There’s a very good chance THIS is the book I read.
Trying to not try anything anymore, but thanks for the tip.
**Prince **pretty much sang only in falsetto…until he didn’t. I think Robert Plant did a **Sting **kind of thing - went from one type of aggressive rock, to a different genre with a down-shifted approach to vocals. You hear him using his voice to suit a completely different genre, but it that part of his voice was always there.
But Eddie’s OP seems to indicate that it within the context of Led Zeppelin that this changed, specifically after III. Unless I’m misunderstanding.
Some others that showed significant vocal changes:
Ian Anderson (Jethro Tull) started out somewhat high and reedy in their early albums. He matured and filled out his voice around the Thick as a Brick era, seemed to stylistically go even deeper in later albums, then seems to have damaged his voice losing much of his highs in the latest albums. All over the place, that guy.
Roger Daltry (The Who) took a long time to find his voice and discover the booming presence he showed on Who’s Next.
Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) similarly to Daltry took a long time to find his full range. He starts out thin and whispery in early albums, starts to build range and confidence around Wish You Were Here, then becomes a booming wailing monster much later around Final Cut or Pros and Cons.
Yeah, I see that and should have referred back to it. But I mean, they were touring and recording madmen until about LZ III - he wasn’t changing his vocal style, but it was just reflecting wear and tear to the point he couldn’t do those “finessed” high notes, only power up to them, and after years, he backed way off of that, too.
I guess my point is that I don’t think Robert Plant has any vocal technique, per se. I’d love **fachverwirrt **(man I hope I spelled that correctly) or some other trained vocalist to comment on this but I get the impression that Plant just had range and power but no technique and burned his voice out a bit - and he downshifted to not only distance himself from Zep and find his own, ur, voice as an artist, but also to found his career on a sustainable singing technique.
But what the heck do I know?
After II, according to the OP. Which is appropriate, because LZ III was all over the place. People hate it, but it’s my favorite one.
Edited: I stand corrected, the OP has some internal contradiction, but LZ III was indeed all over the map.
Yeah, I don’t really hear any change of vocal style from after LZ II or LZ III. The OP is saying that he underwent an inverse puberty after one of these two albums (depending on whether you go by the OP’s subject line or the content of his first post) and his voice got higher after LZ III. I don’t know if I hear that or not. I don’t really notice a change in vocal stylings, and his highest recorded notes are actually from the earlier years, and his lowest from LZ IV and Houses of the Holy. (It’s somewhat ironic that his example of “the Ocean” for its high notes is actually one of the songs that contains Plant’s lowest recorded note.)
If that is in fact the case, that while maybe isolated high notes and low notes come from the opposite periods of when he notices this change, perhaps Plant sang more in the upper register in the later recordings overall than in the earlier records. I’m guessing if that is so, maybe he just became more comfortable with it or simply their style of music switched away from middle-register-bluesy numbers to more “heavy metal/hard rock” squeals. But there’s plenty examples of the latter in the early albums, and of the former in later albums.
Sure, by the solo albums, you can definitely tell a difference in the vocal styling. That would be analogous to your Police vs Sting example.
LZ III, in my experience, has a very good reputation, indeed. It’s not until Presence that things fall apart for me. I through Houses are pretty much perfect for me; I might include Physical Graffiti on that, too, but I don’t like it quite as much.
In a Guitar Player interview (IIRC) back in the 80’s, Page said something to the effect that he always saw Plant as a vocal gymnast. I always took that to mean that he would go all over the place and take some chances, sometimes stick it, sometimes not.
So, with that in mind, you have to consider that what you hear on the records is the best of a long series of takes. If the songs with high vocals came out better when the song was complete, that’s what got on the record, rather than being the result of a conscious stylistic idea. For example, Walter’s Walk’s has pretty much Plant’s full range in a single song. It’s kind of a mess of a song, so it’s obvious why it didn’t make Houses of the Holy.
Really? All this time I’ve thought that was just recoding equipment quality issues. The sound quality is my main reason for not liking the Beatles all that much.
Interesting observations - I guess I didn’t hear as much change in their voices as I did with RP.
Awesome - which is exactly my point. (my bold)
How so?
:eek:
Were there other artists/bands at that time whom you thought had better recording quality?