Axl recording session in London - UPD.: M. Schenker's UFO tribute album (ft. Axl and Slash) to be released on Sept. 20th

[GNR78]

1 minute ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

It's obviously fan made...

Really? It sounds good - people like it!

[colonizedmind]

39 minutes ago, Gordon Comstock said:

 

It's obviously fan made...

Fun all the same. Highlights the end note better and some of the other vocals...Makes it more of an Axl track than a guitar showcase. It's the Axl mix! 

Will be interesting to hear Axl do this one live...in Japan maybe or I can see him inviting Schenker on stage during the next Guns run and doing it then....could replace WL ?

[Gordon Comstock]

2 hours ago, GNR78 said:

Really? It sounds good - people like it!

 

The vocals at the beginning are a pretty clear giveaway lol. But yea, it's fine for what it is.

 

2 hours ago, colonizedmind said:

Fun all the same. Highlights the end note better and some of the other vocals...Makes it more of an Axl track than a guitar showcase. It's the Axl mix! 

Will be interesting to hear Axl do this one live...in Japan maybe or I can see him inviting Schenker on stage during the next Guns run and doing it then....could replace WL ?

 

Wichita is one of the best songs in their set, they'd better not replace it with this lol. Doubt we'll see Schenker with GNR, the real question is how many songs will Axl guest on if he tours with them in Japan? Surely he wouldn't bother if it were just for one song per night, I'd assume he'll also do Only You Can Rock Me and Too Hot To Handle (maybe as duets with Erik?)

[evilfacelessturtle]

23 hours ago, Dean said:

We are hearing that record entirely different - You've gone from agreeing with 2 to almost 6 though, so it's a start! Singing clean in his mid range is still singing clean - TIL has very little drive behind it though, it's mostly all clean - alternatively, listen to the Brain remix for the opposite end of that scale. I appreciate you taking the time listing all of that though, agree to disagree etc, as they say!

I never said CD was 100% full rasp on every line. I would consider his mid range more gravely than clean. That's why people prefer it to Mickey, even though it's not what he's famous for. TIL is very raspy in the chorus. The Brian mix is raspy all the way through.

22 hours ago, Blackstar said:

He didn't say that he tried to go as clean as possible, but "a lot clearer" (which is slightly different) and that the fans didn't respond well to him singing clean in live performances.

To me, it's simple:

- Main vocals recorded before 2001-2002, which were also the final versions (Title track, The Blues/Street of Dreams, If The World, TWAT, Catcher, Riad, IRS, Madagascar, Prostitute): mostly clean with controlled use of rasp.

- Live vocals 2001-2002: mostly clean.

The fans didn't like the live vocals, so he used more rasp in the vocals and overdubs he recorded after that, as well as in the live shows (2006 and 2009-10).

So up to that point it was a choice.

Then his voice started to gradually decline, so the "mickey" voice became partially a choice until it became a no choice.

I don't feel like that really bears out in the locker leaks, though. I'm not about to dive through them all, but some of the most raspy vocals were already recorded before 2001, like Madagascar, IRS, If The World. To me, that tracks with him using the last rasp he could muster in '98/'99, and by 2001 he had none left. I mean, you can hear his voice physically cleaning up and thinning out in Live Era.

I just don't believe that Axl would have ever intentionally sang clean. That was the voice that made him a rockstar, and he leaned on it so heavily that it damaged his voice from going so raspy on the UYI tour. I think the 2003-2005 gap was simply letting his voice recover so he could muster some rasp again. Though he wasn't 100% rasp from 2006-2007. Those years have been a bit mythologized as if he sounded like 1992 again, but he had to sing many parts clean then as well.

2 hours ago, Sweersa said:

Unless I misunderstood you, that’s simply not true. Axl was absolutely capable of “rasp” during the CD recording sessions, him not singing the entire album or most of the album like that was a stylistic choice, much like he has done on previous albums, perhaps to a lesser extent. Axl talked about this a bit during the China Exchange interview.  I like his “Civil War” style of singing when he goes from his natural voice to his raspier side. Scraped, Monsters, Sorry, Hard Skool, Shackler’s Revenge, etc. I know some want every song to sound like the This I Love leak with full rasp Axl, but that’s not realistic and not everyone likes screaming vocals for an entire song, and variety is nice. I happen to love the officially released This I Love.  I consider it a masterpiece. A great Axl song with Robin’s incredible lead guitar. They made a great creative pair, and Bucket also complimented Axl well too. It wasn’t to be in the end, but at least we got to hear as much as we did with the official releases and leaks. 
After I get my CD of the UFO album I’ll give it many listens in my Explorer to see if the seemingly weird vocals effects take me out of the experience. I find the instrumental great, and I imagine Axl’s raw vocals or his vocals with a reasonable level of production would be equally great.

I addressed the China Exchange statements in my previous comment. To be clear, when I say "clean", I do not mean his natural speaking voice like in CD the title track, I mean Mickey (and that includes the 2001-2002 performances, which I guess some people try to claim isn't Mickey somehow).

I don't actually want everything to be 100% rasp, like the TIL leak. I agree that TIL is perfect how it is. But I do think Catcher and Prostitute in particular sound weak with his clean voice and would have benefitted from some rasp.

My point was more about whether Axl deliberately chose to sing cleaner or not, than it was about my opinion of CD.

[evilfacelessturtle]

17 hours ago, SoulMonster said:

Sounds like the voice is quivering to me. It is not obvious use of pitch correction, at least not to me. I have listened to enough music, mostly from before the Age of AutoTune, to not react to this. Besides, if I was doing pitch correction, or generally editing the vocals to perfect them, I'd certainly corrected it and not left it like this with that obvious flaw.

Quivering would be slower and smoother. I will say this; it could be that his voice simply cracked there. That would be the only natural explanation of such a sudden and abrupt change. But then we have Schenker saying how Axl really worked hard to perfect his vocals; why would he leave in a voice crack? And we have seen pitch correction mistakes like this before on CD.

In fact, pitch correction flaws are more common than you'd think. I found isolated vocals from AC/DC Live at River Plate, and was shocked to find similar instances of Brian's voice snapping to a note instantly, which I'd never noticed in the full mix, but were dead obvious once isolated.

Hell, we all know how The General shipped with clipping drums. Legendary artists unfortunately aren't immune to stupid mistakes in the production process.

4 hours ago, Voodoochild said:

Heard it here. The video you linked doesn't work for me, so I just listened to the original track.

It could be autotune, but I just hear it as a vibrato. I thought it could even be a two-takes splice, but listening to the isolated vocals, I don't think it is that either.

LIkewise, vibrato is not abrupt like that, vibrato is smooth. One simply couldn't do that with their voice if they tried. The one exception being a voice crack going between registers.

[Ollster42]

4 hours ago, Sweersa said:

This I Love leak with full rasp Axl

this exists?

[kever20]

9 minutes ago, Ollster42 said:

this exists?

Just the Brain hip-hop mix. It has full-drive vocals.

Edited Tuesday at 12:51 AM by kever20

[DTV88]

2 hours ago, Ollster42 said:

this exists?

Yep, and the vocals are far superior to the album version IMO. I believe I may be in the minority with this opinion, but I’m ok with that. I’d love to hear a combo of the remix vocals with the official release track if that exists anywhere 

[jamillos]

4 hours ago, Ollster42 said:

this exists?

 

1 hour ago, DTV88 said:

Yep, and the vocals are far superior to the album version IMO. I believe I may be in the minority with this opinion, but I’m ok with that. I’d love to hear a combo of the remix vocals with the official release track if that exists anywhere 

The best Axl I've ever heard, ever. 

[Spoon87]

8 minutes ago, jamillos said:

 

The best Axl I've ever heard, ever. 

Where would one find this if one might search for it?

[AxlRoseCDII]

On 9/22/2024 at 2:33 AM, JimiRose said:

Just saw a clip on IG of Axl singing Rocket Queen in 2016. Full Rasp, Power and in key. It's gutting to think he could still sing this well when Slash and Duff were back in the band, but it's taken until 2020 (unlikely) - 2024 for their to be rumours that the band even might be doing new songs with new vocals (probably arent), when Axl vocally has been completely shot since 2018. If they'd done what the pumpkins or chilis did (and rumoured oasis) and recorded a new album straight away in 2015/16 we'd have axl still close to vocal prime with slash and duff. 

Whilst I like the new vocal and don't think it's that bad, it isn't a patch on how he sounded even in 2016 and it is just another missed opportunity by axl and GnR. That is the best way to sum up the entire GnR history. A missed opportunity. 

Everything with this band ends up being a missed opportunity. What’s sad is in 8 years from now, when Axl sounds even worse, we’re going to be wishing he did a studio album in 2024 and seeing that as missed opportunity. It’s an endless cycle of “what if?”

[jamillos]

1 hour ago, Spoon87 said:

Where would one find this if one might search for it?

No idea, I've had it for years. Torrents or Discord. Maybe YT, but I doubt that. 

[JAxlMorrison]

On 9/21/2024 at 3:59 PM, gnfnr2k said:

 

There is a reason with the CD songs the further you go back version wise the better they sound

Its bc the final versions of all the CD songs and the redone ones with Slash and Duff are an over produced mess.
Its just funny some people cant admit this

Look at how many iterations the blues went though for example and the best one was the one on RM2 disc.

Look at CITR for example, the leak and the one on the locker disc is way better than the bloated overproduced CD version  

Oh you’ll never find anyone who loves the earlier version of the blues more haha. Catcher? I didn’t necessarily mind the album version comparatively .

[siraddam]

https://americansongwriter.com/3-non-guns-n-roses-songs-you-didnt-know-feature-axl-rose-as-composer-or-backing-vocalist/

A couple of unknown for me. 

[gunsnchalupas]

3 hours ago, siraddam said:

https://americansongwriter.com/3-non-guns-n-roses-songs-you-didnt-know-feature-axl-rose-as-composer-or-backing-vocalist/

A couple of unknown for me. 

 

Under My Wheels with Alice Cooper is another good one. 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 10:21 PM by gunsnchalupas

[gnfnr2k]

Listned to love to love a few more times and really don't like the vocal mix
It sounds like AI is in it or something like its choppy or what not.  it kinda has that sound when a cd has skips it in.

Would love to hear a version of the song without any effects on the vocals.   

[wendirose]

I like Love to Love....I think it suits his great depth and emotions. I think it's a beautiful work of art. timeless lyrical content... and everyone can relate....you know?

Edited yesterday at 11:44 AM by wendirose

[EvH]

11 hours ago, gnfnr2k said:

Listned to love to love a few more times and really don't like the vocal mix
It sounds like AI is in it or something like its choppy or what not.  it kinda has that sound when a cd has skips it in.

Would love to hear a version of the song without any effects on the vocals.   

I agree. It sadly sounds synthetic. When even Chi Dem sounds more natural...

[Ratam]

9 hours ago, wendirose said:

I like Love to Love....I think it suits his great depth and emotions. I think it's a beautiful work of art. timeless lyrical content... and everyone can relate....you know?

Welcome's back @wendirose👍  

[SoulMonster]

"And well done to Axl Rose who manages to resist yelping through Love To Love. It allows the boss to reprise his majestic mid song and closing guitar solos. A wise choice of song to catch Axl in a performance that’s more about passion and feel than belting it out."

Review: Michael Schenker - My Years with UFO: Album Review – At The Barrier