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Joined: February 02 2005
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Posted: September 24 2015 at 17:04
Lake and Annie for sure. Also Daniel Gildenlow, Mike Baker, Freddie Mercury, Fish, Dado Topic (Time). I didn't like Geddy Lee and Andre Matos at first but I enjoyed them after some listens.
Joined: June 18 2009
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Posted: September 24 2015 at 22:31
rogerthat wrote:
Dellinger wrote:
rogerthat wrote:
Yeah, a singer should experiment anyway. Plenty of people to sing nicely. Jacqui McShee or Maddy Prior aren't far off Annie Haslam for voice but what they don't have in their repertoire is stuff like reproducing (sort of) the effect of rapid guitar shredding on the sixth octave (Ashes are Burning live). I don't have a problem with Hammill's experimentation and probably wouldn't be very much interested in his singing without it. I do have a problem (musically) with the juxtaposition of very British theatricality with far out instrumentation; doesn't work for me. IMO if you are going to have very theatrical vocals at the centre of the music, you should tone down the music a bit to make it an easier swallow. With Hammill and Jackson tugging in opposite directions it gets too much (for me).
Oh... but I love Peter Hamill and David Jackson from VDGG, I wouldn't know whom to tone down. I think Jackson does on the sax what Hamill makes with his vocals. What does put me down with VDGG is when they go with the extreme cacophony... and well, I don't really like all of their songs, sometimes they do get too noisy, however, when they are good... they are really wonderful.
Well, have more of Jackson for the chaotic tracks (sax is wonderful for that) and more of Hammill for the more straight up tracks. Like Lake has less to do on Schizoid whereas the music is toned down for Epitaph to let Lake's vocals shine. Of course it could be argued they wouldn't be VDGG if they did that but that sums up why they polarise listeners.
Actually, I sort of dislike the sax for chaotic music, and Schizoid Man took a good while for me to apreciate because that sax really turned me off... up to now I still like better later live versions of the song in which guitars take the part of the sax. And that was the main reason I wasn't sure I really wanted to get into VDGG... but Jackson has a way of playing those chaotic parts that in many cases I do love... and I don't really miss the guitars to play the heavy parts, Jackson does it delightfully. Yet he really plays the soft parts rather nicely (both with sax and with flute), so I wouldn't want him just for the chaotic parts. I guess a wonderful example for what you want is Darkness, in which Hamill doesn't do anything overly excentric, but has some nice powerful sax at the end (yet not too chaotic anyway). Or Man Erg? it's got mainly soft beautiful vocals... but he does go into some brief shouting parts though. On the other hand, a good example of a pair of songs in which both (Hamill and Jackson) go insane and heavy that I really love are Sleepwalkers and La Rossa... I mean, Hamill might just as well (should have been) one of the main influences for metal bands going into harsh/extreme vocals later on (though very few times I like the harsh vocals on metal).
Joined: June 18 2009
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Posted: September 24 2015 at 22:38
rogerthat wrote:
Dellinger wrote:
- Jon Anderson. Really love his unique voice. Yes has showed with the last two singers that Anderson was more than the pitch and the high notes.
Meant to respond to this earlier but couldn't find the time and it slipped my mind. The pitch is one of the main reasons why he's so unique. He's a man with a mezzo's pitch! It's evident even when he speaks that he's not faking it, his voice IS that high. My guess is that Benoit David/Jon Davison may have been trying to project that pitch artificially because Yes has such a huge market. In David's case it certainly seemed to end up in problems. Also he has a pretty supple voice and what I have seen is male rock singers struggle to sing like that, you know with so much melody. The women can do it and I have found Corinne Drewery (Swing Out Sister) to vaguely evoke Jon Anderson and I doubt she was influenced by him in the slightest.
Anyhow, the most convincing Jon Anderson impression I have heard was not any of the other Yes singers but Steve Hillage on Khan. Especially the song Stranded.
I guess the difference between Benoit and Davison is that Benoit did try to reach those notes, but when I heard him it just sounded strained. Davison rather seems to try to stick in a more comfortable singing range, which to me would seem to be the right way to go... but in the end he sounds souless and passionless, which is just the opposite to what Jon Anderson achieved. Also, I believe Benoit did a much better job as a singer for new original material than Davison did... though perhaps it was also a bit fault of the production, but Benoit's voice seemed very beautiful in his own right when he wasn't trying to reach Anderson's high notes, while Davison still sounded souless and passionless.
Joined: September 03 2006
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Posted: September 24 2015 at 23:49
Dellinger wrote:
Actually, I sort of dislike the sax for chaotic music, and Schizoid Man took a good while for me to apreciate because that sax really turned me off... up to now I still like better later live versions of the song in which guitars take the part of the sax. And that was the main reason I wasn't sure I really wanted to get into VDGG... but Jackson has a way of playing those chaotic parts that in many cases I do love... and I don't really miss the guitars to play the heavy parts, Jackson does it delightfully. Yet he really plays the soft parts rather nicely (both with sax and with flute), so I wouldn't want him just for the chaotic parts. I guess a wonderful example for what you want is Darkness, in which Hamill doesn't do anything overly excentric, but has some nice powerful sax at the end (yet not too chaotic anyway). Or Man Erg? it's got mainly soft beautiful vocals... but he does go into some brief shouting parts though. On the other hand, a good example of a pair of songs in which both (Hamill and Jackson) go insane and heavy that I really love are Sleepwalkers and La Rossa... I mean, Hamill might just as well (should have been) one of the main influences for metal bands going into harsh/extreme vocals later on (though very few times I like the harsh vocals on metal).
Different strokes then. I love the saxophone more than any other instrument for atonal/free improv music. Which is kind of why it was so popular in jazz at the time. I have no problem with both Hammill and Jackson having a lot of space in a track that's overall tending to soft/melodic. In prog, when the music gets chaotic I don't like too much of vocals. It gets distracting for me. I want to focus on the music in such cases. I don't deny that taken in isolation, Hammill may have sounded brilliant with the more aggressive/darker aspects of VDGG's music. But the overall package doesn't work for me.
It is quite possible that Hammill was a major influence on harsh vocals in metal but not the absolute extreme end of the spectrum. I am thinking more Halford/Bruce Dickinson. Both cited Hammill as an influence. Halford's timbre too is not far off Hammill's though his high register is much more like Gillian plus a lot of his own original insight. But in their softer tracks like Here come the tears/Dreamer Deceiver the Hammill like quality comes through. Halford is not especially beloved on this forum so I am going to get called heresy on this but I stand by the comparison. On the other hand, the grunting/shrieking aspect of metal vocals was influenced more by punk's own multiple mutations starting with hardcore punk which further evolved into grindcore. Grindcore was death metal before death metal reached maturation. Some of the more punkish bands of the NWOBHM like, especially, Venom, may have also influenced the development of harsh vocals in metal.
Joined: September 03 2006
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Posted: September 24 2015 at 23:50
Dellinger wrote:
I guess the difference between Benoit and Davison is that Benoit did try to reach those notes, but when I heard him it just sounded strained. Davison rather seems to try to stick in a more comfortable singing range, which to me would seem to be the right way to go... but in the end he sounds souless and passionless, which is just the opposite to what Jon Anderson achieved. Also, I believe Benoit did a much better job as a singer for new original material than Davison did... though perhaps it was also a bit fault of the production, but Benoit's voice seemed very beautiful in his own right when he wasn't trying to reach Anderson's high notes, while Davison still sounded souless and passionless.
Regarding the passion and lack thereof in Davison's case, maybe because he was singing actual new material while Benoit was singing Drama leftovers?
Joined: April 08 2006
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Posted: September 25 2015 at 08:00
Well I'll go with my "favorite" - Peter Gabriel - whose unique range and powerful voice also carried onto his solo career - Up to Selling 'England By The Pound' Gabriel had demonstrated the "colorful & varied" aspects of his voice and styling, but with 'The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway' he took it up a couple of notches proving he also had the hard ballsy power and grit (Back in New York City, In The Cage), to his more pastel voicing (Carpet Crawlers, The Lamia).
Second I have to go with Phil Collins for being able to brilliantly take over when Gabriel left - and then superbly nail down practically the whole Genesis catalog live!
- Music is Life, that's why our hearts have beats -
Joined: June 18 2009
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Posted: September 25 2015 at 21:46
rogerthat wrote:
Dellinger wrote:
Actually, I sort of dislike the sax for chaotic music, and Schizoid Man took a good while for me to apreciate because that sax really turned me off... up to now I still like better later live versions of the song in which guitars take the part of the sax. And that was the main reason I wasn't sure I really wanted to get into VDGG... but Jackson has a way of playing those chaotic parts that in many cases I do love... and I don't really miss the guitars to play the heavy parts, Jackson does it delightfully. Yet he really plays the soft parts rather nicely (both with sax and with flute), so I wouldn't want him just for the chaotic parts. I guess a wonderful example for what you want is Darkness, in which Hamill doesn't do anything overly excentric, but has some nice powerful sax at the end (yet not too chaotic anyway). Or Man Erg? it's got mainly soft beautiful vocals... but he does go into some brief shouting parts though. On the other hand, a good example of a pair of songs in which both (Hamill and Jackson) go insane and heavy that I really love are Sleepwalkers and La Rossa... I mean, Hamill might just as well (should have been) one of the main influences for metal bands going into harsh/extreme vocals later on (though very few times I like the harsh vocals on metal).
Different strokes then. I love the saxophone more than any other instrument for atonal/free improv music. Which is kind of why it was so popular in jazz at the time. I have no problem with both Hammill and Jackson having a lot of space in a track that's overall tending to soft/melodic. In prog, when the music gets chaotic I don't like too much of vocals. It gets distracting for me. I want to focus on the music in such cases. I don't deny that taken in isolation, Hammill may have sounded brilliant with the more aggressive/darker aspects of VDGG's music. But the overall package doesn't work for me.
It is quite possible that Hammill was a major influence on harsh vocals in metal but not the absolute extreme end of the spectrum. I am thinking more Halford/Bruce Dickinson. Both cited Hammill as an influence. Halford's timbre too is not far off Hammill's though his high register is much more like Gillian plus a lot of his own original insight. But in their softer tracks like Here come the tears/Dreamer Deceiver the Hammill like quality comes through. Halford is not especially beloved on this forum so I am going to get called heresy on this but I stand by the comparison. On the other hand, the grunting/shrieking aspect of metal vocals was influenced more by punk's own multiple mutations starting with hardcore punk which further evolved into grindcore. Grindcore was death metal before death metal reached maturation. Some of the more punkish bands of the NWOBHM like, especially, Venom, may have also influenced the development of harsh vocals in metal.
I must admit I don't really know so much music with sax, nor do I know much jazz, so I may be missing some other agressive sax playing that I don't know and may like. As for the vocals, well surely you know more about the story and evolution of metal, but I guess harsh vocals must have developed gradually... plus the particular vocals from Hamill that I feel might have been influential for metal would be the ones on Sleepwalkers and La Rosa, where he almost goes into grunting (it's an exageration, of course, but I'm just trying to explain myself) in some parts. Also, wasn't VDGG suposed to have been the one prog band that was accepted by the punk bands? Perhaps they themselves were influenced by Hamill himself. Now, if we are talking about early extreme vocals, I guess Pink Floyd came into the game much earlier... with Careful with that Axe, Eugene.
Joined: June 18 2009
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Posted: September 25 2015 at 22:00
rogerthat wrote:
Dellinger wrote:
<span style="line-height: 1.4;">I guess the difference between Benoit and Davison is that Benoit did try to reach those notes, but when I heard him it just sounded strained. Davison rather seems to try to stick in a more comfortable singing range, which to me would seem to be the right way to go... but in the end he sounds souless and passionless, which is just the opposite to what Jon Anderson achieved. Also, I believe Benoit did a much better job as a singer for new original material than Davison did... though perhaps it was also a bit fault of the production, but Benoit's voice seemed very beautiful in his own right when he wasn't trying to reach Anderson's high notes, while Davison still sounded souless and passionless.
</span>
<span style="line-height: 1.4;"> </span>
<span style="line-height: 1.4;">Regarding the passion and lack thereof in Davison's case, maybe because he was singing actual new material while Benoit was singing Drama leftovers?</span>
I would think that singing you actual new material (and in Davison's case, material he mostly wroge himself) would help him with the passion for singing, but still for me Benoit did a much better job with the "leftovers" (which for me were better than many of the songs that made it into Drama... actually better than almost anythig except Machine Messiah).
Joined: September 03 2006
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Posted: September 26 2015 at 01:08
Dellinger wrote:
I must admit I don't really know so much music with sax, nor do I know much jazz, so I may be missing some other agressive sax playing that I don't know and may like. As for the vocals, well surely you know more about the story and evolution of metal, but I guess harsh vocals must have developed gradually... plus the particular vocals from Hamill that I feel might have been influential for metal would be the ones on Sleepwalkers and La Rosa, where he almost goes into grunting (it's an exageration, of course, but I'm just trying to explain myself) in some parts. Also, wasn't VDGG suposed to have been the one prog band that was accepted by the punk bands? Perhaps they themselves were influenced by Hamill himself. Now, if we are talking about early extreme vocals, I guess Pink Floyd came into the game much earlier... with Careful with that Axe, Eugene.
The vocals on Sleepwalkers are really the typical gritty singing that most good heavy metal singers are capable of doing. From there to full on grunting is a long way; grunting is actually a very specialised skill irrespective of how much people may or may not like it in music. Sleepwalkers is not far off Rob Halford but that's it. And Ian Gillian was already doing gritty singing with Deep Purple for a long time by then. It's just a guess but Halford is more likely to have derived his clean wailing from Hammill and the gritty singing from Gillian. I sometimes wonder if Ozzy Osbourne fanboism in the media has obscured Gillian's importance to the development of metal vocals because all the three great metal singers of the 70s and 80s - Halford, Dio and Bruce Dickinson - cite him as a major influence. As for punk, Hammill's singing was way beyond the grasp of typical punk, sorry to say that, so I doubt it. I guess they respected the grit and darkness of VDGG's music which was also captured in Hammill's vocals. Only Devoto (Magazine) ever evoked Hammill for me and he still sings in a kind of intentionally offkey way. Give him a ballad and he will still sing like that. I don't doubt that Hammill was a major influence on Halford and Dickinson but I wonder if he influenced even James Hetfield, let alone somebody like Chris Barnes.
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Posted: September 26 2015 at 01:12
Dellinger wrote:
I would think that singing you actual new material (and in Davison's case, material he mostly wroge himself) would help him with the passion for singing, but still for me Benoit did a much better job with the "leftovers" (which for me were better than many of the songs that made it into Drama... actually better than almost anythig except Machine Messiah).
If the material is inspired, yes. It's not a given. The material on Heaven and Earth was quite terrible. I didn't listen to it much but that was because I couldn't bear to. At any rate, I can't say I have much of a preference, either between Davison and Benoit, or between Fly from Here and Heaven and Earth. Downes fared much better than either and, as I said earlier, Hillage too captured the essence of Jon Anderson a lot better even if he wasn't exactly intending to on that Khan album.
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Posted: September 26 2015 at 06:24
If we're talking 'prog' singer, it has to be Peter Hammill for me. It's like he's reciting Shakespeare or something. Such gravitas. He's great fun to inflict on the uninitiated as well.
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Posted: September 26 2015 at 22:43
rogerthat wrote:
Dellinger wrote:
I must admit I don't really know so much music with sax, nor do I know much jazz, so I may be missing some other agressive sax playing that I don't know and may like. As for the vocals, well surely you know more about the story and evolution of metal, but I guess harsh vocals must have developed gradually... plus the particular vocals from Hamill that I feel might have been influential for metal would be the ones on Sleepwalkers and La Rosa, where he almost goes into grunting (it's an exageration, of course, but I'm just trying to explain myself) in some parts. Also, wasn't VDGG suposed to have been the one prog band that was accepted by the punk bands? Perhaps they themselves were influenced by Hamill himself. Now, if we are talking about early extreme vocals, I guess Pink Floyd came into the game much earlier... with Careful with that Axe, Eugene.
The vocals on Sleepwalkers are really the typical gritty singing that most good heavy metal singers are capable of doing. From there to full on grunting is a long way; grunting is actually a very specialised skill irrespective of how much people may or may not like it in music. Sleepwalkers is not far off Rob Halford but that's it. And Ian Gillian was already doing gritty singing with Deep Purple for a long time by then. It's just a guess but Halford is more likely to have derived his clean wailing from Hammill and the gritty singing from Gillian. I sometimes wonder if Ozzy Osbourne fanboism in the media has obscured Gillian's importance to the development of metal vocals because all the three great metal singers of the 70s and 80s - Halford, Dio and Bruce Dickinson - cite him as a major influence. As for punk, Hammill's singing was way beyond the grasp of typical punk, sorry to say that, so I doubt it. I guess they respected the grit and darkness of VDGG's music which was also captured in Hammill's vocals. Only Devoto (Magazine) ever evoked Hammill for me and he still sings in a kind of intentionally offkey way. Give him a ballad and he will still sing like that. I don't doubt that Hammill was a major influence on Halford and Dickinson but I wonder if he influenced even James Hetfield, let alone somebody like Chris Barnes.
I don't really remember hearing Ian Gillan doing such a gritty singing ever as Hamill did on those two songs (if I understand correctly what you mean by that... but still we may be talking about slightly different aspects of the singing), so I'm not really sure I agree with you there... and I don't know Rob Halford, so I'm at a loss there. And about that singing being a long way from full grunting... well I know that, but I would think it was a step by step development. However, indeed you have a broader knowledge of artists and the development on the genre, so it's really pointless for me to try to argue anything else.
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Posted: September 26 2015 at 22:55
Not as gritty, yes, but it was the foundation. He was the archetypal metal singer and the three great 'metal Gods' built on it. A
As for Halford, this is Victim of Changes from their 1976 album Sad Wings of Destiny. This is more 'advanced' grit than Sleepwalkers.
By the 80s, it was even more extreme.
HOWEVER, in a metal context this still somewhat resembles traditional rock singing and wouldn't be considered all that gritty. Even Hetfield uses more distortion than this and Metallica is supposed to be just a gateway band.
So for Hammill to have influenced extreme metal vocalists would be like Elvis Presley influencing prog rock bands. Elvis is one of the earliest 'sources' of rock in general and it could be argued that there may have been no rock and therefore no prog rock without him, but the influence is too indirect to be considered significant.
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