Bono's Vocal Range

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Bono's technique may well be better now but in my opinion it doesn't sound as good as his pre-97 voice. It's hard to describe, but it seems to have lost that rich, deep, crooning quality which you hear on songs like One, Night And Day and Slug. Furthermore, his falsetto is clearly in decline. Bono remains a fine singer and has put in some great performances since 2005 but something went in the mid-1990s and never quite came back.
 
Yes, anyone know what exactly happened with Bono's voice after Zooropa/Passengers? Something happened to his voice between those albums and Pop (1997): On Pop, for the first time, Bono no longer has that rich, full voice he had on previous recordings. Achtung Baby was really the last of the late 80s vocal, but it wasn't until after Passengers that we really heard the drastic change. Was it the throat operation he had? I don't believe it was change in technique; the change in technique was more a RESULT/necessity of the change in his voice rather than the other way around, in my opinion. Ever since 1997, Bono has been singing in a higher tone of voice, a higher pitch, without really hitting stride in his lower register or his midle register. Anyone have thoughts on this?
 
^ All I know is that it is a complete miracle that his voice managed to recover from that bleak period. If you listen to some of the Popmart shows his voice is so weak from time to time. I just think it was down to too much excess - smoking, drinking (and I have a strong suspicion, his fair share of drugs as well :wink:) at that period in the early-mid 90s. What I've always wanted to know is whether the other guys were putting pressure on Bono to sort himself out and get his vocal health back on track. I remember there was a bit about it in U2 by U2 but not explicitly addressed.
 
MikeyJB said:
^ All I know is that it is a complete miracle that his voice managed to recover from that bleak period. If you listen to some of the Popmart shows his voice is so weak from time to time. I just think it was down to too much excess - smoking, drinking (and I have a strong suspicion, his fair share of drugs as well :wink:) at that period in the early-mid 90s. What I've always wanted to know is whether the other guys were putting pressure on Bono to sort himself out and get his vocal health back on track. I remember there was a bit about it in U2 by U2 but not explicitly addressed.
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All I remember what happened to his throat was no joke. there was a real cancer scare at the time no one know about except for his Dr.... and may be Ali.
 
monsieur fly said:
Bono's technique may well be better now but in my opinion it doesn't sound as good as his pre-97 voice. It's hard to describe, but it seems to have lost that rich, deep, crooning quality which you hear on songs like One, Night And Day and Slug. Furthermore, his falsetto is clearly in decline. Bono remains a fine singer and has put in some great performances since 2005 but something went in the mid-1990s and never quite came back.
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This.

His voice from show to show whilst on tour is becoming to predictable. He's singing a song the exact same way throughout the entire tour, well several songs, instead of experimenting night to night. He also seems to have lost alot of passion in songs, especially older songs. I'm no expert, but if you were a singer, wouldnt you want to make every single song sound its best. If i was Bono, i would take a good look back at several performances of several songs, and try and take something from them. I know the band dont believe in looking back, but the way there moving forward, songs like Streets, Pride ect are just going to get murdered even more from lack of passion and boring performances. The last time we seen the real flavour of Bono's voice in an entire tour was back in 2001, the evelavtion tour. Yes his voice was really strained, but from night to night he sang with nothing but passion, aswell as experimenting alot with it. It seemed back then he actually enjoyed the sound of his own voice, he just played around with it. Now, with songs like Streets, WOWY, Beautiful Day, he thinks just singing the lyrics will do, when actually it wont. Listen to how died out Eleveation sounded on the 360 tour, i mean it was so bad it was embarrassing. The wooo hooo he makes at the start of the song sounds horrible, and he just talks the verses. Its like the song has been dropped an entire tone.

Listen to the " SOUL, IVE GOT NOT SELF CONTROL " lyric in this video:
YouTube - U2 - Elevation - 360 Tour (HD) - Wembley Stadium London - 14/8/2009

It sounds like its part of the verses, rather it should be the bridge right, where the song goes up a tone. It just sounds really flat when compared to:

YouTube - U2 Elevation Live At Slane Castle

And Elevation isnt even old when you compare it to half the songs that have been played, so i dont think theres any excuse for such a below par performance.
The same can be said for Beautiful Day, the bridges in that song now is as flat as anything, the song sounds so much better when he shouts " TOUCH ME, TOUCH ME, TAKE ME TO ANOTHER PLACE ". But now, its " tooooouch me ". The same can be said for the entire song actually, its just been dropped a tone again. This is something which is actually becoming a really annoying thing to me, but i guess moaning wont change anything. It seems everyone is more bothered about the condition of his voice nowdays then the actually things he does with it. Wouldn't you prefer a deep, passionate Bono voice which is a but strained over a plain, boring but in good condition voice ?
 
I'm always surprised the way you talk about Bono's voice, he has one of the best voices in the pop-rock panorama, he's incredible, but his voice has always been very fragile, he's been struggling with the problem from the very beginning, sometimes you make it sound as if it were his own fault, but it's not, each body has its own limitations, he has suffered from not having had a proper instruction before going professional, not only singing instruction but also breathing technique, but we all know he couldn't afford it, if something, I would say he shouldn't have sung so many gigs with laryngitis and that sometimes he has pushed his voice a bit out of its limits, maybe all of this would have been alright if the band's carreer had been an average 10-15 years one, but he's been singing for more than 30 years now.
What happened to him in the mid 90s? I think only him and a few of his dearest friends and family know and that's ok for me, so what I'm going to write now is my own speculation, I think ZooTv was too long and too demanding and he damaged his vocal chords to a level he wasn't aware until the tour finished and his voice rested for a while, wether he had any nodule is something I can't speculate, he says no and that's enough for me, he also says he didn't have any operation, just an exploration to see what was happening and that must be true, he couldn't have been able to sing for a very long time if he had and his voice would have been totally different (You even have to learn how to speak after such an operation).
I'm not sure you understand how painful it is when you suffer in your vocal chords and how difficult it is to recover them when they are already damaged, it requires constant work and care and even so it is a miracle to get to such a recovery as Bono has managed, his range is completely recovered when singing natural and his operatic voice is amazing, better than ever, the falsetto is not as good as it used to be, that's true, but that was my least favourite among Bono's skills. That's why I'm so grateful when I listen to any new recording, concert or live performing, it's a real present.
 
Anyone who thinks anything about Bono's singing is better now than it was then has a screw loose. Since when has rock singing been about "technique?" Christ on a bike. Bottom line: his voice has been getting thinner and thinner since ZooTV. Just because he can still hit a high note doesn't mean he sounds nearly as good singing normal notes as he did then. Just compare a song like Unforgettable Fire on this tour to the version of 1987 in Paris. He just had a better voice back then in every way.
 
Sometimes people just like the sound of emotion and right now Bono's voice is full of it. Q magazine described it as a voice that gets more interesting with age. I fully agree.

I love his 80s and 90s voice, but I like his current voice a lot too. Probably the best, actually.

Some people like "pure" voices, like he had in 84. Me, I like broken sounding voices like his current voice and Springsteen's.
 
PhilsFan said:
Anyone who thinks anything about Bono's singing is better now than it was then has a screw loose. Since when has rock singing been about "technique?" Christ on a bike. Bottom line: his voice has been getting thinner and thinner since ZooTV. Just because he can still hit a high note doesn't mean he sounds nearly as good singing normal notes as he did then. Just compare a song like Unforgettable Fire on this tour to the version of 1987 in Paris. He just had a better voice back then in every way.
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1987 Paris Unforgettable Fire, he did not even sing the high parts at the end.

I think his current voice gave TUF the best performances it has ever seen in Milan this past summer.

Bottom line, you can find versions of TUF that were lacking voice wise in 1987 and you can find them on 360. Notably toward the end of 360. Overall, I think he sang it much better on 360.

Look at Ultraviolet side by side Zoo Tv Washington and 360 Barcelona. "you bury your treasure..." sounds almost like he is talking it in Washington.

I don't think you can accurately make such a broad statement about the decline since Zoo TV. I would take any 5th leg Vertigo performance of Bad over a Zoo TV performance of it any day. Objectively, his voice was much fuller for that leg than it was for Zoo TV. Listen to Zoo TV Sydney- granted it is the end of the tour, but do Pride and Streets sound a little tuned down to you?

The trajectory has not gone like you describe at all. Popmart he struggled, continued to decline throughout Elevation but has markedly improved since then.

Back in the 80s and to a lesser extent on Zoo TV, he had to scream to hit alot more notes that he hits pretty routinely now.

I don't think anyone attending the last 2 tours has ever had to sit through a concert where Bono's voice was admittedly blown out or have them postponed(Rotterdam Lovetown for example) due to Bono's voice being shot. His peaks in the 80s were awesome, but his valleys often led to poor or postponed shows.

I would like UF smoothness meeting Lovetown power every night too, but given the amount of years Bono has been at this, it is pretty amazing that he can still tour 100plus shows at all.

Besides, I think Vertigo and 360 has seen him combine the technique and smoothness that were present in the UF period with an increasing amount of power that we heard in the late 80s.

The strength of his voice is much improved over 2001 and alot of his power is coming back.

I have always taken the advice of my aunt and other people I know who have seen U2 live many times since the early 1980s. All of them tell me Bono's voice is not better or worse, just different.
 
PhilsFan said:
Anyone who thinks anything about Bono's singing is better now than it was then has a screw loose. Since when has rock singing been about "technique?"
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I prefer Bono to be a technically better singer than just shouting like mad, like he mostly did in the 80s. He might have had more volume back than, but he basically ruined his voice by singing the wrong way for years and years. He should have taken some singing lessons back then and learn to use his voice as an instrument, get control over it and learn some techniques. Seems like he's done that in recent years. I prefer his voice as it is now. He has an unique voice and has more control over it. I want him to actually SING, not shout around.
 
last unicorn said:
I prefer his voice as it is now. He has an unique voice and has more control over it. I want him to actually SING, not shout around.
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I dont really see anything unique about his voice at the moment. The thing that has made Bono's voice unique in his singing career is the deep emotional style or, the passionate shouting style. At the moment, on 50% of the songs, he isn't do either, he's almost talking, not singing. Its as if he's singing the lyrics without actually thinking of a certain technique to make the song shine. Most of U2's songs require you to shout, to make them up tempo and passionate, songs like Elevation, Beautiful Day. He did shout and make them passionate back in 2001, but now, its just a simple sing along which sounds horribly flat.
 
PhilsFan said:
Anyone who thinks anything about Bono's singing is better now than it was then has a screw loose. Since when has rock singing been about "technique?" Christ on a bike. Bottom line: his voice has been getting thinner and thinner since ZooTV. Just because he can still hit a high note doesn't mean he sounds nearly as good singing normal notes as he did then. Just compare a song like Unforgettable Fire on this tour to the version of 1987 in Paris. He just had a better voice back then in every way.
Click to expand...

Singing is about technique. Any kind of singing needs a technique for the projection of the voice and a breathing technique, if you don't have them and you aren't what we call a natural (people who just do it well by instinct), then you risk your voice, it's not like many of you seem to believe because of smoking or drinking or partying, most singers drink, go to parties and smoke, opera singers usually smoke before performing and not because of nerves, it is a means to heat their throats. (I'm not inferring that smoking is good, by the way)

Bono's voice hasn't been getting thinner and thinner from Zootv, it underwent a really bad and dangerous period during Popmart and Elevation, but his recovery since Vertigo Tour has been like a miracle, because it was very difficult to achieve.

I've been to 10 shows during the first leg of 360 Tour and I think that Unforgettable Fire in Barcelona and Milan are his best from all times, of course there were better nights than others, he's a man, not a guitar, I've got Paris 1987, I don't think his voice was especially good that night, he obviously hurt his throat during a song, you can see it in his face, that happened because he didn't project his voice correctly, I went to several shows during the Joshua Tree Tour, I remember I was quite concerned about his voice in some of them, as always happens to any singer in any tour.

You might prefer his early way of singing, that's something I can't say anything about, but that kind of singing is what brought him so many problems, now he sings much better, he hits higher notes with a much smaller amount of effort, he's got an operatic voice he had never used before and thanks to his technique he's taking good care of his voice while he hasn't lost any emotional bit in his performance, for me he's a better singer than he was back in the 80's.
 
SexyBootsU2 said:
I dont really see anything unique about his voice at the moment. The thing that has made Bono's voice unique in his singing career is the deep emotional style or, the passionate shouting style. At the moment, on 50% of the songs, he isn't do either, he's almost talking, not singing. Its as if he's singing the lyrics without actually thinking of a certain technique to make the song shine. Most of U2's songs require you to shout, to make them up tempo and passionate, songs like Elevation, Beautiful Day. He did shout and make them passionate back in 2001, but now, its just a simple sing along which sounds horribly flat.
Click to expand...

Shout is what you do when you don't know how to sing it.
Have you been to any 360 shows? If you have, I can't understand how you can say that the songs sounded flat, sorry.
 
Bono's voice was very good on the 360 tour. Vertigo was great also, but he had weaknesses back than, his voice used to tire easily and started to sound strained. Vertigo leg 5 was the best leg, the South American leg was a disaster, as far as his voice is concerned. During the 360 tour, Bono seemed to be very much in control over his voice and realising that he's actually a singer. Maybe you could argue that he sometimes takes back his voice when it comes to hitting certain notes, maybe he should take more risks, but his singing voice is very fine right now and it's getting more interesting with age.

And yes, his voice is unique. He has a very characteristic voice and singing style, unlike many other singers where you cannot say the difference between them and others because they sound so flat and ordinary. I mostly like Bono's low register and wish he'd use it more often.
 
U2387 said:
1987 Paris Unforgettable Fire, he did not even sing the high parts at the end.

I think his current voice gave TUF the best performances it has ever seen in Milan this past summer.

Bottom line, you can find versions of TUF that were lacking voice wise in 1987 and you can find them on 360. Notably toward the end of 360. Overall, I think he sang it much better on 360.

Look at Ultraviolet side by side Zoo Tv Washington and 360 Barcelona. "you bury your treasure..." sounds almost like he is talking it in Washington.

I don't think you can accurately make such a broad statement about the decline since Zoo TV. I would take any 5th leg Vertigo performance of Bad over a Zoo TV performance of it any day. Objectively, his voice was much fuller for that leg than it was for Zoo TV. Listen to Zoo TV Sydney- granted it is the end of the tour, but do Pride and Streets sound a little tuned down to you?

The trajectory has not gone like you describe at all. Popmart he struggled, continued to decline throughout Elevation but has markedly improved since then.

I have always taken the advice of my aunt and other people I know who have seen U2 live many times since the early 1980s. All of them tell me Bono's voice is not better or worse, just different.
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You make your case very well but I disagree. For me, it is besides the point that Bono didn't go for the high notes on TUF in 1987- I am more interested in the sound of his voice than whether or not he goes for high notes. Now, I think that Bono sang TUF very well last year but I preferred the deep, rich sound of his 87 voice. The same goes for UV- again, whilst Bono sang it beautifully last year, I still prefer the ZOO TV rendition because there was something magical about the sound of Bono's voice then. It is a matter of choice, I suppose. Some people want to hear Bono going for high notes, others (like me) prefer the sound of Bono's lower register and want him to use it more often.
 
I also thing that his voice on the 360 is good but flat. That's the main reason why I prefer previous tours. Even Elevation tour is better to my eyes. Slane or (moslty) Boston are great shows. His voice in the Boston Elevation DVD is great. Bullet is unbelievable (due to his "not at all flat voice"), Fly, Stay....

And yeah, I prefer his deep row 80's - 95 voice than his actual one.
 
Well Bono's voice definitely sounds much thinner these days, whatever high notes he manages to hit. I actually find a lot of his mid-to-late 80s singing too overbearing for my liking, but his voice back then did have a wonderful golden richness to it. Still, I love his lived-in vocals on ATYCLB and the later albums.
 
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