Bono's lower register

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jeevey

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What happened to it? He used to have this particularly dark low tone that just isn't there anymore. It's strikingly absent when you compare the album Ultraviolet to the 360 versions. Did it go all at once or was it gradual, and when did it go? Is it a stylistic choice, age, or the smoking? I usually think of smoking as taking from the upper range more than the lower, but the change in sound is pretty distinct.
 
That low register you are specifying was gone before the recording of the Pop album. It is still found on Passengers ('Blue Room' & 'Slug' for example). Something happened to his lower register between Passengers and Pop.
 
He can still do it. I just don't think he uses it a lot. I love his lower register. Much more than the falsetto which I'm clearly not a fan of.
 
That's about the time I was thinking of, Loris. It's not the range but the tone that I miss. But I don't know if he still smokes, or if damage from that is permanent. It seems like it was a pretty abrupt shift all at once.
 
That low register you are specifying was gone before the recording of the Pop album. It is still found on Passengers ('Blue Room' & 'Slug' for example). Something happened to his lower register between Passengers and Pop.

Yes, I think this is the case. He did use his lower register on Pop, in Velvet Dress. But I'd say that it's definitely significantly weaker there than it was on, say, Your Blue Room, although that happened to fit the song.

Bono has indicated that smoking, at one point (between Achtung and Passengers), helped his voice. This also happens to be when his lower register was strongest. I'm not sure what the connection is here, or if Bono still smokes.
 
What happened to it? He used to have this particularly dark low tone that just isn't there anymore. It's strikingly absent when you compare the album Ultraviolet to the 360 versions. Did it go all at once or was it gradual, and when did it go? Is it a stylistic choice, age, or the smoking? I usually think of smoking as taking from the upper range more than the lower, but the change in sound is pretty distinct.

He seemed to get away from it almost completely from 2000 and forward. It evokes a different emotion. In my opinion it was great but overused in the 90's. At first it was for style, then a crutch for an abused voice from smoking.
 
Yes, during the making of ATYCLB, probably around 1999. After he recovered, they were amazed at the difference. Hence his voice on Walk On, Kite, Wild Honey, etc. Now I think he finds that big, open voiced "OOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHH" thing easier to do than singing normally.
 
Yeah, his voice hasn't ever been the same since 1999. He had troubles with it during Popmart, but it actually changed in 1999.
 
He seemed to get away from it almost completely from 2000 and forward. It evokes a different emotion. In my opinion it was great but overused in the 90's. At first it was for style, then a crutch for an abused voice from smoking.

The sound I'm thinking of, he lost within just a few years of starting so it couldn't have been much of a crutch for long. He used it a lot on Achtung Baby, but I'll have to listen to R&H and see how it featured.

And how did this overlap with the Kermit voice, I wonder? Cause that also went away, but a little earlier.
 
Yeah, his voice hasn't ever been the same since 1999. He had troubles with it during Popmart, but it actually changed in 1999.

Popmart was pretty much hit and miss vocally speaking, but, as you said, it was still the voice we all knew. Since 99 it's a different voice.
 
Speaking of it actually changing, is it me or did the way he sound speaking and singing completely sound different from the start of ZooTV and the Sydney show?

Back to the 99/2000 voice change- in my opinion the reason he changed the singing style from low of the 90's to higher in 2000 is that it was his job to rile the crowd again- instead of having TV's and other props. The band was now the focal point again, and specifically Bono had to "sell" the songs vocally and physically. Much easier to do when singing/ screaming.
 
Bono's voice issue is something I've been thinking about a lot. I'm a doctor, so I'd say I'm also a bit knowledgeable on the medical side of the question.
My personal thought is that the change that we all notice between every U2 record should be blamed on a lot of reasons, concurrently. I think it's a mix of aging, smoking, surgery (not sure if this really happened, but there are people on the forum suggesting so), change of singing style, singing lessons. I'd suggest that the first two, smoking and aging, are the most likely. Sure enough, smoking has helped Bono's voice to develop a lot between War and Rattle&Hum; (developing also that lower register you're referring to) his voice became stronger and more "scratchy", but aging has played a strong role too. Things started to change after Rattle&Hum, particularly after the Lovetown tour. Bono struggled a lot during that tour, and his voice weakened a lot during those months, for a bunch of different reasons. First of all it's known that he over-used his voice, screaming his lungs out every night. Let me say that stressing your vocal folds more than you need to will weaken a lot your voice in causing irreparable damages. Secondly, Bono suffered of some kind of infection that hit his throat. Bono himself said that he had "some pretty psychedelic germs in Australia and that they were having their Annual General Meeting in his throat". In fact we notice that Achtung Baby sees a radical change in Bono's singing. His voice, although still wonderful and kinda strong, is clearly weaker and different. And things have gone worsening in the following years, faster and faster. So it's easy to say that the Lovetown tour is the pivot point in Bono's voice change, if we wanna consider 1988/1989 his peak, talking about his lower register too. In fact I think that he's never hit lower notes than in the Lovetown years.
Talking about today, we gotta say that his voice is totally different, but on the other side it's amazing in a whole different way. Sometimes it's really hard for me to relate today's Bono with JT/R&H/AB Bono, because they really seem to have two totally different voices. My point is that he's not lost his low register, and I'll give you an example. As I said before, it's not low as it was in 1989, but it's clear that he still handles it.

Enjoy
Bono (U2) recites a poem to Anton Corbijn - YouTube
 
Bono's peak in my opinion can be heard on their studio version of Unchained Melody. Some may not be a fan of the screaming but to me that's the most rock and roll his voice ever got.
 
I love these performances of Under my skin and two shots. I know some people have a problem with Bono crooning but I think it matches his voice perfectly. I would love to hear more of that in the future :up:
 
Speaking of it actually changing, is it me or did the way he sound speaking and singing completely sound different from the start of ZooTV and the Sydney show?

I'm still intending to go back and do a careful listen about this. I do think he sounds a lot more polished by the end of the tour.
 
Big difference.... 95 is a lot better to me. But yeah, Bono did not sound good in 2009 during the first leg. I guess he could do much better now, but not like 95 anymore..... and 95 is not his best era.
 
The first big change was after Lovetown, and the other in the years between Zoo TV and Pop years.
 
Big difference.... 95 is a lot better to me. But yeah, Bono did not sound good in 2009 during the first leg. I guess he could do much better now, but not like 95 anymore..... and 95 is not his best era.

He sounded absolutely incredible at the 2009 show I attended (Amsterdam II).
 
speaking of that radical change in his voice after Lovetown..do you guys know when Night and Day was recorded? I mean exact month. It would be very interesting to know this because when you listen for example to Where Did It all go wrong(recorded in May/June 1990) you can hear that his voice sounds much thinner and less deep, basically like on Hansa Tapes and AB voice...whereas on Night and Day it's still like on lovetown, much stronger..
 
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