re: Bono's voice


John Wilson ([email protected])
Thu, 24 Sep 1998 10:31:47 +1000 (EST)


Hi all,

just thought I'd say some stuff about Bono's voice. He has one of the most
orginal voices in the rock industry today....that's why you have people
trying to emulate him, such as Daryl from Savage Garden and the singer from
The Verve etc.... many people have tried to copy his sound. I personally do
not know which period of U2's history I prefer as far a Bono's voice goes.
I absolutely love the real ballsy sound he has on Rattle and Hum, but the
newer style he has persued is obviously more 'grown up' and sort of shows
that he knows what he's doing with his voice now.

In the past Bono has been uncomfortable with his vocals, it can be clearly
heard on many of U2's earlier albums, BAD is a good example. On many
earlier songs his voice lacks strength and a real direction...he has truly
come a long way since then.

I put this change in style down to a number of things: (i) I think Bono has
actually had serious vocal lessons in recent years, (I know he had some
early in his career around the WAR period, but his voice really didn't get
any better until Joshua Tree)
(ii) Bono absolutely thrashed his vocal chords on the Rattle and Hum tour,
as the album and video clearly demonstrates. His screaming and shouting on
this tour has actually ruined some of his vocal chords, and at times on the
tour they actually bled because he was thrashing them so much). You can
hear the damaged vocal chord/s if you listen hard to newer songs, sometimes
the sound gets lost amongst the vibrato in his voice, but if you listen hard
you can hear a kind of cracking sound in amongst his vocals and that is
coming from a damaged voal chord.
(iii) an obvious one is the smoking...this is not good for your body, and
really not good for your voice either, unless you want to get deeper and
huskier anyway. Bono's smoking habit has also had an affect an his voice.
It is clear on ZOOTV from Sydney...listen to how weak and sort of monotonal
Bono's voice is here simply because he was smoking before he started the
song....I know some of this can be put down to opening nerves though.
(iv) Bono's increasing use of falsetto (that is, singing really high like a
little girl) demonstrates his adaption to not being able to shout and scream
like he used to...it is a bit disappointing sometimes when he can't belt
songs like New Years Day and Pride out like he used to.

Any which way you look at it, I think Bono is a very influential singer,
even if so called 'real' singers don't regard his vocal abilities highly, I
do, and I know many others out there do to....he represents the common
people and shows that if you put your mind to it, anything is possible.

Rock'n'Roll Doggie,
Wilson



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b2 on Wed Sep 23 1998 - 17:36:41 PDT