Why don't people like James Labrie's vocals?

I've noticed that on this site a lot of people seem to dislike James Labrie's singing.  I've been listening to a little Dream Theater, and I don't really see anything too wrong with his singing.  I'm not saying I really like his vocals or Dream Theater, but I don't see what's so bad about him.  I searched the site, and found a lot about how people don't like his singing, but nothing that really said why exactly they don't like it.

It's theCheese factor.

His singing gets terribly, terribly maudlin at times, it just smells of cheese a mile away.

Ghost Rider wrote: OK, I'll start... He's OK if he sings in a lower register, as he does on "Train of Thought". When he hits the higher notes, though, the results are often excruciating, as in "Take the Time" (even the studio version, not to mention his utterly awful performance on "Once in a Livetime"). I'll readily admit there are much worse singers around, but I think DT would sound much better with another vocalist. He just irritates the heck out of me... I think it's a good enough explanation.

When he hits his high notes his pronounciation stops being  understandable. It just gets very annoying. He drags his notes and it is just not a pleasant sound. His singing in The Human Equation is almost bearable.

Edited by glass house - September 30 2006 at 19:25

I don't like him very much because I can't hear a word of what he sings when he's singing high notes. It's very irritating. But when he doesn't wail too much he's fine, and strangely enough I like his James Hetfield impressions (although he fails at sounding like him). I also like Geddy Lee's high-pitched vocals very much (probably because I can hear what he sings).

I'll admit his voice gets annoying when he gets too "metally" if you know what I mean (ie 6:00) but on the vast majority of Dream Theater's work, I just don't see everyone's complaints.

Initially, LaBrie's voice was very offputting for me when I checked out DT. At the time I was nearing the edge of my "Yay! 80's" phase. I was used to the high pitched vocals present in Iron Maiden. I found Images and Words in a pawn shop for like $2, so having heard good things about the band, I thought I'd give it a try. Primarily, LaBrie's voice was too nasal for my tastes. When I compared it to Maiden, I noted that the vocals in Maiden were high, but stayed clearly out of the nose; whereas DT seemed locked in them.

Within a month or two, the album worked its way out of my cd collection into the "old albums" shoebox in my closet. I eventually found my way to proper prog, not through DT, but through Opeth (found Deliverance for like $5 at On Cue's going out of business clearout in my hometown about 4 years ago.) This lasted up until last year, when I impulsively grabbed a bunch of DT tracks (I was looking for some instrumental cheese) off of my college's network. It hit the backlogs of winamp until I happened to stumble across A Change of Seasons. That changed everything; the track was incredible in every way (yes, even vocals). Listening to that enough, I got used to LaBrie's voice, and have enjoyed the band ever since.

So the moral of this story IMO (besides I've gotten some great deals on cds) is that LaBrie's voice is an acquired taste, much like Dave Mustaine's (Megadeth), Dani Filth's (Cradle of Filth), or John Davis's (Korn).

People don't like LaBrie because he's too talented for them.