Ive noticed how chesters voice has changed throughout the albums and it is definitely less grunge influenced, a little deeper, but the notes are better, and I love that. But am I the only one who thinks it starts to suck live when he tries to scream ? What happened ? Living Things made me think oh he can scream again but I was watching these new performances and ughh it has me shaking my head. I mostly noticed on faint and one step closer. On faint hes just going "you gunna listen to me like it or not right naaaah" and he doesn't even sound like he's screaming. Back when his scream started to slip and he was doing that he at least saved himself on the last "I WONT BE IGNORED" but now he just gets the audience to do it. Don't get me wrong I think thats awesome to have the audience scream that part but at least scream the part before ! And on One Step Closer again didnt even sound like screaming. I understand his voice has changed but dont give us false hope on tracks like Blackout yenno ? Just wanted to rant. Anyone else agree..disagree... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vr9hMLC-2Dk
It's called age. Age does things to your voice. Unfortunately, age got to Chester and now his screams really aren't the same when live, but to be honest, they still sound great. Hey, bright side of it is that his melodic singing has gotten absolutely beautiful. And for the "false hope" thing, if the band feels it fits the song, it'll be in the song. If screaming is needed, bring in the screaming.
It doesn't sound like he's screaming because he isn't. He's reached a point where he doesn't have to scream to hit those notes anymore. They're too easy to hit. Why should he force himself to have a certain tone to his voice if he doesn't have to? That, and who WOULDN'T be unenthusiastic about playing a song from a crap album that never existed?
Watch this video of A Place for My Head from a few weeks ago [video=youtube;Bvj_F3WcE_I]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bvj_F3WcE_I&feature=player_embedded[/video] That breakdown made 2004 Chester shit his pants. I'm not saying Chester is this on fire every performance, but the man can definitely still scream like a beast, and IMO his screams are best they've been on a show to show basis since 2007. I will admit however that Faint just isn't the same anymore. The lack of "I WON'T BE IGNORED!!!" just kills it for me, and the outro lately just consists of one or two growls, unlike the godliness that was the Faint outro in 2007. Although this may only be due to the fact that Faint is regularly at the front of the setlist these days, and Chester wants to preserve his voice for the remainder of the set. I've only ever found Faint appropriate as a main set closer or part of the encore. The fact that the screaming is almost always underwhelming now just frustrates me further.
I was concerned for a while around the Minutes to Midnight era that Chester had "lost" his screaming voice, but he's proven since then that it's something he can still access, seemingly at will. I have a feeling he's just chosen to approach live performances differently in recent years and back off on the raspy tone of his screaming/aggressive singing a bit to keep his voice in better shape overall. If you go WAY back to like 2001 and watch some live performances from that era, he made full use of his raspy tone, but he was also singing way off-key and having his voice crack on a fairly regular basis (go watch the video of Crawling from Pittsburgh 2001 for one of the worst examples of this - his voice totally gives out on him). He's definitely a better overall singer now, so if that's the sacrifice he made to keep his voice in better condition, I'm content with his REALLY aggressive voice being something he usually saves for studio work.
Stamina can also be an issue. If you're not conditioned to be jumping around and moving a lot (or even singing!), your throat will dry and tighten up when you get tired. Obviously he's still able to scream like he used to. He's been doing it on every album. Either he doesn't want to scream like that live or he's not able to due to fatigue.
[video=youtube;EVkjocep0V0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVkjocep0V0&feature=g-u-u[/video] That's a documentary on making of Living Things, just skip to the part about Victimized, he just spits it out like it's no big deal. I love his singing, occasional screams just make him even better. Live, he's still killer.
That screams I heard in Inside Living Things. Amazing. I have no complains about his screaming at all.
His voice is deteriorating from all that screaming, unfortunately. He can still sing, but his voice lacks the power that it used to have. Also: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/14/entertainment/la-et-linkin-park-20100914
Why does everybody bring up that quote? In an interview later that year he states that he loves to scream. As Dinobot said, he wouldn't be adding screams to otherwise scream-less songs like What I've Done and The Catalyst if he had a problem with it. They wouldn't still be playing Blackout if Chester hated to scream. And they certainly wouldn't have screaming in Lost In The Echo/Lies Greed Misery/Victimized.
I haven't noticed anything bad about his screaming live. The quality is still there for all to see, although the quantity might have reduced by like 10%. Doesn't stop him screaming randomly in songs as Faint into Pieces pointed out just before me. I think it depends a lot on how the crowd is, if they're being responsive and energetic, he goes off the rails.
He doesn't scream Faint bridge anymore. Doesn't worry me too much. To say he can't scream anymore is laughable though. He is 36 years old and is consistantly touring, straining his voice on needless screams are probably low on his priorty at this stage in his career. If not screaming the bridge and outro of Faint means he can perform like he does for another 10+ year sign me up.
I think Chester just screams/sings different live nowadays compared to back in the day. He obviously can still scream if he wants to do it, hello LITE and Victimized, he screams his lungs out in those songs, and LITE has probably the heaviest scream I've ever heard from him. Also, in 2009, DBS had some pretty decent screaming in MS and Condemned. When on a long tour he probably tries to keep his voice in best shape, not ruin it by screaming the way he used to.
Oh, I love My Suffering. Short and bittersweet. [video=youtube;3MmIKZkKYw4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MmIKZkKYw4[/video] Here. That performance kicks my minds in the balls. What I'm impressed with the most is how he switches from singing to screaming in a split second.