James Labrie SIDE BY SIDE Comparison! (Pull me Under LIVE Vocal Analysis 1993 AND 2017!)
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- Опубліковано 30 вер 2024
- Hey everyone! Today I am comparing our old friend James Labrie in 1993 and 2017! This was quite the difficult analysis, as James has an extremely distinctive technique and sound, and the changes he has made over the course of the last 25 years have been erratic, to say the least. I hope you all enjoy!
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Thank you all so much for the support! I hope that this clears up some of the confusion surrounding James and his vocals. Please ask me any questions you might have!
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Zach Ansley Jaime Vendera was one of his teachers.
I know it'd be crazy to arrange, but you could try to get James on podcast! If he agrees, we could easily find the answers to all the questions and riddles here
If you guys starting tweeting and commenting to him he may end up agreeing. That's definitely not something I can put together on my own.
a tweet has been sent, waiting for him to reply and possible agree!
wikipedia mentions a teacher called Victoria Thompson
Me: Oh wow 50 minutes! No offense Zach but there's no way I'm watching the whole thi-
Also Me: *Watches the whole thing*
I'd like your opinion on JLB on the current tour, I feel like he's approaching the higher notes with a slightly different technique
James tried to record Images and Words with rasp vocal, but the producer David Prater didn't allowed and demanded clean vocals.
David Prater is definitely an asshole for trying to impose his will against band's direction, but this is one of his few inputs that I agree on what made Images and Words great
I'm Just Saying seriously the clean vocals are a big reason why the album is as good also watch bootlegs from 1992 were he uses clean vocals which sounds better than the 1993 and 1993 live shows of Images and Words where a lot of rasp was used. His rasp I think hurt his sound, it does sound really good but I don’t think him singing in rasp makes him “more metal” sounding
Oh my god, that would totally change my perspective on Dream Theater... The importance of that decision cannot be understated I think.
You got source? I know, Prater was an asshole, but still
In hindsight, all those years of "An Evening With Dream Theater" shows where they played for like 3 hours were probably really, really bad for James as well. I'm sure it made tons of business sense (no opener = more money for the band) but it wasn't a wise decision long term. Boy are they regretting that now...
Even Jordan an Myung said it was a nightmare to play that much durming those Portnoy era. It was insane, changing the setlists each Night, so I can imagine to work that in vocals, when You using an instrument are tired, just imagine when is your vocals.
lol, bands don't pay their openers. In fact, the vaaaaaaaast majority of the time, bands have to pay a lot of money to open for bigger bands.
Very interesting video. Not sure how I ended up here as a drummer, but enjoyed it all the same.
As someone who has played live shows (min 60+ per year) for over 20 years, I’d say all the rest of the band want from their singer is good pitch (a lot better than James displays in video 2!!), learnt lyrics and good audience rapport. Anything else is a bonus! I hope that’s not over simplifying what you all do! 😜
Would be interesting to see really unhealthy vocals analysed
Try Axl Rose or James Hetfield (80s)
Also tom araya would be amazing i dont know how he screams like that without hurting his voice or at least there is no noticable change in his sound
Listen to a recent interview with Araya. Sounds to me like he's taken some damage.
@@Anthropomorphic his speaking voice is basically fucked i mean he barely gets any sound out but his "singing" voice hasnt changed much and is still powerful
Araya's voice is terrible live nowadays, but maybe I've just seen a bad live
One thing that I find interesting about James is that you can watch his bootlegs from 1992-93, and his voice sounds great in some, and fatigued in others. But in 1994, the bootlegs that exist show him sounding (arguably) better when singing the Images songs 1-2 years after they toured for them (and of course in some of the shows he still sounds fatigued but good). His rasp had improved, and he could still hit the high notes with ease, even on the not-so-good nights. It makes me wonder how long his voice would have lasted if he hadn't had the food poisoning incident. He's had several recovery periods, from 1997, 2003-2008 (He sung the middle section of Voices at a show in Venuzuela I think), and in 2011-2012. In 2015 he really started to fatigue more and more until he did the Ayreon Live shows where he sounded perfect! Like wtf james, are you good or not?? haha. I think he still has it in him, he should just lower the range of the melodies he sings for future albums.
EnergyDeficit he has always been very inconsistent singer, in the earlier 90s in Dream Theater he still sounded better in off nights but he sometimes sounds really good and some not so good. He obviously is not as a good singer as he was when he was younger but he is still tourable . He still sounds decent on the studio recording but there is effects and auto tune on it.
I doubt his prob was just a food poisoning bc vocal cords can recover that, his prob was drinking, smoking and pushing his singing too much without the right coaching to help him really recover the problems.
And also, he was never a good live singer like even the time he could hit the high notes. Unstable but young
A lot of singers would have a much longer career if they looked at their voices as a musical instrument that needs to taken care of, like Mike Patton does.
James’ vocal range is generally amazing (he’s one of my favourite singers of all time) but having been in bands that have done Dream Theater covers myself (specifically from the Images And Words era), I’ve been cautious about using too much rasp in my clean vocals, for the reasons you’ve explained.
I truly appreciate you being so respectful and objective. The guy currently sounds awful, and so he did in 2017. He can no longer be taken seriously, but somehow you managed to pull off a great video-analysis. Congrats.
Great video (as ever)! Your videos tend to have a long duration, but whenever I watch them I feel absorbed because you explain things in such a didactic and also technical way that it's impossible to feel tired or bored.
About James, I think it's important to say that he's had many different styles during his career. He adopted rasp on his voice between 1992 and 2003, but he used it most extensively during the second half of Images and Words tour (not in 1992, as we can see on UA-cam videos) and on Waking Up the World tour (including in 1995, after the food poisoning incident). Since he joined Dream Theater, he was supposed to be a metal-like singer on some tracks - it just didn't happen on I&W because the producer, David Prater, told him to "keep it clean"; otherwise, at least Pull Me Under and Under a Glass Moon would have been heavier than they are on the record. He didn't use to sing in a heavy way before (he was in a glam metal band before joining DT); however, he once said that he was able to sing this way even before being an official member of the group.
I would say he's had 7 periods on DT:
1) 1991-1992: clean and high vocals, discovering the best way to sing on the band;
2) 1993-1998: clean and rasp vocals, high notes (sometimes really high on live presentations, but not in a healthy way); even after the vocal injury, he tried to the sing in a similar way he did before;
3) 1999-2003: his voice still sounds raspy, but his range declined; he didn't sing as high as before;
4) 2004-2006: no rasp, nasal vocals;
5) 2007-2010: a little rasp; nasal vocals on high pitches;
6) 2011-2012: cleaner vocals (on studio, not live); vocals not that nasal;
7) 2013-2017: really nasal vocals; the voice sounds flat; another perceptible decline of the range.
i wouldn't call anything past awake to be that graspy.
Already in 1998 he was singing almost exclusively clean.
Amazing video. U should hit James up. He could use you
I've seen DT two times live in Poland, 2014 and 2015 I believe, and I was disappointed with James' singing, but man I understand where that comes from! I have now broader understanding of his vocal case, and also back then they've had a ridiculously tough touring schedule, the day before show in Poland they played in Czech Republic. James didn't have enough time to rest, also spending hours in a van or any other means of communication with air-conditioning wrecks your voice immediately :/ I wish they switched to playing easier songs so that James could sing for couple years more and so that shows wouldn't be ear-rape anymore. He keeps doing an amazing job when he doesnt have to screech all those high notes, on The Astonishing he may not be flawless, but it's pleasing to the ear.
The sad thing is that he's starting to not sound in tune anymore, even if he's hitting the right notes, he's still flat enough to be perceptible.
“I do not know what he does to make that sound” haha lol
I know I'm late, just now discovered your channel, big DT fan here. I have heard all of their albums and demos, live albums and have big collection of live bootlegs so I have heard pretty much everything James ever did and how he sounded. What I wanted to say is, I agree with everything you said. Often, on forums, UA-cam and other online communities people hold James early years in DT in high regard. I do, too, don't get me wrong... but... I always thought his technique was absolutely terrible live. Just because he could it didn't mean he should have. He often sounded tired and had voice cracks. Yes, maybe he made it more interesting or improvised but often he just shouted words and blew his voice. To be honest, when improvising, he's much better now and his melodies are much more interesting. That said, I hope their new album (if they make it) will have him more around his comfortable range and let him do the melodies (if they don't, I don't think they do that much) because I still like his middle natural range.
Couldn't agree more
Can you do blind guardian?
I've never figured out James' new style of slow vibrato that sounds more like an emergency vehicle alarm. Like there's 2-4 "waves" vibrating per second and it just sounds very strange and forced. He, in my opinion, doesn't have very good breath support in neither of the videos. I don't hear that botne or power that would come from his diaphragm, but all I hear is singing from lungs and belting. He just happens to have such a distinctive and excellent tone, powerful output and range that masks his lack of breath support what his voice would truly need during the hard sections of the song. I don't hear him using his chest register much or at all and the lower register he does is mix with lots of bad habits, but I could be wrong on that.
Also I think that James never learned a proper way to utilize his chest voice, where his voice could rest a bit while singing a bit lower, but he has gone for mix or head voice all the years of his career, which is after long-time and excessive fatigue created straining to his head voice. As you said, he has very frontal nasal resonance in his voice and it's been almost his whole career as his primary tool in his singing voice and he hasn't really changed registers or the resonance placement. Hell I've never so far heard him using falsetto, except maybe couple of occasions, which could've eased things a little.
After injuries, aging and ton of touring, something will eventually break after all that nasal singing, if you don't let your voice chill out at a times during performance. Singing frontal nasal, at least for me as a baritone, is a temporary solution to sing high tenor register, but doing that all the time wouldn't be a long-shot solution and I don't sound so good in so high register or when belting the notes. Only occasions I've really needed it is when I sing the backing vocals on Bruno Mars' "Locked out of Heaven" chorus (Bb4 or A4 is the note there, I think) with my cover band and it really takes lots of energy from my voice to stay up there. So kudos for Labrie for doing something like that for many years and still attempting well to stay consistent with it.
hahaha that is a good description "emergency vehicle alarm"...Like a slow Leslie speaker. Aka "old church man" vibrato haha!
You don't get 'excellent tone, powerful output and range' without solid support. You don't get through tours singing material like this while ADDING high notes and making it harder for yourself by adding grit if you don't have good fundamentals. He'd have blown out his voice before even getting a chance to audition if it was that bad. His early tone defo has nasal 'resonance' i.e. is forward placed but it's not stuffed through his nose as a crutch. It's just bright strong fundamental tone plus vowel choice.
Great video! My only comment is that on the Images, Words, and Beyond tour, Pull Me Under is on the second set, so it is possible that he is vocally fatigued by that point~
Tré Bryant you got to realize that they preform for over 2 hours and that strains his voice and doing that night after night his voice could be fatigued
@@damian.739 That's what I'm saying. Images and Words alone is a challenging album to sing in its entirety, especially night after night. Add a whole set before it, and holy fuck, I have no idea how he does it.
A couple of things.... (and yes, I was there back then) Dream Theater got a LOT of flack for sounding very 80s, and still do to this day. So I think they felt a lot of pressure to heavy things up. Two, I believe that James was adding rasp to his vocals to try to sound heavier and compete with singers like Chris Cornell and Layne Staley who were more popular at the time. I also believe that's why he abandoned a lot of the more correct technique that he exhibited in his singing on Images and Words.
James did go to a vocal coach after his injury to help save his voice.
Excellent video, I think just one small thing is when you said that this was the beginning of the show, that wasn't the case. The Images and Words playthrough was the 2nd set of their show on this tour, he had already sung 6 songs that night by this point (admittedly ones from 2003-present so not exactly as demanding as the 90s stuff).
I love the sound of metal vocals in some contexts. Meshuggah for example clearly wouldn't work without those vocals, also does Jen's from Meshuggah damage his vocal cords?
His best voice was between 1991 and 1994, with i&w and awake
yeah, but I think that the rasp in his voice, on the left side video was not made by choice, sounds like he was kinda sick or something (happens to me sometimes), so the voice rasps on low and mid notes, but cleans on the hi notes, just like the video......
the right side video was just awful.....awful video quality, JL is often out of tune nowadays.......on the hi notes he puts his tongue out of his super wide open mouth (I don't know any singer who does that, and nobody seams to notice and talk about it), and I think that all of that combined makes he sounds like a screaming cat......
He used to sing with drives on BC & SL as well.
Saw them live in 2010 and 2012, James was a beast and nailed all da high notes and drives from I&W and Awake.
The shows lasted almost 3:30 and they played without any rest during their tour.
It is almost impossible to nail everything perfectly when ur going to 60yo , all these years without a break and singing songs that he recorded when he were the best singer at 90's.
Without a doubt, James is my favorite male singer, one of my inspirations to start singing lessons, and DT has been one of my favorite bands since I was young.
This is a great video, thank you Zach :)
And omg, laughed so much at 19:41. Laser beam hehe.
Thanks! Feel free to join my discord server if you want to get more insight on things :)
discord.gg/hmK9uM7
its nice how you explain this with much fairness. hes been bashed so much. (y)
Very objective and fair criticism. I too dislike how people pile up on James for things outside of his control, as if the people criticizing can do the same things they did physically when they were 20-30 years younger. Criticize all you want, but be fair and pick the correct examples and be constructive. If more people are like that, perhaps James himself will start taking that more to heart and do something about it instead of being defensive and dismissing it as people being assholes or ignoring it altogether.
I'd also love to see a video on Tim Ripper Owens, as he does seem to produce similar raspy high screaming like James did in the early 90s.
LaBrie could just be honest with himself and leave Dream Theater. That's something well within his control.
The Most Capable as a Dream Theater fan I personally view him as a big part of Dream Theater which I don’t know if it’s quite Dream Theater without him.
hey man thanks for doing these videos they're very interesting. glad to see professionals on this platform not just bullshit
Thank you. I'm glad to be here, and thanks for watching :)
Hey I’m friends with James Vocal Coach btw his name is Jami Vendera and he’s been working with James the last couple of years
I’ve noticed for a lot of years he’s done that tour voice where everything’s even clean/no rasp and nasally, I always thought he did that to save his voice to last the tour regardless of how annoying it sounded at least he could pull the pitch off..
after the extended astonishing tour we all noticed a sharper decline for him, plus that was a tough album to sing for him night after night with all the tonal changes he had in it..
Let’s hope he got some much needed rest and new training to put on another great tour!
I’ve seen them 10+ times since 2000 and he’s always been great
Thanks for the break down, it’s nice to hear the terms
maybe pushing out the notes is the only way he can sing his parts now? so it would be a matter of pragmatism over aesthetisism?
This is very possible, even likely I would guess.
1992 LaBrie is probably my favourite vocalist ever. Current LaBrie sounds like an ambulance mixed with a screaming grandma
Edit: i mean non-rasp in 1992
I love the detailed analysis and expertise! I would spend less time qualifying what your about to do in the intro, i tend to skip over it.
I tend to go back and forth between giving big intros and not. In this case I did it to explain that this was kind of an extension of my 'curious case' video.
If we're going to continue analyzing the curious case of James LaBrie, I'd recommend checking him out in Ayreon as well. He sounds very different on the albums he's a part of there. Being a big fan of DT, I actually prefer his vocals when he sings on an Ayreon album.
I try to stick to live analyses because studio recordings are all heavily altered and manipulated to create specific sounds, and doing things like analyzing breath support and consistency of line and legato is virtually impossible.
I agree. His vocals on The Human Equation sounded great, which was 2004. The 'making of' video gave the impression he was still OK then, at least when singing clean.
But touring Train of Thought at the same time must have destroyed his voice. Octavarium sounded fine too, at least the studio takes.
Arjen has always gotten the best from his singers. He knows what the singers are capable of and what they are comfortable singing.
@@Gonboo Yes, I agree completely. I love what Arjen does. He makes it sounds easy but he's actually really skilled at working within what the singers do best while still getting the songs sung the way he likes them. Russell Allen sounds amazing on Ayreon stuff too. (Russell is a phenomenal singer anyway but IMO Symphony X stuff often pushed him outside his optimum range).
If there's one thing to take away from that Ravenskill channel, it's that it is a hilariously biased channel, which is weird to say because music is subjective at it's core, but taking all the worst examples of Labrie's stage moments is just laughably stupid. That channel does the same type of thing with Mangini vs Portnoy.
This channel, is fair and analytic.
It's completely fair to say that he's declined over the years. He is also a man in his mid 50s, whom after almost 30 years of practically non-stop recording and live performances is singing songs, up until a couple years ago in the same key, that he sang in his 20s, while rarely going into falsetto. That's just bravery and I got nothing but respect for that.
This pandemic has been a, for lack of a better phrase, blessing in disguise (it's absolutely not a blessing, but again, lack of a better phrase) for him because at least now he is forced to take a break. At least, I hope he is. Knowing him, he's probably practicing right now.
Left: A pro with maybe a few bad habits. Right: Drunken karaoke singer clearing out the bar.
Highly underrated comment
LOL!!! In the 2019 performances, there are no Images or Awake songs on the setlist. And honestly, he is quite decent if he isn't doing any I&W or Awake songs.
LMAO
@@anirudhviswanathan3986 I think them playing "Erotomania" live regularly (the whole song, not as part of an instrumedley) would be a nice idea, not just as a fan favorite (at least I really enjoy it), but also to give James seven or more extra minutes for resting depending on how much they improvise.
I prefer baritone singing. I don't understand why so many male singers are obsessed with showing off their higher range.
As bad as the rasp is for his voice I absolutely loved it. I loved it without it too tho. Nowadays going to see them I’m mainly going for the instrumental aspect. Either way. Love James.
Thanks for putting the effort and producing all these great analyses. Especially when it comes to James LaBrie, your videos helped me personally as a fan, understand his vocal changes better. And the points you mention regarding him probably being coached by a teacher who couldn't figure out his voice type, actually fits his quotes here and there and the band\s account in their official biography, Lifting Shadows.
Cheers from Iran
Love your videos, Zach! Really interesting to see an objective analysis, it's definitely more of a rarity in the age of social media!
That's the goal! Thanks for your support. :)
I wish you would have started way back when youtube wasn't fucking over their own creators. Im sure you'd be doing this for a living if you did start back then 'cause you truly are unique, well spoken, fair and educated in your "critiques". As usual, another stellar vid.
Glad to see you have more patrons now. To reiterate something I sent you on Discord the other day, you said in an old video that you might do a video on warmups one day. That would be amazing.
I want to, but my instructional videos get next to no views. Once my channel grows to a couple of thousand subscribers I will make more videos like that. The problem is that there are a million vocal warmup videos out there, whether they are good or not. That market is extremely saturated.
Makes sense. If I think of something else I'll let you know.
As always, great video Zach, love you and cheers from Poland!
Very interesting analysis, kind of makes me want to hear James himself talk more about the changes he made to his singing technique over the years.
This video is now more relevant than ever. Since I've seen recent live clips, I'm concerned that by now, James has completely destroyed his voice. It's very sad, until now he still occasionally had a good night. Maybe that's why their last record sounds the way it does. Have you heard it? The overall sound is very good, except for the vocal production. The vocals are just overloaded with effects and they sound so damn artificial and distant (no pun intended). But maybe they just did it, because they had to.
I saw them in february 19,and totally agree with you...don't know if he did it at the show you went to or if he still does,but at the one i went he almost in every song made at least 1 scream,if you search "as i am" live in taormina the first chorus and later in the song he does some pretty good screams,or from the same live in "lie" there is a skybreaking "I SWEAR I WOOOOOONT" it was pretty epic considering all the difficulties
If you wanna see how much of a difference taking care of your voice and using proper technique makes, Dream Theater has been touring with Devin Townsend and Animals as Leaders recently and there's a video of The Spirit Carries On with Devin singing some of the parts. When you hear Devin singing, the difference in quality is night and day to the point of being scary.
i don't even listen to DT why am i so concerned with labrie singing pull me under? help.
I know he studied with Jaimie Vendeira at one point... could be one of the reasons....
Thank you so much anyway for all that precious information :-)
Would love to hear your take on Rob Halford. I'm sure he's not the best singer in a technical aspect but he's still my favorite.
Extremely interesting, thanks for sharing your insights. Almost overloaded with information, but I like that. Keep up the excellent work!
Thanks for the objective analysis, without the emotions that most fans have for (or against) DT.
i love labrie since AWAKE.....EVEN SOME OF THE SOLO ALBUMS ARE QUITE GOOD
This makes sense. I just came across their cover of the entire Master of Puppets album that they did as an encore at one of their shows in the early 2000's. Labrie just rode it too hard!
41:00 I really liked that sound. Didn't sound like falsetto to me, more of a chesty mix.
Your final point at the end is incredibly poignant. James is clearly a talented guy, but he's clearly been pulled into so many conflicting directions over his career that its hard to make heads or tails of where he's coming from now. Combine that with the inevitable complications from aging and various life events and you get a recipe for disaster. But at the end of the day, as you say, kudos to him for grinding it out over the years despite it all.
I only know that I've never learned this much about James LaBrie's singing style. I needed this video, so thank you.
I've got invited to a TV show where amateur singers compete by imitating famous professionals. My singing style is not yet set, but Dream Theater is my favourite band if I can only name one. After all what you said I decided to learn both these styles and for imitation I do neither but both. One song is not a big deal, but I want to keep my voice. Coincidentally (after watching you other video about JLB) I chose to sing The Gift of Music for now.
So singing The Astonishing full album can be considered enough practice for a day? :D
There are a lot of instrumental parts though.
What i don't like from current LaBrie, compared to his 1991-1993's peak version, are, like you said his far less pleasing tone, overuse of vibrato and enunciation, his lines are mushy...
His voice hurts my ears like a guitar amp with the presence control cranked.
Yep, his tone got incredibly worse over the years, add to that his constant vibrato and we get an annoying ambulance...
It's about time for DT to do the same as Journey and get a younger more competent guy. UA-camr Davide James with be a good replacement imo
Current LaBrie sounds out of tune, even when he's hitting the right notes.
I think his vowel modifications are far too extreme and kinda really show his limitations as a singer. Of course vowel modifications happen when you sing but when LaBrie does them it's like a he uses a formula and exaggerates a lot. My vocal coach taught me how to use them much more subtle so that they do actually help for getting the right pitch easier but without sounding too extreme. LaBrie rather sounds like he uses a strict vowel formula and to me it doesn't sound right.
You could send 1 singing tip James every Christmas :)
Hope James skips all this bullshit about leaving..
I don`t stop loving my grandpa because of graspy voice
Hey zach i was wondering if you could do a vocal analysis of Serj Tankian? I think there’s some really interesting stuff i want to hear from you
Would love to see this too. Serj is another one of those vocalists with such a unique sound
@@SirWalrusCauliflower I think it's his Lebanese Armenian accent.
Charlie dominici is clearly a hundred times better than labrie…you just cant appreciate a singer that is super annoying to hear live
So why does he sound like a dying cat now? Is this his new artistic vision??
Hearing James' 2017 vocals makes me glad I last saw them in 2007 (Portnoy fan too)
Great analysis!!! I realy enjoy your video so much, and l like the fact that your video are long because you analyse them deeper, l realy wish you to be more deeper in your analysis and in your future video. You re doing this great, keep doing it!!!
Hey, this is a great video, but I did notice one thing you mentioned - Dream Theater weren't playing Pull Me Under at the beginning of the show. The way DT structured that tour, they had a first set of about 8 tracks, including The Dark Eternal Night (very shout-oriented track, vocal-wise), Breaking All Illusions, As I Am, and some other tracks. Sure, there was a 20 minute intermission between the first set and the Images and Words set, but I feel this justifies the fatigue a bit more.
Nice to see you here, my friend
@@TheDarkEternalKnight07 Long time no see, I'm not on the DT subreddit very often anymore because Portnoy returning made me lose a lot of interest in the band. Hope their next album is good but I am gonna miss Mangini a lot.
@@faroffgrace5490 yeah, I noticed you wasn't there, and imagined the reason. I personally prefer MP, but I'm also gonna miss MM a ton.
@@TheDarkEternalKnight07 Fair enough. I'm still working on a few Dream Theater MIDI covers, so I may be back on there when I finish some of those. Plus if the first singles are good, I might rejoin when the new album is announced. It really depends on how Mike Portnoy affects my enjoyment of the band.
The tone is definitely the worst part of James' voice right now, the fact that it used to be so vibrant and resonant (one of the most vibrant and resonant voices of its genre) and it's now so nasely and narrow is what makes it worse.
I think the song is completely outside of his range now, even with the down-tuning that they've done.
Ive always felt its been his rigorous schedule. 3 hour shows with 200+ plus dates year after year. For saying what amount of power that has come out of his voice, he's doing great. Can't wait for the new album!
Hey! Have you listened to the new album?
Great video, I am happy that I found it...
Another great video, Zach. I have been taught in a classical style but since watching your videos I've been taking special notice of glottal onsets. A lot of pop singers actually do try to manage this or have learnt themselves that it helps to reach a note (I assume this is why Anthony Kiedis, not a great singer in my opinion, puts an L sound before the word 'I' in many, many songs).
Images & Words was going to raspier vocals originally, but producer David Prater obligated LaBrie not to do it (plus other horrific decisions such as using drum samples, Portnoy wasn't happy oc).
People hate on Prater and think of the band as musical geniuses whose visoin got compromised. The hard facts are, at the time of the recording, they were nobodies, no matter how talented (I dig WDADU, but commercially it flopped). In this situation, you just can't expect to have complete creative control (at least not back then). Personaly, Prater might have been a dick, but I don't think all his decisions where bad. I'm no fan of the snare sound either, but I got over it. I had to 'cause 20 years later, every other metal album STILL had that same damn sample lol. (only a little less reverb)
I wouldn't say that Labrie's voice is a total wreck. At the same time, he is not to be blamed entirely for his vocal decline because the band had their shortcomings when it comes to taking care of their singer. However even in this present time, Labrie has some bad habits to straighten up if he wants to bring out an okay performance. Just look at the 2015 Live at Wacken show. On that show, Labrie still has that strength in him to sing the songs of that set in their original pitch, however instead of making it easy for him, Labrie decides to make it complicated for him by doing ad-libs (adding high notes coupled with that ugly vibrato and extending vowels on many parts) that are way off which puts strain on him at the same time, butchers the song (perfect example: Afterlife, The Spirit Carries On).
The rasp: James has never been a 'badass' singer, but he was urged from early on to try to be one. That's ended in recent years for obvious personnel-related reasons.
Yes. DT has always tried to balance the metal and progressive elements. During their middle period they were often alternating between epic, melodic stuff and then heavy shred stuff with raspy vocals.
I always preferred the melodic side of DT and for me James always sounded better when singing clean. Scenes, Octavarium, Dramatic Turn and Six Degrees Part 2 are so much more interesting and listenable than Train of Thought, Chaos or Six Degrees Part 1. Even Awake got tiring to listen to after a few years aside from the odd melodic track like Lifting Shadows.
That's my fan's opinion, anyway.
yikes... i've always struggled to love DT because i think he's my least favorite part of their sound...
This was an absolutely fair anaysis and I agree. I don't think anyone could hold up any better with the length of their shows, though. His technique is far better now, but they needed to shorten their set length years ago and I think that's the main reason other than starting with poor technique. I know how old your video is but I do challenge anyone to sing an average DT set. No one would have an easy time, regardless.
It seems like such a waste to sing clean sections with a rasp, like with pull me under. If you're going to use rasp use it for the cool sounding fast songs or for the more intense parts of songs.
great video! I've previously come to some of the same conclusions regarding James' technique myself after personally experiencing the effects of adding that rasp to my own vocals (though I clearly have a tiny fraction of the technical knowledge that you appear to). In fact, I aspired to sing like early 90's james back in the day. I did alright. That said, that rasp, in addition to doing death metal growls for a decade (though super inconsistently during that decade), I did damage to my voice. Its kind of weird because I can still sing clearly quite well, and that's without practicing regularly. I actually recorded a cover of spirit carries on recently in which I got pretty damn high. That said, I can't add a rasp to my voice now, even if I wanted to. I will break into a massive coughing fit the second I try. I used to do an impression of Otto from the simpsons, but I literally just can't do it now or I'll be coughing for a minute. I don't generally try to add a rasp to my voice, FYI. I stopped BECAUSE it is not good for you. that's also why I stopped doing death metal vocals. that shit will not do you favours, guarantee. sure, you may be able to do them and still sing decently (I do like me some Mikael Akerfelt), but you will almost certainly be able to sing better if you don't do them.
Why not just sing the problematic lines in Pull Me Under (and other songs) an octave lower?
That’s a great question - it is in all likelihood because the lower frequencies wouldn’t cut through the texture very well.
14:30 where you discuss rasp vs what you percieve to be a good sound. When he uses the rasp he has to initiate a whole lot more chest voice. If you listen to his sound and try to listen to his timbre beyond the rasp - if you catch my drift - you can hear that his tone is actually fuller and more resonant and the lyrics are clearer. He should absolutely NOT sing with this rasp, but further develop his chestier sound without it.
When he later has what you describe as a clearer better sound he is singing in head voice, with an almost total lack of support. The sound is unstable and not connected. Almost flimsy in a way, especially when he sings near his pasagio. It sounds good because he is a great talent, he`s young and he's high up in his register, but James's big detrament is exactly this. He almost always sings in pure head voice and if you want to have a healthy, supported voice as a male singer you have to have a developed chest voice unified with the head voice. Dio is a great example of this and so is Rob Rock.
Pure head voice leads to an enourmous strain on the vocal folds over time and also makes it really hard to sing in your passagio, middle and lower register and is impossible to support well. You can hear how his middle and low voice has suffered if you listen to recent tapes of him, where he struggles to sing the first part of spirit carries on.
Also when one sings in head voice like james is, the highest parts of your voice often become the easiest to sing and therefore can feel "good" and "right", but it will also make your vowel REALLY sloppy, because you can`t shape them well. This can be heard in pull me under in how he "flips" when he sings the high parts and his vowel become spread and "weird".
In the clip from pull me under you can hear him "Switch" from good vocals when he is rasping and when he soars upwards in pure head the vowels become spread, KEEP in mind that his rasp is NOT good, but the engagement of more chest voice is. Im not saying that his chest engagement is perfect in any way, just saying that he should`ve further developed this in the 90s and through that developed a more stable middle voice and passagio which would also make his high register better in terms of support, vowels and control.
You can hear this even better in his later clips, it makes it almost impossible to hear what he`s actually singing. As a comparison you can listen to Dio and hear how every word is as clear as day even though he is also singing in really high tenor tessitura.
I do totally agree with you that Jame`s rasp is unhealthy, he is not doing it right and this was probably something that caused him a lot of vocal damage. You CAN however sing with a rasp/growl and so on and do it safe. But this takes years of training and even then you have to be careful everytime you use it. Listen to Dio for an example of a master singer with a total control over his rasp/growl.
Great video! this isn`t meant as a critique of you in any way, just my two cents :)
Please do Russell Allen from Symphony X! He's arguably singing his best now and many people are using him as an example of a prog rock Singer who got better with time!
Haha just saw you already did a video on him! Will watch it next! :)
Fat Allen misses high notes since 2000's era bro.
That kinda of drive and copy of the Master Jorn Lande's style doesn't work and he misses and fail a lot.
It is better for him try to sing the The Divine Wings Of Tragedy style, sounds a lil bit annoying and artificial. 👎
@@felipperodrigues8448 bro what? They still perform songs with high notes and he sounds good, arguably better depending on taste. I personally prefer the 2016 performance of Kiss of fire over the album.
Would be awesome if you did an episode on Jeff Buckley!
Isn't this the very DVD that contains an extra band commentary and James said himself he was exaggerating at the time? Thanks for the video, very interesting stuff
the lead singers voice kills the band for me lmao. their instrumentals are brilliant tho. *shrug*
Pull me under live 1992 not live 1993!!!
To be fair, the song "pull me under" in this tour was not played at the start of the show. it was the first song in the second set of the night. in other words, he has been singing for probably more than an hour at the point of this song
Great analysis Zach! As always, I really enjoyed it. That said, I am still wondering what makes JLB be off pitch lots of times. I thought the old material being demanding and because of his age he has no necessary range anymore. That was until I saw him struggling with the most recent material like The Gift of Music from the Astonishing. What is the cause in your opinion?
On December 29, 1994, while vacationing in Cuba, LaBrie was stricken with a severe case of food poisoning
from contaminated shrimp and while vomiting, he ruptured his vocal
cords. He saw three throat specialists who all said there was nothing
they could do except have him rest his voice as much as possible.
However, on January 12, 1995, against doctor's orders, he was on the Waking Up the World Tour in Japan promoting Dream Theater's Awake album with his voice far from normal.[19]
LaBrie has said he did not feel vocally "normal" until at least 2002.
He has also said that this era was a very hard time for him as a singer,
and depression as a result caused him to consider departing from the
band, although his bandmates supported him and urged him to stay. After
the World Tourbulence tour, he discovered that his voice had fully returned. He said that his voice was fully healed by time and training.[19]
However, while speaking to Greg Prato of Songfacts in 2019, LaBrie
explained how the incident affected his vocal range. "So, instead of
hitting D's and E's and F-sharps and all that stuff, I was able to hit
C, C-sharp, and D. But I had to really watch it. I have hit F notes here
and there, but I have to really watch it. But that was probably the
darkest moment in my life, for sure."[20]
A 'fully healed' voice is different from a singer being able to retain their entire range pre-injury. That's one of those unfair, misleading buzzwords that put unjust expectations on singers.
I think a doctor told him to Stop!!
What an amazing video!
Thank you very much!
My favourite DT vocal is Wither, thats a clean, melodic vocal part and it matches La Bries voice exactly. When he tries to sing live nowadays though he just sounds tired and worn out
Please do Aerosmith - Amazing
I want u to do a video on international vocal coach ? Lol Robert Lunte. He has the worst voice quality I have ever heard but I don't think he knows it. Lol
I heard that James died in 2007 and was replaced with a zombie, is that true?
I would have to disagree with your general conclusion that all forms of rasp are “bad.” I feel that there are heathy and non-healthy ways to create distortion with your vocal folds. That also includes knowing when to use it and when it is excessive to the point that it is damaging. Like an athlete that has to take care of his/her joints... irresponsible habits make dirty vocals dangerous, rather than the technique itself.
This isn’t true. There are no peer reviewed methods that are proven to use vocal distortion safely/healthily.
Rasp can be used if mastered correctly. You can allow your voice to lean into that sound. Jumping right into the sound (like James did) is absolutely awful for his voice. That combined with the food poisoning killed his singing.
Show me some science backing your claim. Ken Tamplin isn’t science.
Ok but what about goose vocals??
What the FACH???? lol Nice dissection of James. He is indeed, a unique animal. Sadly, another great singer who killed his voice in the 90's.....smh.
The rasp is atmospheric magik.
JD McCue I disagree I think his clean vocals are better look at shows from 1992
Hey Zach! According to LaBrie's defenders you shouldn't be analyzing his performance based on a non-PRO-SHOT recording because "amateur camera recordings misrepesents his voice and make it sound shit"
If you want to find a weird singer to analyse then got some suggestions, LaBrie isnt one though. Try Mike Patton, or Diamanda Galas, or Billy Mackenzie. Those are unparalelled and odd voices to analyse not the burned out DT singer who should have dropped the mic after Falling into infinity.
And you can check the unmixed Labrie in July 2022 in Rio lol, also, DT never tune down their songs lmao
I did a whole series on Mike Patton actually.
I would love to see you do a vid on Geoff Tate. I know about all the controversy that surrounds him nowadays but that shouldn't matter. It's all hearsay anyway. Even before all that a lot of people were complaining that he''d "lost his voice" or was "washed up" all because he can no longer belt out those fifth octave monster notes but I tend to disagree and believe there's more to a voice than range. I've seen crowd shots of him performing the 1994 Promised Land track "Someone Else?" as recent as this year and he's seemed to do a fine job to my ears.
Also there's this (a little older but still mature Geoff): ua-cam.com/video/DKhghSEHB2w/v-deo.html
You'll notice, at the octave change, he takes a couple of large strides away from the mic (good mic technique is to move distance yourself from a mic during powerful passages to avoiding distorting/overpowering it) and belts with such power that he still carries perfectly. I'm no vocal professional (just an amateur musician who can barely carry a tune singing-wise) but that, to me, demonstrates the difference between a good voice and a great voice.
Would love to hear from someone who knows what they're talking about more.
Geoff Tate is certainly on the horizon! I have a Patron request video to do next week and he will be shortly after that!
Just wondering. You are aware that you compare 25 years differences? Even though your explanations seems fair and educated your resulting wording is too unfair in the end. I mean it's fucking 25 years. It's still amazing that man still sings decent those old challenging songs. You word your mind like "He would sing this like he did 25 years ago but he can't so he sucks and is inconsistent."
I am aware of that, for sure. You should watch my video 'The Curious Case of James Labrie', and I go into what you are saying in much greater detail.
have you done scott stapp? i know he did cortisone injections and other painkillers after a car wreck i believe. Plus he sang when drunk which as you know isnt good for the voice. He was actually good during my own prison late 90s era, alho im sure you wont like the rasps haha
I can add Stapp to the list. I want to clarify here, I dont dislike the sound of raspy vocals. I just know that they are vocally destructive. In these analyses my goal is to be completely objective, so I try to make my personal opinion of someone's sound irrelevant.
thats true, my error
Look forward to it! :)
Why is drunk singing bad? Just curious.