Hi guys! In this thread we are going to speak about Chester and Mike's voice and how it changed.For me it's like this: Chester: In Grey Daze he had a deep voice,but after many years he got his actual vocal range.With Linkin Park he started to use the raspy singing which characterized him. I think that his screamed singing was at his top in 2001(just listen to the Crawling performances from that year)but his screams were at their best in 2003-04. But in 2006-07 something happened to his voiceeople says he had a surgery,but i think that's not true.For me in those years he stopped smoking but he managed badly his relapse and his singing kinda got weaker.From 2008 his singing voice got more and more nasal,but he can still scream,but when he sings in choruses of songs like Crawling he just goes with a "ooooh" singing(i don't know how to define it,i hope you'll understand me).He can't perform anymore songs like Faint,but he sounds the same in APFMH or From The Inside(he sings with his nasal voice but the screams are still good). Mike: Nothing to say,in the Xero Tape and in the HT:EP demos+Dedicated he sounded younger. Write what you think.
I think it's safe to say that age has played a major role in changing Chester's voice. Whether it has improved or gotten worse, that's up to the listener to decide. I would say that Chester has greatly improved his melodic singing since the MTM era and has only gotten better with that. As for his screaming, he remains fairly consistent yet he can't really seem to scream for as long as he used to be able to, or with as much frequency. This would probably explain why we do not hear Chester screaming much on MTM and ATS in particular, though he brought back A LOT of aggression on THP that has arguably been missing since Meteora. This aggression may not count as consistent screaming, though Chester seems to be able to hold his own for the most part, in terms of aggressive, raspy singing. For those who think Chester sounded "weaker" on THP, I would attribute that to the purposeful mixing and deliberate lack of vocal effects on his voice, with some exceptions. We were definitely hearing what his voice actually sounds like, so you could say there was more honesty on THP than in the previous, more electronically-oriented albums. As for M. Shinoda "The Cobra Holder", I can't comment on him as much, since we've only more recently witnessed him consistently contributing sung vocals to the music. Sure, there was "In Between" back in 2007, but that seemed more like a one-off idea for a song then. With ATS, we started to see a lot more of what Mike was capable of on a melodic level, and since then, the results have been pretty promising and consistent. Personally, I enjoy Mike's singing contributions on LT the most, especially with COG and RU, as well as Rebellion and ALITS from THP. I hope this isn't an epic wall of text. Just had to thoroughly explain what I've been thinking for quite some time!
I think Chester's voice over the years has been discussed to death, so I'm only gonna comment on Mike.. He hasn't changed much. So Far Away sounds pretty identical to his delivery in Rebellion, and I think No Roads Left kinda shows his limits as far as high, melodic, loud choruses. It goes through kinda gave us our first Mike falsetto chorus, and it looks like the new song with Martin Garrax (sp?) will be a nice addition to the Mike lead vocals library. He's definitely gotten more confident on stage, as evidenced mostly I think by his Fort Minor shows, and Rebellion/ALITS live. Overall I guess his voice hasn't changed much at all it seems, we just keep getting new kinds of deliveries from him. I think one of his more unique deliveries so far has been on the Apaches demo, although I know that's more rapping than singing.
Mike's best vocal so far is in the Martin Garrix song. It also shows his growth from MTM to now. As for Chester, his voice was always fairly processed and fine tuned in studio, especially on the first two albums. As others have said before, THP kind of used his natural voice more, which is a much more tasteful approach. He is not a bad singer at all - quite the contrary. But the processing and fine tuning made him out to be this pitch perfect, clean boy band-ish singer almost. There are better vocals on LP's albums from 2007 to now. Rick Rubin is known to get artists to stop using perfect and doctored vocals so that kind of stopped on MTM but it's especially noticeable on THP, though Mike and Brad produced that record. I also think Chester's vocal improvement has to do with the breaks he's allowed to take in between recording and touring cycles now. Back then, they pretty relentlessly toured and that hurt his voice significantly. He's treating his voice much better now.
I very much agree with this. One thing I never really understood is the "boy band" label LP had been given in the past, but now that you mention the "pitch perfect" approach the band used to take, it does make more sense. If anything, LP had always sounded like the opposite of a boy band to me, given that their songs weren't solely about love/relationships (though several songs dealt with this or similar themes) and even had commentary on the state of the urban environment (see Forgotten, Dedicated, etc.). The songs that had more universal themes that weren't directly about love is what made LP stand out to me as I listened to them more and more.
Nah, I didn't mean to insinuate that LP were a boy band or anything. Chester's early vocals just reminded me a little bit of that really sweet, pretty style of singing that pop and r&b singers are typically known for. I was trying to say that in a good way, thinking about boy bands that are actually really talented vocally like Boyz II Men or BSB. I know some people are going to kill me for that but I'll take the attacks. Chester has a rare talent in that he has a smooth, tasteful croon while also being able to singing aggressively in a way that doesn't come off as hammy or overacting (if that makes sense). Love songs don't make music vapid or unsophisticated. Love is something all people have experienced, whether it's being in a withering relationship, falling in love, lusting, or feeling unreciprocated. I'd say that at least half of LP's songs are about love in some way, and I really admire that. It's much more honest than making angry or melancholy music for the sake of preserving some kind of masculine impression. EDIT: Fuck, I think people are gonna kill me for this post.