holding a note. And while that can be taught, there are times when the person's inner side can not adjust to that outside ... however, the difference, or contrast does not make him a bad singer, since in a studio everyone has a bad day, SPECIALLY when they can burn the money on it! Your band or mine would never even get the chance!

But it reminds me of a comment in the George Martin special ... and one artist that was not happy with the recording because her voice did this or that and GM said it was fine ... and he had something else in mind ... well, for the record it became a hit and she had her days in the shine! That kinda tells me that PG had an issue but no one tried to improve on it, and kept on hiding it.