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Topic ClosedClean Vocals or Death Growl? (Modern Prog)

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sigod View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 21 2010 at 09:40

It has taken me a while to appreciate most Cookie Monster vocals but with the loving care and help from those nice chaps in Opeth and Meshuggah, I feel that I can appreciate the aesthetic at last.  

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 21 2010 at 09:43
Both have their places.

Depends on the music, really.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 21 2010 at 09:47
I hated growls for a long time...some of them are still terrible, but they can work in certain places.
You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 21 2010 at 14:48
Originally posted by keiser willhelm keiser willhelm wrote:

Electric guitar is just a fad. It all sounds the same. 


Just as those electric guitar clones Hendrix, Fripp and Howe (all purported proposed guitar collaborators in the band that was to become ELP) all sound alike. No exact fit there as we know now.

ELP just needed Greg Lake. So much for the banjo players. WinkLOL
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 22 2010 at 19:28
Stern Smile

thats what i was trying to say. Saying electric guitar lacks artistic merit / takes no skill to play is just like saying growling or screaming or scatting (mike patton) takes no skill and lacks artistic merit.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 22 2010 at 20:04
Originally posted by keiser willhelm keiser willhelm wrote:

Electric guitar is just a fad. It all sounds the same. 

Already suggested, and a poor comparison.  Electric guitar is very tonally versatile unlike death growl. Let's remember, we are talking ONLY about death growls here and not the whole universe of all kinds of harsh vocals. To claim that death growls are as tonally versatile as clean singing is way off.  You didn't even mention DISTORTED guitar, by the way. Electric guitar includes CLEAN electric guitar playing Wink, like, um, Metheny or McLaughlin on the Shakti reunion etc.  
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 22 2010 at 21:19
Originally posted by keiser willhelm keiser willhelm wrote:

Stern Smile

thats what i was trying to say. Saying electric guitar lacks artistic merit / takes no skill to play is just like saying growling or screaming or scatting (mike patton) takes no skill and lacks artistic merit.


I f you meant my comment, I was joking. Fripp, Hendrix, Howe etc are masters and innovators. They even came up with some decent songs!

But the growl is pretty limited. It's there for teenage buyers who are either so stupid they buy into that or thought to be stupid that they will buy into it. The variety of content is limited.

Anyway playing guitar hoping FX obscures bad playing doesn't work. FX highlights mistakes and sometimes exaggerates them. The scope and range of guitar players on elctric is huge. Al Di Meola, Zappa, the master of undistorted heavy guitar Page...

What's happened is that rock music has been well overtaken by technology. Rock when ambitious is deemed pretentios. So when you get  alot of unambitious rock acts trying not to be pretentious you get a bunch of clones. Then they get sl*g.ed for that as well (if anyone notices...)

Once upon a time I taped every veriosn of Train kept A riollin' from Aerssmith, yardbirds Zeppelin etc I could find. And Motorhead. It was played at a party and no one mentioned they thought they were hearing the same song for an hour. I wasnt there but the music guy (tape DJ) was waiting. It seems to be very easy to fool general public. (Oo-er that's elitist innit and therefore a bad thing!) Toughski. Just look at the public "need" for same-ness in top 40 situations. Do wes till have that? Any hit pop song would get downloaded for free so why bother making 'em...


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 23 2010 at 17:06
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

Originally posted by keiser willhelm keiser willhelm wrote:

Electric guitar is just a fad. It all sounds the same. 
You didn't even mention DISTORTED guitar, by the way. 


Originally posted by keiser willhelm keiser willhelm wrote:



Some bands wreck their songs with distorted guitar
 
 
There i have said it.
 
Its true -Their music is amazing but the distorted,  caustic chords are abysmal!
 
Clean guitar is the best, and take more skill.
 
i know some death head will get on  here and spout on about how amazing the electric guitar is, and how it takes so  much talent to shred - but it is not the case.


Seriously. The guitar was meant to be played acoustically. Anything else is completely unmusical and takes no skill to play.


This thread started out mocking not just the GROWL but the whole range of stuff, from boris the spider (seriously?) to symphony x. I think its a valid comparison - distorted voice distorted instrument. Its not perfect, but the non-nonsensical bashing of the death growl is comparable to a nonsensical bashing of the distorted guitar. its just silly and uninformed. Pretentious bashing of harsh vocals, which have their place whether or not you like them, is equally silly. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 23 2010 at 18:15
Originally posted by Wanorak Wanorak wrote:

Clean all the way for me:) I think Opeth would be amazing if Akerfeld sang cleanly! I can't take the cookie monster growls seriously and it ruins the music.
 
Cookie Monster growls...now that is totally something I never thought of..and it is insanely hilarious to me! LOL
 
But truly, I do enjoy Akerfeld when he sings clearly too! Opeth is just amazing!
All The Best FREAKS are Here! Please Stop STARING at ME!-Marillion
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 23 2010 at 18:26
I think both both clean and growls are what give the music it's identity. I think both are great when used appropriately, sometime growls are over utilized.
Mastodon, Gojira, Novembre, Katatonia, Bison B.C, Pain of Salvation..high on my listening list these days.
All The Best FREAKS are Here! Please Stop STARING at ME!-Marillion
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 23 2010 at 19:19
Originally posted by keiser willhelm keiser willhelm wrote:

 

This thread started out mocking not just the GROWL but the whole range of stuff, from boris the spider (seriously?) to symphony x. I think its a valid comparison - distorted voice distorted instrument. Its not perfect, but the non-nonsensical bashing of the death growl is comparable to a nonsensical bashing of the distorted guitar. its just silly and uninformed. Pretentious bashing of harsh vocals, which have their place whether or not you like them, is equally silly. 

Ah, I read the OP again, never knew someone would call Allen's sissy metal angel singing death growls. LOL 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 27 2010 at 22:33
Originally posted by rogerthat rogerthat wrote:

Originally posted by keiser willhelm keiser willhelm wrote:

 

This thread started out mocking not just the GROWL but the whole range of stuff, from boris the spider (seriously?) to symphony x. I think its a valid comparison - distorted voice distorted instrument. Its not perfect, but the non-nonsensical bashing of the death growl is comparable to a nonsensical bashing of the distorted guitar. its just silly and uninformed. Pretentious bashing of harsh vocals, which have their place whether or not you like them, is equally silly. 

Ah, I read the OP again, never knew someone would call Allen's sissy metal angel singing death growls. LOL 


Yeah... I like Allen, but that's definitely clean singing all the way. No harshness there.

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: December 27 2010 at 23:50
New guy's opinion, anyone?
 
While I don't listen to a lot of music that has the 'growl' in it, I find that it has it's place in the music I do listen to.  I can't picture Devin Townsend's "Planet Smasher" with a clean vocal in the part of Herman the Planet Smasher.  It's the same with Opeth's "The Grand Conjuration".  That voice, for me, helps 'paint the picture' of the story.  Would "One Of These Days" have had the same impact with a clean vocal?
 
However, I do agree that it can get out of hand.  Someone mentioned Periphery earlier on in this thread, and the shouting/barking vocals on their album was, for me, a turn-off.  Interesting music but the verbal assault didn't seem to mesh with the music.  I also have the new Dimmu Borgir album, and the growling vocals work perfectly with the music (although they are a bit 'cleaner' and easier to understand than some of the more extreme examples listed earlier).
 
So, I guess, I like it but it has to fit with the music or it becomes a distraction.
 
 
 
 
(kind of like that episode of "Happy Days" where Fonzie joins Richie's band playing the bongos and he starts drowning out the rest of the band, and they try to kick him out without hurting his feelings but he gets the message and stuffs socks in the bongos so that they don't make as much noise so that he can still be on stage...)
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 01 2011 at 04:51
hello,make healthy  voice.make healthy throat
http://CancerOrganizations.net/results/throat-cancer
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 01 2011 at 05:01
Originally posted by shaan123 shaan123 wrote:

hello,make healthy  voice.make healthy throat


There are techniques for doing growls.So,don't worry.Also the growls are great.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 01 2011 at 08:47
Death growls are always terrible... and if they are necessary then the song they are in is terrible. But distorted lyrics aren't  always bad like 21st Century Schizoid Man.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 01 2011 at 09:05
Before a long time I would like to write something that Akerfeldt had said on Classic rock presents prog about fans of Opeth that don't like growls.Finally I decided to write it.

Akerfeldt[smiling]:If they don't like it then they are pussies.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 01 2011 at 09:08
Is this nugget still shining? Time for some new threads in the new year surely.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 01 2011 at 17:44
Clean vocals. I can't understand why someone would take the time and effort to write the lyrics only to have then where they cannot be understood. That's just me. If you want to growl then just play the music and don't sing. 
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 01 2011 at 21:24
I know I'm repeating myself but growling can be good and distinct, just listen to Opeth. I love clean vocals but I try to be objective - good, deep, distinctive growl is an admirable thing and it can enhance the music, sometimes. Still, I don't like Old MoTW growling or this grunting/growling.
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