Brian's voice

[Jay]

....To me Brian's vocals on Matchpoint or Come out Tonight sound very much like his late 60s-early 70s vocals. I don't think this sudden return to form was due to quitting cigarettes or drugs for a few months. Much more likely is that Brian wanted to (or was forced to) sing in his old (younger) voice.

You have got to be kidding me. 

I entirely agree with that statement. I think Brian sounds great on "Matchpoint". However, I think that it was mainly due to massive studio "trickery". That is, acheived by piecing together several of the best vocal takes.

[Jay]

He does have a falsetto today. 

Ummm....no. Sorry to disagree with you, but Brian has little to no trace of what I would call a "falsetto" voice today. Just go on YouTube, and watch the video of Brian and his backing band doing "When I Grow Up(To Be A Man)" from Norway, 2007. It's terrible.

[Jay]

I don't know all of the facts, to let's assume that Brian started to smoke heavily starting in 1975, like most of the people here think.  From 1975 to when Landy first came into the picture in 1976, it was around one year, give or take a few months. Even if Brian had smoked up to five packs a day, I highly doubt that one year was long enough to do "irreparable" damage.

All of this falsetto talk reminds me of Eddie Kendricks, who was the falsetto singer for The Temptations. He was what I'd call a "regular heavy smoker". That is, he probably smoked a pack or two a day, but not nearly as much as Brian did. Eddie kept his falsetto for close to twenty years before his voice showed signs of damage. That just goes to show you that you can smoke heavily on a daily basis, but still keep most of your singing voice. I think it's likely that Eddie took voice lessons regularly. I wonder how Brian would sound today if he had tried to "fix" his voice as early as 1976?

[jmc]

All of this falsetto talk reminds me of Eddie Kendricks, who was the falsetto singer for The Temptations. He was what I'd call a "regular heavy smoker". That is, he probably smoked a pack or two a day, but not nearly as much as Brian did. Eddie kept his falsetto for close to twenty years before his voice showed signs of damage. That just goes to show you that you can smoke heavily on a daily basis, but still keep most of your singing voice.

Hmmm. but Eddie didn't ingest grams of coke, urns of coffee, along with large amounts of alcohol, pot, etc on top of his 4-5 packs of cigarettes a day.  There's a big difference between the two. 

We're talking about upwards of 80-100 cigarettes a day.  Imagine how having approximately one cigarette every 7-10 minutes would feel (that's assuming Brian was awake for 12 hours a day). This is alarming when you think that it takes about 5 minutes to smoke one.....maybe longer.  The guy was basically breathing cigarette smoke for a year except for when sleeping.  No exercise, probably very little singing.  Think of the damage that would do to your breathing alone.
 

To me the best evidence arguing against a physical cause for the voice change is MIU. To me Brian's vocals on Matchpoint or Come out Tonight sound very much like his late 60s-early 70s vocals.

What?

[mikeyj]

All of this falsetto talk reminds me of Eddie Kendricks, who was the falsetto singer for The Temptations. He was what I'd call a "regular heavy smoker". That is, he probably smoked a pack or two a day, but not nearly as much as Brian did. Eddie kept his falsetto for close to twenty years before his voice showed signs of damage. That just goes to show you that you can smoke heavily on a daily basis, but still keep most of your singing voice.

Hmmm. but Eddie didn't ingest grams of coke, urns of coffee, along with large amounts of alcohol, pot, etc on top of his 4-5 packs of cigarettes a day.  There's a big difference between the two. 

We're talking about upwards of 80-100 cigarettes a day.  Imagine how having approximately one cigarette every 7-10 minutes would feel (that's assuming Brian was awake for 12 hours a day). This is alarming when you think that it takes about 5 minutes to smoke one.....maybe longer.  The guy was basically breathing cigarette smoke for a year except for when sleeping.  No exercise, probably very little singing.  Think of the damage that would do to your breathing alone.

Can I just ask, people keep saying Brian smoked 5 packs a day. Where is this information coming from? I've read similar things but do we actually KNOW that Brian smoked that many a day. It just seems an awful lot.

[Shane]

"All of this falsetto talk reminds me of Eddie Kendricks, who was the falsetto singer for The Temptations. He was what I'd call a "regular heavy smoker". That is, he probably smoked a pack or two a day, but not nearly as much as Brian did. Eddie kept his falsetto for close to twenty years before his voice showed signs of damage."

Yes, it did take time, but have you ever heard Eddie Kendricks performing in the 80's or early 90's?  His voice was absolutely ruined.

On this same subject, have you ever heard John Sebastian sing lately?  What the heck happened to his voice?  He seems to speak normally, but when he tries to sing... wow.

[Jay]

Yes, it did take time, but have you ever heard Eddie Kendricks performing in the 80's or early 90's?  His voice was absolutely ruined.

Yes, I have. It's true that his voice was totally gone by the mid 80's. But still, it was a gradual process that took around 15 years to catch up with him. Like I said earlier in this thread, Eddie probably had a voice trainer, where as Brian most likely did not. Also, to answer jmc, Eddie was also a pretty much confirmed cocaine user.

[pixletwin]

As it was suggested earlier, perhaps it wasn't just the residual effects of tobacco and drug abuse alone which destroyed his voice. Perhaps he really declared war on his voice...

[SurfRiderHawaii]

"On this same subject, have you ever heard John Sebastian sing lately?  What the heck happened to his voice?  He seems to speak normally, but when he tries to sing... wow.

He sounds better than ever to me.  He's using several voices on his newest record.  Check out http://www.johnbsebastian.com/audio.html

[MBE]

MIU is fairly good vocally but as on pitch as something like Matchpoint is, it is a completely different style of singing. She's Got Rhythm just doesn't sound like the Brian who cut the Awake demo 5-6 years earlier or Hard Times just three years before.  In any case I think Brian himself has said he smoked as much as he could during that time. The friends I cited earlier confirm this. He just didn't stop even when eating. Had he not started smoking, drinking, or drugging years before 1975 perhaps he couldn't have done it in one year, but he merely was multiplying his bad habits. If mid 1973 was the turning point, he abusing himself constantly by 1975. In my eyes it just got to the point to where his vocal chords couldn't take it.

[matt-zeus]

Brian wanted to sound like Frank Sinatra, I remember reading something to that effect in an interview, hence the Adult child album and him submitting songs for approval. Once you have that in mind the delivery becomes clearer, as well as gruffer his accent is more 'New York' if you catch my drift and quite similar to Dennis' voice.

[Chris Brown]

Brian wanted to sound like Frank Sinatra, I remember reading something to that effect in an interview, hence the Adult child album and him submitting songs for approval. Once you have that in mind the delivery becomes clearer, as well as gruffer his accent is more 'New York' if you catch my drift and quite similar to Dennis' voice.

Yeah I read that too, might have been in the Carlin book?

Anyways, like others have said, Brian was multiplying his bad habits.  He was embarassed by his high voice and basically set out to destroy it.  He didn't totally succeed (at least for too long); he managed to get some degree of falsetto back in the late '70s and into the '80s, and can still pull it off in the studio.  It just doesn't sound like it used to.  The sweetness is gone, and it sounds more forced and shrill. 

I would bet that (like a lot of things) Brian really regrets what he did to his voice back then.  Who knows how good he would sound now without all that damage?  He might still have a live falsetto, and his studio falsetto might sound a bit closer to what it used to be. 

[pixletwin]

Well we're all talking about Brian's voice like it was all about the falsetto when it wasn't. I don't think thats what he was trying, alone, to destroy. He was trying to destroy the boyish/effeminate quality which his voice had (which wasn't limited to merely his falsetto... But his tone and the timbre of his voice-falsetto and otherwise).

[Chris Brown]

Well we're all talking about Brian's voice like it was all about the falsetto when it wasn't. I don't think thats what he was trying, alone, to destroy. He was trying to destroy the boyish/effeminate quality which his voice had (which wasn't limited to merely his falsetto... But his tone and the timbre of his voice-falsetto and otherwise).

You're absolutely right...I think we just tend to associate the falsetto with that boyish/effeminate character of his old voice.  He was trying to wipe it all out, certainly.  However I think the falsetto was a bigger part of that, because he was becoming very embarassed by his singing on the early BB's records.  I don't remember where I read it, but he started hating that sound (which he was always self-conscious about, even in the beginning), and wanted to destroy it. 

Of, course, destroying the falsetto, as you pointed out, wasn't the only thing he was trying to do.  He wanted to sing in a more "manly" way (more like Sinatra, or Dennis), and that included trying to wipe out the clarity of his singing voice, in all its ranges.  But I think destroying the falsetto was a big part of that, because it had always made him feel self-conscious and not "manly" enough. 

[RONDEMON]

It's always funny that it's generally thought he "hated" his voice in the 70's because in the Wild Honey/Friends twofer liner notes, (first page) he says (regarding "Anna Lee")
"...with my high voice taking the place of a girl's voice. I never felt bad or self-conscious about my voice because I can sing high and low both."

Though we know BW is a man of contradictions, this says something...
I still think his late 60's early to mid 70's voice is his best. Kinda thin, but still sweet but matured.

[Amy B.]

Yes, he often contradicts himself. On the blueboard awhile ago, someone posted about how Brian never liked his falsetto. All of a sudden Brian pops up and writes, "What are you talking about? I never had a problem with my falsetto. Do you?" Something like that, anyway.

But on the A&E biography, Ginger Blake remembers that Brian was self-conscious about his falsetto and afraid people were going to laugh on the night she, Diane, and Marilyn met Brian at Pandora's Box.

[Chris Brown]

Yes, he often contradicts himself. On the blueboard awhile ago, someone posted about how Brian never liked his falsetto. All of a sudden Brian pops up and writes, "What are you talking about? I never had a problem with my falsetto. Do you?" Something like that, anyway.

But on the A&E biography, Ginger Blake remembers that Brian was self-conscious about his falsetto and afraid people were going to laugh on the night she, Diane, and Marilyn met Brian at Pandora's Box.

I would guess that Brian might feel differently about his old falsetto now just because he doesn't have it anymore.  Maybe losing it has made him appreciate it more.  But like you said, there is no doubt that he was very self-conscious about it right from the beginning.  In the Don Was doc, he said something to the effect of "I was a little embarassed about my voice, but everyone kept saying it sounded good so I kept using it."

By the way, not to start a Melinda debate or anything, but that Blueboard response doesn't seem like something Brian would say at all.  Way too defensive.

[Wirestone]

Ummm....no. Sorry to disagree with you, but Brian has little to no trace of what I would call a "falsetto" voice today. Just go on YouTube, and watch the video of Brian and his backing band doing "When I Grow Up(To Be A Man)" from Norway, 2007. It's terrible.

Jay, you are absolutely wrong. And you did not read my full post. That irritates me.

I wrote: "Now, it's a more strained sound, and it certainly isn't at his beck and call in concert, but it still hangs around there (in the studio, at least)."

In other words, I said outright that Brian doesn't have easy access to that range in concert (he doesn't try to sing in it most times, anyway). What I said is that Brian does have a reasonable falsetto range when he sings in the controlled environment of a recording studio.

How do I know that? I listen. Brian sings in falsetto on all of his studio albums. Is it always great? No. Is it always there? Yes. And if you listen to the demos from TLOS on his website, he IS singing falsetto on them. So don't misrepresent me, and don't say things about Brian's range that are obviously wrong to anyone with ears.

[the captain]

On the blueboard awhile ago, someone posted about how Brian never liked his falsetto. All of a sudden Brian pops up and writes, "What are you talking about? I never had a problem with my falsetto. Do you?" Something like that, anyway.

I believe it was in response to one of my posts that wasn't actually directed at him. He (or Melinda, or whoever posts for him if it isn't him) commented on how I had called his current falsetto more "ragged" than his younger self's falsetto. I felt a little bad when he read and posted. But I don't back down from the statement, as anyone with reasonable hearing would agree that it's true. And claymcc is absolutely right--he still does have a falsetto. It just isn't good or dependable. (Then again, his other register isn't really dependable either. He sings bad notes a lot these days.)

[Sheriff John Stone]

I think when Brian talked about not liking the feminine sound of his voice, he was referring to the earlier years on songs like "Farmer's Daughter", "Lana", "The Warmth Of The Sun",  and maybe even "Let Him Run Wild". You know, the ones where he got way up there, not necessarily like his falsettos on "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "I Get Around", but "high" lead vocals. Oddly enough, those are the vocals that made him special. I didn't think he was referring to his "feminine" voice of 1975. Was it feminine in 1975?

I also thought he had gotten over that "complex" by the time Pet Sounds, SMiLE, and Friends came along, though I could be wrong. Anyway, as I stated a few pages back, I never thought Brian INTENTIONALLY tried to physically change his voice, especially just to get a huskier sound.

He didn't have to! He was getting there naturally. Although it's sometimes hard to isolate, if you listen to his vocal contributions on Spring, Holland (The Fairy Tale), and "Child Of Winter" - he was already getting there. And this was before the chain smoking. Brian was a talented enough vocalist that he could've sounded any way he wanted to, including "lower", without subjecting his voice to substances to get there. Somebody above stated that you couldn't do that degree of damage in a short period of time simply by chain smoking. I agree. It was the cocaine. 

 

[carl r]

I still think his late 60's early to mid 70's voice is his best. Kinda thin, but still sweet but matured.

I agree with this, for instance on the Friends-era stuff his voice sounds great to me. I still like the tone and timbre of his voice now, even if it strains a bit.

The twist is, that if he wanted to move on and do other things as an artist, he surely wouldn't have needed it as much. Falsettos tend to be associated with a type of early 60s pop... let's say his voice had survived intact and he'd have always used it in his songs. Would this have eventually locked Brian even more into the nostalgia circuit? (from which he seems to have just about escaped...)  I am probably very ignorant but the only respectable falsetto hits in my lifetime which spring to mind are "Grease is the Word" - which was virtually 50s nostalgia anyway - and  a few tracks by the great Curtis Mayfield. Or am I wrong, have I simply missed the falsettos in front of my eyes (boy bands, etc)...?

[the captain]

Falsettos tend to be associated with a type of early 60s pop... let's say his voice had survived intact and he'd have always used it in his songs. Would this have eventually locked Brian even more into the nostalgia circuit? (from which he seems to have just about escaped...)  I am probably very ignorant but the only respectable falsetto hits in my lifetime which spring to mind are "Grease is the Word" - which was virtually 50s nostalgia anyway - and  a few tracks by the great Curtis Mayfield. Or am I wrong, have I simply missed the falsettos in front of my eyes (boy bands, etc)...?

Having a good range, be it falsetto or otherwise, is always a positive. And Brian Wilson writes music that includes wide vocal ranges. Sure, if he were going into Tuvaan throat singing, it might not have done him much good. But realistically, he is what he is and he writes what he writes, which covers a lot of ground, stylistically, but almost always features high vocals at some point or another, be they lead of background.

[Wirestone]

For that matter, on certain recent songs, the old "wailing" falsetto of Brian's can make an appearance. Perhaps the most notable case in "Cry" from "Imagination." Yes, it's processed out the wazoo, but darned if that isn't the bright, edgy sound of the 60s peeking through.

Problem is, as he ages, Brian seems to have more and more problem with vocal control in concert. His voice is, frankly, too delicate to be belting stuff out in concert -- when he does, you get the "shouty" style. When he doesn't belt, the pitch can waver. This was not as much of a problem when he started touring -- he even managed falsetto onstage in Fun, Fun, Fun the first time I saw him (in 2000) -- but he has been on the road for nearly a decade now.

[adamghost]

I asked someone who currently works with Brian regularly about the state of his falsetto and what I was told was that Brian can still sing up there, but it's something of a force of will for him.  He also said that when Brian did decide to sing falsetto, it was Louder Than God.

[pixletwin]

I asked someone who currently works with Brian regularly about the state of his falsetto and what I was told was that Brian can still sing up there, but it's something of a force of will for him.  He also said that when Brian did decide to sing falsetto, it was Louder Than God.

That is an awesome quote!