Bruce's voice during the years

Relating only to his Maiden career:

TNOTB - Top performances both live and studio

POM - Even better than the previous album and tour

Powerslave - Still ascending in quality in every way (perhaps his peak)

SIT - Best studio performance but live one may notice a downgrade in his performance due to the attrition of World Slavery Tour

SSOASS - Once again an amazing studio recording but still struggling live.

NPFTD - Raspy and a significant downgrade compared with its predecessor but way more comfortable live with this registry.

FOTD - Really poor studio delivery for Bruce's standards. Not much better live.

BNW - Great in both studio (best since SSOASS) and live (best since Powerslave)

DOD - Equally great as its predecessor in the album but the first little signs of wearing start to show live (great though)

AMOLAD - Still great when one listens to the album and a little bit more of father time affecting him live (still good though)

TFF - Still in great shape studio wise and though his live voice continues its slow degradation it's still in good shape.

TBOS - Now here one can hear Bruce struggling somewhat both in the album and especially live. Still pretty enjoyable and way above what's expected from a guy of his age who just went though throat cancer therapy).

The Legacy Of The Beast tour - Voice eroding fast. While Bruce still nails the majority songs really tight there are others that he struggles as hell namely Aces High, Where Eagles Dare, The Evil That Men Do, Hallowed Be Thy Name and Flight Of Icarus)
 
Think you
karljant said:
Relating only to his Maiden career:

TNOTB - Top performances both live and studio

POM - Even better than the previous album and tour

Powerslave - Still ascending in quality in every way (perhaps his peak)

SIT - Best studio performance but live one may notice a downgrade in his performance due to the attrition of World Slavery Tour

SSOASS - Once again an amazing studio recording but still struggling live.

NPFTD - Raspy and a significant downgrade compared with its predecessor but way more comfortable live with this registry.

FOTD - Really poor studio delivery for Bruce's standards. Not much better live.

BNW - Great in both studio (best since SSOASS) and live (best since Powerslave)

DOD - Equally great as its predecessor in the album but the first little signs of wearing start to show live (great though)

AMOLAD - Still great when one listens to the album and a little bit more of father time affecting him live (still good though)

TFF - Still in great shape studio wise and though his live voice continues its slow degradation it's still in good shape.

TBOS - Now here one can hear Bruce struggling somewhat both in the album and especially live. Still pretty enjoyable and way above what's expected from a guy of his age who just went though throat cancer therapy).

The Legacy Of The Beast tour - Voice eroding fast. While Bruce still nails the majority songs really tight there are others that he struggles as hell namely Aces High, Where Eagles Dare, The Evil That Men Do, Hallowed Be Thy Name and Flight Of Icarus)
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Think you did a pretty good classification, although I don't agree with some of your points . For example, in FOTD we have BQOBD which has Bruce's highest notes of the 90's.

And about the live performances I think we're still comparing Bruce's voice on the 80's to his 00's voice and then, there's no way he could sound equally good in both. I still think he is now singing great and when you hear him acapella you definitely hear that his mature voice is in great shape
 
Luisma said:
Think you
Think you did a pretty good classification, although I don't agree with some of your points . For example, in FOTD we have BQOBD which has Bruce's highest notes of the 90's.
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It's just not about the pitch of the note, but the technique and quality of it. BQOBD sounded terrible live as well.
 
Black Bart said:
Unfortunately, I think we can create a period -the current one- that started roughly in 2013, in which he seems to struggle more, especially live. Part of it was/is probably due to his cancer. Yet, I saw LOTB at Hellfest in 2018, and I think he had managed to recover a little.
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Bruce sounded much better in 2018 than at many points in the recent and not do recent past, or at least he did at one of the gigs I went to:

 
Luisma said:
in FOTD we have BQOBD which has Bruce's highest notes of the 90's.
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Yeah but BQOBD is an exception when it comes to his raspy voice. I also love the approach Bruce took on that track with his screechy voice to enhance even more the fury it contains. And BTW I also love the song itself. There are also other songs where he really sounds really nice in that record (Childhoods End, the title track, Judas Be My Guide). In others he doesn't go too wild and sounds decent (ATSS, The Apparition, The Fugitive). But through the remainder of the songs I consider his performance simply awful for his high as hell standards. Curiously enough I think he sounds a thousand times better only a couple of years after in Balls To Picasso.
 
karljant said:
I wouldn't say terrible but indeed sounded much less interesting and powerful than the studio take.
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He didn't sing it the way it was supposed to.That raspy, throaty sound is very delicate and he couldn't reproduce it in a live setting. He did in spots, the rest of the time he just sang it with his standard type singing. Donington 1992 (as far as I know) is the only one that sounds good enough and where he at least sings half the song somewhat the way it should be sung.
 
Is there a reason why he wanted a raspier voice? Was it Bruce´s own choice to try something different or Arry´s?
 
MindRuler said:
Is there a reason why he wanted a raspier voice? Was it Bruce´s own choice to try something different or Arry´s?
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If you ask Michael Kiske, it's because Bruce lost his proper technique. I'm 100% I read it in an interview - Doesn't mean it's necessarily true though.
 
Bruce sounds fine on FOTD, and he was way better on ARLO/ARDO/Donington and especially Raising Hell than he was on Maiden England and LAD. He does sound good on Hammersmith, but he also sounds a bit "boyish", which was the voice of his beginnings. Don't get me wrong, I like that too. But, for example, Hallowed on both ARDO and Raising hell are a huge improvement over the versions on NOTB and Hammersmith (vocally -- for the rest of the band it's the other way around).

If you don't like the rasp, that is just personal taste. Imo, he could shout like nobody else in the 90s. For example, the way he did the scream in NOTB in the 90s, and even on the Ed Hunter tour... just FUCKING awesome! Another example would be the chorus in Killing Floor. Those are extreme examples, but you get the point. While it's not the classically acclaimed healthy way to sing like that, his technique in the 80s was probably worse - I think I can hear he improved his technique a lot in the early 90s, so that he could balance the more aggressive singing pretty well with the more "classical" singing, and by BTP, he just sounded a lot more mature.
 
I often think people get confused by one recording (i.e. an album track) and think singers can sing & want to sing like this all the time. I read this a lot with Mike Patton for example. People wonder how his voice isn't shot to pieces; which it certainly isn't. He often uses what vocal coaches describe as techniques that were/are really damaging. But when you actually examine how often he does these "damaging" techniques it's clear he uses them pretty sparingly. Bruce is probably the same. He may well have rasped his way through a few albums but why think he was stupid enough to rasp his way through whole tours night after night? Truth is, he didn't because he knew it wasn't good for his voice. The studio tracks are what they are.
 
Yax said:
If you ask Michael Kiske, it's because Bruce lost his proper technique. I'm 100% I read it in an interview - Doesn't mean it's necessarily true though.
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Do you have a link to those words from Kiske? Thanks in advance. Funnily enough, I know an opera singer who is a metal fan. When he was played live recordings of Children of the Damned from 1986 and 2009 (with Bruce sounding miles better in the latter), his answer was that Bruce was using the same technique but that by 2009 he had learnt how to do it properly.

My personal opinion is that Bruce’s voice was fried by the end of the SSOASS tour, so he probably tried to change his singing style to either sound more aggressive or find it less challenging to hit the high notes than with a “clean” voice.
 
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