ITT: Artists whose voices are clearly shot

ITT: Artists whose voices are clearly shot

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Paul Stanley. Dear god, Paul Stanley. He sounds like a squirrel being thrown into a wood chipper now.

Paul McCartney and Elton John sound a lot worse these days.

Ian Anderson started to go downhill in the mid-80s, this was before he'd even reached 40. I'm not sure exactly what his problem is though. His singing voice is clearly toast, but he can still play flute just fine (meaning it's not a lung capacity issue) and his normal speaking voice doesn't give any indication either that there's anything wrong.

Jethro Tull's catalog is pretty huge, he has plenty of material that would be easier on his voice but he insists on doing really demanding stuff from the 70s that he can't pull off anymore.

Dylan from Oh Mercy on, but in a good way. Also Dylan Modern Times on, but in a bad way.

Serj Tankian for sure. Dear god I'll always love System but his voice now just doesn't hold up. He sounds like an old man (which he kinda is). I really hope they don't make another album.

Hard rock/metal isn't kind to anyone's voice desu. I'd struggle to think of many of the heavy rock vocalists from the 70s-80s who don't sound like shit now.

Bowie literally sounded like a ghost before he died

He had cancer, shock. Dio also died of cancer and his voice was clearly fading on his last tour.

I saw Tom Petty on his last tour and he still sounded quite good despite being a smoker. He hadn't lost that much with age, although one thing he did that probably preserved his vocals was the fact that he avoided using huge Spinal Tap amps and always kept the volume levels reasonable. Not having to sing over a massive wall of noise was probably good for his throat.

David Coverdale is a shell of what he was 40 years ago.

Three of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young still sound surprisingly great.

So does Johnny Mathis...except none of them play heavy metal.

It's easy to keep your voice mostly intact when the music you sing isn't really that challenging.

Robert Plant hasn't been able to hit any high notes since at least 1975 and he's only been getting gradually worse since. That car accident really fucked him up.

Didn't Anderson have polyps on the vocal chords? I remember the first time I heard She Said She Was A Dancer on the radio I thought it was Mark Knopfler.

Frank Sinatra didn't either and he sounded pretty bad in his last years.

Also Johnny Mathis is a 1 in 1000 genetic freak.

Dio even in his later years never really lost his voice which is pretty remarkable.

Sinatra smoked and drank like a fish. But actually, the interesting thing about him is that the point where his voice started to decline was somewhere during 1973-75 when he "retired". After his comeback in 75, he lost his pitch control and never fully regained it.

So while most vocal deterioration can be blamed on overuse, he may have been a case where lack of using his voice for a few years caused him to lose it.

His vocal timbre did sound a bit older in his last couple of years but the guy still had impressive power and hadn't lost his ability to do things like the intro scream in "The Mob Rules". It was really only the final tour in 09 where he started to clearly weaken and that was because he was literally dying of cancer.

A lot of dadrockers have changed vocally with age--Plant, Daltrey, Elton John--but although they don't sound like they did at 25, they're still capable singers, just a different kind of singer than they used to be and can do ok with material that's designed around their current abilities.

That's quite different from someone like Paul Stanley who has major throat damage beyond just normal aging.

Proper vocal technique and lifestyle habits are essential to preserving your throat. Most dadrockers had no vocal training and they smoked, drank, and did drugs like crazy. After all, back in the day, most of them probably gave zero thought to how their vocals would sound after 40 years. They were all young guys who thought they were invincible and they'd live forever. It's kind of like Metallica and their non-use of earplugs onstage in the 80s. They were a bunch of edgy, dumb kids who thought it was badass and metal to not wear earplugs and those were for pussies.

Well now Kirk and Lars have pretty crispy-fried ears. I bet they regret now not taking better care of themselves.

Paul Stanley had throat surgery in the late 2000s but he ignored his doctors' orders to take it easy. He was dumb enough to continue attempting stuff like the intro to Heaven's on Fire.

tfw you had such a shitty voice in the your youth that you had no place to go but up.

Bruce Dickinson has also had insane staying power. His voice has definitely changed and he's taken out some of the rasp, probably intentionally, to preserve his voice, but it's amazing that he's still even able to sing that material at all.