Singers who changed their vocal styles

[Stumpy Pepys]

Are there many examples of this?

Bob Dylan switched to something approaching normal singing on Nashville Skyline. I read one reason was that he quit smoking, but I can't vouch for that.

The Bee Gees went from Beatles harmonies to building their sound around Barry's falsetto sometime in the mid-70s.

[Jah Womble]

Bowie - sensibly - graduated from sub-Anthony Newley- stylings to ‘his own voice’ (and variations thereupon) during his early career.

Leo Sayer I guess went from minstrel yelp to matured balladeer in the space of a few singles.

A trite example: Kurt Cobain adopted a bizarre pub-singer -style drone for Nirvana’s first TOTP appearance. But admittedly that was just for the show. (And it didn’t go down too well.)

[3 Colours Red]

Madonna gradually went from her original girlish squeak to a deeper register by the end of the 80s.

James Hetfield went from pretty much screeching at times to a growl so deep it can only be heard by certain marine life.

Elton John of course but that wasn't by choice.

[Satchmo Distel]

Elvis Presley's voice gets deeper in the 70s but is still recognizably Elvis (he was always an amalgamation of many influences, whom he switched between on different records), and I wouldn't say he declines.

Billie Holiday's range narrowed a lot when the heroin, marijuana and booze had been hammering away at it for 15 years.

[Benjm]

A trite example: Kurt Cobain adopted a bizarre pub-singer -style drone for Nirvana’s first TOTP appearance. But admittedly that was just for the show. (And it didn’t go down too well.)

Didn't Evan Dando do a Morrissey impersonation for a TOTP run through of Mrs Robinson?

Little did these grungemen realise that they were lighting the fuse of Britpop with their flagrant disrespect for our pop telly institutions.

[diggedy derek]

Shirley Collins is the most notable recent example I feel.

[Etienne]

Barry White started off with a pretty regular soul singer voice.

[Sporting]

His vocal range and style has changed now due to age but for versatility I think we need look no further than Paul McCartney who was capable of adapting his voice for both out-and-out ballads as well as for belted out rockers.

[Satchmo Distel]

I think Bernard Sumner has a bit more warmth as the 80s progresses. He'd deliberately alienated in the first half of the 80s but connects more in the second half.

George Harrison seems to start sounding like Jeff Lynne from the mid-70s, more mid-Atlantic.

[Jah Womble]

With Bernard Sumner, he couldn’t so much sing as chant in those early days. His vocals have improved over the decades, though.

[G-Man]

I don't suppose Prince counts, because he used his wonderful range throughout his career.

Tom Waits changed his voice, but not by choice.

[Jah Womble]

Ditto Bonnie Tyler. (For contrast.)

[Stumpy Pepys]

A trite example: Kurt Cobain adopted a bizarre pub-singer -style drone for Nirvana’s first TOTP appearance. But admittedly that was just for the show. (And it didn’t go down too well.)

My understanding was that his voice was shot and it was the only register he could give a performance. I really liked that performance, because I realised there was really a melody there. I think his changing of the first line to "load up on drugs, kill your friends" was what went down less well.

[scratchmonkey]

Mike Patton, even allowing for him being a vocal chameleon with a ridiculous range, changed his "default rock" singing style -- on the first Mr. Bungle album and FNM's Epic, he primarily uses a voice with a nasal-y tinge that has disappeared/deepened over the years.

[Kevin S]

There's a lot to love about that Nirvana performance but near the top of the list is the way Novoselic's bass sneaks into shot here to poke Cobain in the armpit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPtJtbRXi3I&t=85s

[DPDPDPDP]

I don't suppose Prince counts, because he used his wonderful range throughout his career.

Tom Waits changed his voice, but not by choice.

G-Man, I always thought that Tom Waits’ voice change WAS through choice. I love his early stuff, when he at least made an attempt to sing. Can’t stand his later stuff.

Leonard Cohen’s voice certainly deepened as he got older, but in my opinion, he adapted his songwriting brilliantly to reflect this change.

[Amor de Cosmos]

G-Man, I always thought that Tom Waits’ voice change WAS through choice.

You're right. The change happens between One From the Heart, which is the old Wait's voice, pushed to maximum croon. And Heart Attack & Vine, which is the revised Tom. The soundtrack to the former took so long he got really pissed off an reinvented everything. Changed producer, band, instruments, everything.

Someone whose change of voice wasn't through choice, but very much for the better, is Marianne Faithfull.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Lou Reed would sometimes sing conventionally, when the mood took him (e.g. Sunday Morning, I'm Set Free). Post-VU, not so much.

[Mr Delicieux]

Michael Jackson's vocal style changed from off the wall to the 80's and his notable vocal tics.

Eminem went from rapping quite clearly to a more staccato manner in recent years, very much for the worse imo.

[Mr Delicieux]

I also thought of Michael Bolton and his foray into opera, a thought I didn't linger on for too long.

[Sporting]

Mark E Smith went from a pretty fast sometimes almost rap style to a semi-comprehensible slurred approach.

[KGR]

Jaz Coleman actually tries harmony and singing during the 80s 'Brighter than a Thousand Suns' and 'Outside the Gate' albums. Back to screamy since the early 90s though.

[Satchmo Distel]

Ella Fitzgerald broadened her style to include scat/bebop changes (notably Lady Be Good, 1947) and matured her voice for the Great American Songbook albums, but she never abandoned her original influences.

Ray Charles started out imitating Nat King Cole before he became an out an out soul singer whose most successful album was country songs sung with a soul voice.

Cole himself was a jazz singer-pianist who became a ballad singer (for white pop markets), while retaining the ability to do jazz.

Elvis Presley was different after the army and then again after his film career but I don't think these were conscious decisions rather than his market changing around him while his manager went for the lowest common denominator, with a few exceptions like In The Ghetto. As I said upthread he was always a chameleon anyway who absorbed everything he heard as a kid, from all genres.

[andrew7610]

David Sylvian's baritone is quite far removed from the sound and style on Japan's first two albums, and he has definitely lost his south London accent too