Vocalists who sound different from when they started

[RaeDesu 189]

What are bands/artists that you listen to (or preview) that have vocalists who's voices/sound has completely changed over the years?

 

The only one that I can personally think of is Kamijo. His voice was high pitched, and he used a lot of falsetto when he was in Lareine, and now he has a much lower, deeper range. It's actually quite fascinating and weird to listen to a Lareine song, and then immediately listen to a Versailles song right after it. It's almost as if Kamijo is a different person hahah.

[Gesu 1537]

Juri (breakin' holiday/ex-DELUHI)'s voice is definitely different to when he started. I guess he carries his voice differently? You can really hear it if you listen to the original Yomi No Yuzuri Ha and the Vandalism version. Same goes for Recall.

[Miku70 214]

Miku ( ex Rêverie, ex An Cafe and Lc5), his voices from his debut and after, is not the same things.

[Tokage 5930]

Morrie is like one of the biggest examples of this, to a point where i'd argue he can't really sing some of Dead End's older stuff properly anymore. Compare the original version of Spider in the Brain to that live footage from 2012 up on YT for an example of what I mean. I like both the old Dead End stuff and Morrie's newer work, but it does legit sound like two different dudes.

 

Ryutarou from Plastic Tree's voice hasn't really changed drastically over the years, he still definitely sounds like himself, but I'd argue his voice has at least somewhat deteriorated in recent years when compared to how it was on some of their earlier albums. I guess it might be a smoking-related thing?

 

A non-VK related case similar to the previous one would be Art-School's Riki. Again, I'd say he's still pretty recognizable as far as his singing voice goes, but somewhere in the period after they dropped that ILLMATIC BABY ep his voice kinda started to sound a lot.. well, rougher. Probably again related to smoking and drinking.

 

Yusuke Chiba from TMGE / Rosso / The Birthday / whatever else he's been in also sounds a lot raspier nowadays than he did in the earlier days. It was always kind of there, but I feel like it kinda started to change somewhere around the later end of TMGE's career

[psychonnect_rozen 585]

Kyo from Dir En Grey

 

In the bands VK days he could only scream and sing in a more poppy kind of voice.

 

Now the dude can do a death growl

[YuyoDrift 1540]

On the female side, FUKI from Unlucky Morpheus has changed the tone of her voice purposely over the years.

Compare her singing in Jealousy to the re-release 10 years later and you can see her vocals have entered a more mature tone.

 

[Zalemu 236]

Ryuichi Kawamura

[suji 8317]

Gara (MERRY) sounds noticeably different in After effect and early Merry, obvs younger and had a few voice cracks here and there. Now his voice has matured, as he has more range and control, but screams less than he used to. Also he moans when his voice cracks sometimes which I really like 👌

 

There is also a great contrast in Sui's vocals between Metis Gretel/early Megaromania and late Megaromania/Lin/David. His voice, especially in his previous bands before Metis was low, offkey, and obviously inexperienced. He improved a bit in Metis, reaching higher octaves and screamed (a lot) (like a girl), but began gaining control of his voice by the time he formed Megaromania, and achieved it by their later period. By the time he was in Lin, and eventually David, his voice was fully matured and able to reach more ranges, and he's started experimenting with harsher vocals, but not that much. 

 

((I'm not a music major so this may all look like a bunch of mumbo jumbo bullshit lmao))

[secret_no_03 959]

MORRIE has changed over the years especially since Hardcore Reverie and his latest album and speaking of Kyo; Kyo from D'erlanger's voice has changed over time, I guess you could say MORRIE and Kyo's voices get better with age. Ruki's vocal style has changed and HYDE's been refining his vocals since he started VAMPS. 

 

On the non-Japanese front I'd definitely have to say Marilyn Manson.

[raspberrynilla 85]

Shou from A9. During his time in Givuss and the indie days of A9, his voice was much deeper. Now he sounds high pitched most of the time and tries too hard to reach those high notes, and in my opinion, just sounds awful 😕

[Miku70 214]

25 minutes ago, raspberrynilla said:

Shou from A9. During his time in Givuss and the indie days of A9, his voice was much deeper. Now he sounds high pitched most of the time and tries too hard to reach those high notes, and in my opinion, just sounds awful 😕

Maybe it's because lost his voice in 2011 or 2012  (I don't remember the date,sorry >•<")and his voice is comeback after few times later. Since his voice not sound the same for before 😔.

[ghost 2687]

42 minutes ago, secret_no_03 said:

On the non-Japanese front I'd definitely have to say Marilyn Manson.

Young MM is good, but his voice sounds so nicely aged on Pale Emperor. 

 

Ruki from the GazettE. He used to a sing more nasally and his voice had more treble, but his singing has now smoothed out more and he sings in a lower tone.

[suji 8317]

4 hours ago, RaeDesu said:

The only one that I can personally think of is Kamijo. His voice was high pitched, and he used a lot of falsetto when he was in Lareine, and now he has a much lower, deeper range. It's actually quite fascinating and weird to listen to a Lareine song, and then immediately listen to a Versailles song right after it. It's almost as if Kamijo is a different person hahah.

or maybe his balls just dropped, as in the case with most vocalists xD

[Shmilly 519]

How about GACKT? Old solo stuff and MM work sounds much more raw and emotional than a lot of his recent stuff, where it seems like he's sacrificing some of that in an effort to producing clean recordings. I also suspect his voice has changed along with the facial surgery we all know he had done, and possibly just a result of aging too.

[Axius 2019]

Otogi (ex Awoi) Clearly much different switch ups from old to recent.

 

Asagi when he started out was different but just enhanced his voice to a godly level.

 

Vocalist Isami [ex-Zyn¢X now in Archemi] So much improvement in his voice he was bad when he started in my opinion. I feel as tho it was a bit bland but now its like he has much more control and his screams are pretty good not like blown away good but average. 

 

Im surprised no one mentioned Lime (Ex- Lezard). His voice like when from happy cheery and a tad bit corny to like awesome as hell. Of course its not perfect but definitely a switch up from Lezard to know. Improved vocal range and his highs are different. His lows are okay just not the best.

 

Ryuoga (Ex- Born now in Razor) Idk what to think of his voice now. Its weird he uses more auto tuning then before so its one of those things of its his voice still from born but i dont really know but his screams him my opinion in born were better then razor. His stuff now is more or less not as brutal but none the less still good. Overall he has improved but took a step up to take a step back down. Average overall vocals and screams. 

 

 

 

[saiko 429]

Regarding to Kamijo, I don't think it can be said that he simply changed his vocal range and that's it. Rather, I think Kamijo changed his range because he learned how to sing properly. That is to say, he realized that songs like Lareine's (tenor range) are not suitable at all for his own natural range (clearly baritone). This is easy to prove to anyone who listens just to a single Lareine song. And in fact I think it was clear to Kamijo himself ; in fact, several songs from Lareine's repertoire were tuned down for live performances. Check "Metamorphose" as an example:

 

Album version (on C minor key)

 

 

 

Live version (on B minor key, and also an epic performance)

 

 

However, Kamijo might be still heard not so comfortable. Add to this the feminine and in-pain characterization that Kamijo tried to build for his on-stage persona. What you get is a voice that sounds like choked, it is clear that he is making a huge effort to be able to reach every high note. Also, I think that Kamijo smoked at that time, right? Much worse.

Either way, Kamijo had a very good vocal performance in Lareine. Not only because he always kept himself into the key (which in visual kei is like asking a lot lol), but because, despite all this I said, he managed to keep a flow of voice that was voluminous, and all that while charaterizing it in a very convincing and beautiful way.
Either way, fortunately he has decided to adjust to his natural range since Versailles began. His voice now sounds much more natural and versatile; he even can reach the tenor notes, which as I said are not natural for him, through some falsetto, which is actually heard very nice and dramatic.

 

I think the same can be said regarding Gackt. Check the following "Mizerable"versions:

 

Album version (on key of D flat minor)

 

 

Live version (on key of C minor)

 

Now there are other vocalists, that actually improved over the time, but in the beggining didn't try to lie to themselves proving that their range was higher than what their throats could actually offer without killing themselves into the process lol

 

Ruki have always had a beautiful voice and a decent technic, but I feel that songs like "Wakaremichi" or "Miseinen" sounds legitly good nowadays. Ruki now can manage to run trough the different notes and volumes very smoothly, while managing to bring out a strong flow of voice, even while delivering this gothic-inspired deep voice that is one of the trademarks of the 'visual kei' sound, but that makes singers of the scene really -like, REALLY- bad 90% of the times.

 

Album version (2002):

 

 

Live version (2012, and also another epic performance)

 

 

Also, Miku from Antic Cafe and Asagi from D can other great examples of vocal improving.

Edited May 24, 2019 by saiko

[FOSCOR70 56]

The vocalist of sadie and the thirteen. He has gone under some crazy vocal mutation between these bands.

 

 

Edited May 24, 2019 by FOSCOR70

[nekkichi 6043]

10 hours ago, RaeDesu said:

What are bands/artists that you listen to (or preview) that have vocalists who's voices/sound has completely changed over the years?

p much all of them provided they hit a five year career milestone?.. 🤔

[Gesu 1537]

6 hours ago, Shmilly said:

How about GACKT? Old solo stuff and MM work sounds much more raw and emotional than a lot of his recent stuff, where it seems like he's sacrificing some of that in an effort to producing clean recordings. I also suspect his voice has changed along with the facial surgery we all know he had done, and possibly just a result of aging too.

Was thinking this! Idk why I didn't say it, actually. He had more passion in his voice and he seemed to care more about what he was doing... it's a shame he changed, really.

[Lereku 717]

Mao from SiD since he had vocal polyps he is unable to sing like before he has trouble reaching high notes and his vibrato is awful now.

Yomi of Nightmare really fuck up his vocal range since 2013, Yomi's voice has begun to deteriorate in quality, becoming much more nasal and fragile and his placement lowering considerably, and in 2015 he  suffered of serious vocal damage.

I watched again the Nightmare last live I had pity for him, he was near to be aphone, offkey the most part of the live especialy for reaching high nots, that's was so painful to hear that

[madygrain 515]

Yomi is simply not able to use his singing voice as he used to and has to sing in his normal gremblin voice most of the time.

[saiko 429]

3 hours ago, madygrain said:

Yomi is simply not able to use his singing voice as he used to and has to sing in his normal gremblin voice most of the time.

This is why I'm glad people like Kamijo decided to take singing lessons.

[raspberrynilla 85]

On 5/23/2019 at 5:09 PM, Miku70 said:

Maybe it's because lost his voice in 2011 or 2012  (I don't remember the date,sorry >•<")and his voice is comeback after few times later. Since his voice not sound the same for before 😔.

Oh yeah I remember that! He did say it wasn't anything too serious though. I highly doubt he damaged his voice to the point it sounds different. 

[astra☆ 26]

On 5/23/2019 at 7:37 PM, Shmilly said:

How about GACKT? Old solo stuff and MM work sounds much more raw and emotional than a lot of his recent stuff, where it seems like he's sacrificing some of that in an effort to producing clean recordings. I also suspect his voice has changed along with the facial surgery we all know he had done, and possibly just a result of aging too.

If you listen to his first 3 albums in his solo, he's got an incredible range and amount of raw power and emotion in the songs. I want to like his last 2 albums as much as the previous ones, but his voice just sounds wrong to me. It's lost the natural softness and warmth it used to have and it sounds like he's singing completely from the nose. He's also developed a weird affinity for heavy T Pain-esque autotuning. Gackt's been my idol for nearly 15 years so it's been hard for me!

[Nighttime Jae 238]

I think most vocalists, if they've been around long enough, will end up sounding different from the beginning. 

If they start young especially, since your voice usually matures quite a bit going from your 20's into your 30's. If you take Takeru from Clack inc., his tone and style isn't that dramatically different from what he used to sound like in EVE, but the voice itself has definitely matured in an almost 10-year gap. 

 

However, if you take Yuu in the Zodia days, his style, tone and technique is extremely different compared to what he sounds like nowadays. That to me is more of a conscious change rather than natural evolution , since back in the day he was heavily inspired by Jonathan Davis' vocal style and that fit the nu metal vibe of Zodia pretty well. Then in Ultimate Sonic, Affective Synergy etc. he has a more "classic" vk approach, also his vocal technique has overall improved a lot throughout the years and it shows. That isn't to say that his style in Zodia was "bad", not at all, it was really unique and his growls there are some of the best out there imho. But yeah, if you compare Zodia to Ultimate Sonic it doesn't even sound like the same person (unless you know it is) 

 

Another one whose vocal evolution has been a conscious one rather than natural evolution is Mahiro. If you listen to his previous bands before Kiryu, you'll see how much his overall sound and style has changed. His vocals in Kiryu are very polarizing, some hate it and some love it (personally I'm not the biggest fan, even though I can commend him for being good at what he does), but if you compare it to what he used to sound like in Madara you'll be able to tell that these it's a heavily crafted, specific style he's going for rather than his "natural" way of singing. He went from sounding like your run-of-the-mill vk vocalist to one of the most unique and recognizable voices in the scene and an irreplaceable element to Kiryu's sound. 

 

Tl;dr: most vocalists are bound to change their style throughout the years, whether it's natural evolution (or devolution) or conscious change. But most likely, if they've been around for long enough, no one will stay the same. 

It is definitely interesting to highlight and analyze the differences though. 

Edited September 8, 2019 by Nighttime Jae