Bono's Vocal Range

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I preferred Bono's vocals on PopMart to Elevation. On his good nights, you don't notice too much change from ZOO TV, though his lower register was starting to decline. He had some good individual moments in the show- the segue from Please to Streets comes to mind. I don't like his Elevation voice at all. I found it cracked, whiney, and too subdued. I know a previous poster liked that 'contrite' quality but it is not something I go for.
 
I haven't been to any of the shows on those two tours, but judging from the loads of videos (and audio bootlegs) I've seen I think Bono's voice has been good and bad on different things. While Bono's voice was a bit cleaner on PopMart I think he sounded a bit ridiculous sometimes. Like on this WTSHNN:

YouTube - U2 - Where the streets have no name (Popmart Rotterdam)
(Reminds me a bit of that awful Pet Shop Boys-cover, although it's obviously not that bad)

On Elevation he sounded not as clean and had to strain a lot more to hit the higher notes than he ever did on PopMart. But at the same time, I think he had much more passion then and his voice could sound really powerful at times. Oh, and Slane Castle beats the crap out of anything they ever accomplished on PopMart so that's an extra as well.

Overall, I can't decide. The low points on Elevation were pretty horrible, but the high points were better on that tour IMO so it's hard to say for me.
 
U2DMfan said:
Same as it ever was, Peterrrrrrrr.

He has hit that note in his sleep his entire career. It's an A.
In this live clip you've let your ears fool you into thinking that echo originates from Bono's lungs but who am I to rain on your parade? Think what you want.

All I know is this: Peterrrr just claimed that it would be impossible for "80s Bono" to sustain that A. Now, rather than post a litany of youtube links and bore people with so-called "analysis", let me just tell you this: It would not be impossible for any Bono to hit that note. My guess is Bono could hold an A when he was 16 years old.

If you want an example of something two steps above an A, listen to Pride on the album, where Bono farts out B's throughout. Impossible, I tells ya.

Just trying to help out. :wave:
Click to expand...

Yes, he could hit an A back in the 80s. but not with that powerful sound, because he didnt have that kind of sound in his voice back then.
The reason he cant sing WOWY like on the album version is that he dosnt have that sound in his voice today.
 
digitize said:
His voice really need to gain some weight.
Click to expand...

He tried.

bono210.jpg


Not the best way to go about it, I suppose.
 
Peterrrrr said:
MOS, UF, UV, Magnificent, DM and alot of the notes in the 360 highligths. Thin? No!
Click to expand...

But his voice doesn't sound the same as it did on ZOO TV and for me at least, that is the key issue. For all of your arguments, some of us here prefer the sound of Bono's younger voice.
 
He's almost 50 now. His voice is going to get thinner no matter what. Just like his hair. It's natural. His voice still sounds good, sometimes great, sometimes ok- just like always before. Sometimes good, sometimes great, sometimes ok. It's not as full as it was and he doesn't have the same falsetto and never will. But he still does a good/great job with what he's got left and has learned to sing some songs better through the years.

That is all.
 
popacrobat said:
But he still does a good/great job with what he's got left and has learned to sing some songs better through the years.
Click to expand...

Sadly, passion can't be learned. And I don't hear an ounce of it in his performances of the warhorses these days (also, screaming/whining/cracking =/= passion). It's easy to tell when Bono's vocals are inspired because they are are inspirational; though his voice today makes me want to sing along, it's only because I want to help fill out the sound. And it's not just Bono: 360's performances largely leave me cold, as did much of Vertigo. It hasn't always been this way though, even within this decade. Elevation Bono may not have been able to carry a tune in a bucket, but his voice felt a lot warmer to me.

This is all personal taste, of course.

Hey, has anyone noticed we've gone off topic again?
 
LemonMelon said:
Sadly, passion can't be learned. And I don't hear an ounce of it in his performances of the warhorses these days (also, screaming/whining/cracking =/= passion). It's easy to tell when Bono's vocals are inspired because they are are inspirational; though his voice today makes me want to sing along, it's only because I want to help fill out the sound. And it's not just Bono: 360's performances largely leave me cold, as did much of Vertigo. It hasn't always been this way though, even within this decade. Elevation Bono may not have been able to carry a tune in a bucket, but his voice felt a lot warmer to me.

This is all personal taste, of course.

Hey, has anyone noticed we've gone off topic again?
Click to expand...

The live versions of MOS, UV, TSOHOSOS, MLK, Amazing Grace, IALW is examples of how much passion and feeling he got in his voice.
 
Hitting the notes isn't the problem for Bono. It's the sound of his voice. He's just getting older, no way to stop it, but at the same time, he just has this... I don't know how to explain it, old sounding voice that just isn't as good to listen to. Can't blame Bono though, after all that touring and voice problems etc, it just happens.
 
I and I in the said:
I'm sorry for the decades of disappointment you're about to endure.
Click to expand...

That's being optimistic. "Decades" is plural, meaning at least 20 years. In that amount of time, Bono will be 70 years old.

At the current rate they release studio albums, they should have about two more albums out by then.

So, not too much disappointment to come.
 
Amiarockstar said:
I've never heard him sing better than this:

YouTube - U2 : Sunday Bloody Sunday - Live Dublin '86 ((Stereo))

And this:

YouTube - U2 : Bad - Live Dublin '86 ((Stereo))

Though he does struggle with the "Wide Awakes" at the end of the song. He sings too many of them.

I have to agree with everyone that said 1984-1989 is the best period for his voice.
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I agree 100% with regards to the Conspiracy of Hope performances in 1986 being quite possibly the best Bono vocal performances ever.

I just think there is a lot of daylight between this voice and the straining, screaming and blow outs that were common in 1987 and 1989.

Even Peterrr agrees that these were the best performances of Bad and Pride.
 
Can someone please tell me what happened to Bono's voice before the recording of Pop? It seems to me that was the exact point when his voice took a drastic change. You can almost define Bono's voice as "Pre-Pop" when talking about how his voice used to sound before 1997. Why is this?
 
Michael Griffiths said:
Can someone please tell me what happened to Bono's voice before the recording of Pop? It seems to me that was the exact point when his voice took a drastic change. You can almost define Bono's voice as "Pre-Pop" when talking about how his voice used to sound before 1997. Why is this?
Click to expand...

Good question and I don't think there's an easy answer. In U2 by U2, Bono dates the start of his vocal problems to the recording of Pop, which would be 1996. He said it was 'the smokes', which started to give his voice a gruffer texture and made it more vulnerable to blowing out. But what isn't explained is the noticeable loss of 'depth' from his voice, or in other words, the decline of his lower register. That seemed to go just as quickly. On Passengers, he was crooning YBR and Slug with that familiar depth but two years later it wasn't there. Indeed some fans think he sang as if on helium during Pop Mart. Can you explain that change with reference to smoking? I don't know.
 
Well there was also a reference to "surgery" on his throat around that time. Whether it was real surgery or just a biopsy, I'm not sure we really know.
 
The thing most of us forget it that in the beginning of the 80s he had no dark depth in his voice it begann on the JT album. Before the JT album he started to smoke, to get a darker, more "male" voice. And that why he had such a dark deep voice from 1987-1995. But it comes with a price, the smoking also destroys the voice. All of you that miss his dark voice should remember that it wasnt his natural voice, it was the smoking who made him sound like that.

Well Bono dosnt smoke that much today and there is one of the reason why he dont have that dark voice today, but sometimes I think he smokes before a recording to get back that deep voice, wich I think he did on this song(wich has one of his deepest voice ever)
YouTube - A Dying Sailor To His Shipmates
 
I think he said he started smoking because he wanted to have a more "raspy" tone?

I dunno if it's just me, but it seems like JT is really the first time we start to hear that deeper side of his voice, as in WOWY. On prior albums, when he did sing lower, it just sounds totally different to me (like the first verse of Drowning Man).
 
Shine Like Stars :heart:

I wasn't expecting that at all when I heard it. It brought a nice smile to my face.
 
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