Growling vocals and great music

Why are MANY more people repulsed by growling than by say.. falsetto, or singing in a high octaves? The only way I see, is that its the feelings attached to the growling (which come from something preconceived, as they are incredibly different/controversial compared to "normal vocals" we are accustomed to from infancy) that prohibit a true exploration of growling as a vocal technique, and a true vicarious experience of the art form on a whole.

It doesn't bother me that people like growling. You seem as if you are trying to talk me into liking it. I have been on the other side of the argument about Rush. People say they like the music but don't like Geddy's voice. Fine, their loss. I understand their point, but disagree with it. Just like people who like growling think it is my loss. To be honest I wish I did like it, but I don't.

Yes, I do think you lose something when you don't experience an art form. You either look at a painting or you don't, and you either listen to growling vocals or you don't.. either way you are missing out on experiencing art.

What I'm trying to do is explore why people hold the opinion that they do about growling. I'm not interested in convincing people to change their opinion, rather I'm truly interested in exploring the reasons why people have negative opinions of growling.. without resorting to that all-encompassing universal explanation: "we all have different opinions". Its like, thanks for that fantastic insight but I'm well aware I don't think its a case of like.. well I don't like this flavour ice-cream and you can't tell me I should like it, because there is much more going on in the vicarious experience of art.. hence my interest

I see your point Katz, but I can't help you figure it out, because I honestly have no idea I think because it's art it's a matter of taste. I know you think that may be a "cop out" but it's true. I have no idea why I love Geddy's voice but don't like Shadow's Fall's singer or I love Labrie's but not Opeth's singer. I think if I heard it and instantly said "NO way this sucks" I would agree with your point more, but I honestly tried to listen to it, but it never clicked. That's the beauty of music, there is something for everybody.

I like it when it's well-used. And if the vocals are still intelligable.

Good growling: Early Metallica, Blind Guardian, Elvenking

I don't really like the pure-growled stuff, though. I guess the closest to enjoying a growl is gutteral singing, really. I just find the growl offensive to my ears. Maybe it's because my ears are really sensitive due to a vision problem, but I'm not sure if that's the case.

Hansi, a growler? Perhaps im buying the wrong Blind Guardian cd's... Perhaps on the new Demons & Wizards album he will growl, oh well.

I just have two things to say:

MY FEAR COMPELS ME! MY FEAR COMPELS ME!!!!

and...

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH MARAAAAAUUUUUDEEEEERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

That is all.

ORIGINAL: bill1971

I see your point Katz, but I can't help you figure it out, because I honestly have no idea I think because it's art it's a matter of taste. I know you think that may be a "cop out" but it's true. I have no idea why I love Geddy's voice but don't like Shadow's Fall's singer or I love Labrie's but not Opeth's singer. I think if I heard it and instantly said "NO way this sucks" I would agree with your point more, but I honestly tried to listen to it, but it never clicked. That's the beauty of music, there is something for everybody.

Thanks Bill.
Discussions like this certainly aren't a means to an end, but its the discussion itself that I enjoy, and I think help us understand eachother better.

Cheers

Thanks Bill.
Discussions like this certainly aren't a means to an end, but its the discussion itself that I enjoy, and I think help us understand eachother better.

Cheers

Yes, I agree. Good discussion.

Cheers

holy thread ressurrection, batman! but here we go...
 
i've been listening to "damnation" for a long time now and i love it! but, i downloaded a "normal" song from them just to experiment... i got "the leper affinity"... instrumental = OMG, it's brilliant!, vocals = didn't like it... at all! what can i do? i have these guys that make great music but the singer just insists to growl somewhere in the song!
 
anyway, i want to like opeth, but it's hard with these vocals...

It's not my thing at all.  I prefer 'singing' over primoridial grunting as an art form, HOWEVER, there are groups out there that use it tastefully and creatively within their music.  See Soilwork and Opeth.  These bands use it for more of an effect and add variety to the presentation.  Bands that exclusively use this vocal style are so far on the out-list I don't even recognize them as music.

I dunno if it's the age thing, or what.  I'm 33, and I've been listening to hard rock/heavy metal since I was 9.  I absolutely cannot stand any growling, whatsoever.  Some of the music is amazing, but the second those vocals come in, it destroys it for me.  I just can't tolerate it.  I don't care whether it conveys anger, aggression, whatever.  To my ears, it sounds like shit, and spoils what might otherwise be some great listening.  And no, no matter how much I listen to it, it does not grow on me.

I hope I never grow out of liking screaming. But we're talking growling here right?!?! I'm still pro growling. But it's gotta be a good growl man! Powerful, deep, ragefull and from the throat.... yeaaaaaaah!!! \m/

Love them clean, love the growls, love it all.  Everything has it's place.  There is plenty of room out there.

I'm definitely one for the growling  To some of you it's noise and detracts from the music. For me it serves to only enhance the music. Come on now, it's aim is to facilitate hostility, agression and brutality. However, I'll rarely listen to a group that has nothing but cookie-monster vocals. I prefer light & shade...clean vocals and evil vocals. Probably why I like Opeth and My Dying Bride so much.

Well, the singer in my band screams, (There is a difference between screaming and growling) so I'm going to have to say that I dig music with growls and screams. 

Almost 30 and loving the growling, so it's not an age thing 

Growling is fine used occasionally for dramatic affect, or contrast with a female voice. Used all the time as the standard "singing" voice? Not for me, thanks. If you like it, great. I don't. Actually, I find it rather amusing, in a Gaahl kind of way.

I think it's just a different approach to singing. Maybe comparing growling to opera is gonna get me flamed, but I feel they're different approaches to singing. In both cases the singers don't really use their "real" voice. Some people like them and some people don't. The first time I heard growls I laughed. HARD. But I liked the music (I think it was Death or Morbid Angel). I then thought "well, I'm gonna listen to it, regardless of the vocals. It doesn't matter how childish or dumb I think they are, I don't feel like missing out on all that cool riffing." I actually came to like growling and then I noticed how some growling is really cool and some grwling is annoying, just like regular vocals. So, yeah, I like growls and I do feel they deserve to be listened as a different art form.

Growling and Metal are best friends ... love it. And by the way ... i almost 30 years old.

I could never stand growling, but I bought Blackwater Park on a whim, knowing that there was a lot of growling in it, but I don't care anymore, I got used to it. It's a brilliant album. Now that I'm used to it, I've bought Meshuggah and Strapping Young Lad, I was missing out.

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

Growling and screaming equals fun. I can totally understand people not liking it though.

Personal favourites:
In Flames
Dimmu Borgir
Opeth
Devin Townsend / Strapping Young Lad
etc, etc

I could see growling if it was just a single line or something like that, but for your bands entire career? whats the point? 
 
 
 Also, I'm just trying to get into Children of Bodom, but the vocals are sort of repelling me

You hate them at first, then you just tolerate them, then you come around to them, then you love them. Trust me, I was a fucking elitist prog snob years back, until I joined the dark side... Soon I was whisper screaming/growling along to death metal tunes while doing the dishes.

If you don't get used to harsh vocals, you'll be missing out on a tremendous amount of great music out there. You have to be able to level with some dark and terrible atmospheres and emotions in order to "get" it. Mostly rage and sadness. When I'm pissed off, I'm not gonna croon and whine about it -- fuck that, my friends. I will growl and scream.

ORIGINAL: Liquid-Acid-Base

You hate them at first, then you just tolerate them, then you come around to them, then you love them.

 
Guess I'll be missing out on a lot of great music then, because I hate them.  I hated them the first time I heard them, and I still hate them now.  I won't tolerate them or come around to them, I cannot stand them at all.  For those that do, great, more music for you to enjoy, but they're never, ever going to be even close to listenable to my ears.

ORIGINAL: mr.snruB
I could see growling if it was just a single line or something like that, but for your bands entire career? whats the point? 

Erm, what's the point of basing your career on being a soprano singer? Or a high-pitched power metal vocalist? Growlers are as diverse as any other style of singer, it's just a matter of appreciating it or not. I can't stand opera, which is why it all sounds alike to me. Same goes for that nasal country music vocal style. I'm not saying I'm more or less open-minded than anyone else, and feel free to dislike growling all you want, I just wanted to point that out

Growling vocals have their place.  My progressive band uses them on a few songs.  Check: Opeth, Ayreon

ORIGINAL: Naigewron

ORIGINAL: mr.snruB
I could see growling if it was just a single line or something like that, but for your bands entire career? whats the point? 

Erm, what's the point of basing your career on being a soprano singer? Or a high-pitched power metal vocalist? Growlers are as diverse as any other style of singer, it's just a matter of appreciating it or not. I can't stand opera, which is why it all sounds alike to me. Same goes for that nasal country music vocal style. I'm not saying I'm more or less open-minded than anyone else, and feel free to dislike growling all you want, I just wanted to point that out

And I agree. It also has a lot to do with the aggression and attitude of the music, I mean can you fucking imagine Opeth's music with Ratt's vocals? That being said, im much more of a growler than a screamer, sometimes I just cant stand stuff like Strapping Young Lad, I love the music but sometimes its too much of a really long scream, and well those emo/scream shit bands dont even have good music, so its best not to cover them at all.

Don't fit!

Funny thing is I just had this long conversation with a few guys my age (mid 40's) and a bunch of kids at the School Of Rock (15-17) . We touched on this exact subject and we came to some conclusions, but not an answer. It seems to be partially an age thing and how the youth feel about thier current state of affairs in this world. Me and the rest of the guys grew up on singers like Freddie Mercury, Robert Plant, Ozzy Osbourne, Jim Morrison, Rob Halford, Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio, Peter Gabriel, John Wetton, Greg Lake, Ian Gillan, Ray Gillen, Glenn Hughes....... These guys were all mostly influenced by a few main genres of music that came before them such as Blues, Opera, Jazz and Rock. Songs that had lyrics were called "Love Songs, "Aria's", "Torch Songs", "Scat". So most of us grew up having our emotions touched by lyrics that were conveyed by these influences. The reason we had this conversation is because we have about 40 kids right now in the school and there's only 3 kids that can actually carry a tune when singing classic rock tunes. There were more kids who came into the school and said "I'm a singer", but when asked to sing Baba O Reily, could not stay in tune, did not know how to change the key could not fluctuate their voice to accomodiate the changes in the melody that was being played, just had no understanding of what techniques are to be used to achieve the desired effect of singing a song as simple as Baba O Reily, but the kids that were singers in their own bands all come from these bands that just scream!
 
Just reiterating what has already been posted, hostility, agression, brutality, evil, harsh, rage, fear, pissed off.... are some of the words that have been used to discribe why growling vocals are accepted, because they convey these emotions. I think there are many people who feel this way which is why this is such a acceptable vocal "technique".
 
When it comes to growling, I just don't find any kind of influence. I totally understand that these type of vocals do in fact convey a emotion and may touch people who listen to this music in a very deep and emotional way, but I'm not there. It has nothing to do with how "deep" of an emotion state I need to be in. Beleive me I can get pretty dark & terrible as I have been over the past couple of days, with my 93 yr old grandmother who does not know who I am any more, who cannot walk, cannot speak english any more only Polish and of that most is just gibberish, has osteoperosis so bad that she can break a bone just by moving her,  and 2 days ago she fell out of her wheelchair broke her femur in her right leg the ulna & tibia of her left leg a bone in her foot has a baseball sized lump on her forehead. I looked at her 2 days ago and said why??  Then the bombings in the UK, I was so angry, sad, pissed off, but I regress.
 
The importance of vocals to me, is that I need to understand what is being said in order for the lyrics to efffect me. Boy do I sound like our parents!! That's what my mother in-law says about the music I listen to, she would say "Now Nat King Cole can sing, how do you understand what these people are screaming about" Freddie, Daniel Gildenlow, Bobby Kimball, Peter Gabriel all have an individual ability to convey different emotions from sorrow, sadness, anger, rage to joy and blissfulness by changing their techiques. I just don't find growling to have any techique except to growl or scream. Iis there such a technique as a soft scream. Now you may think that I don't listen to this music so how can I pass judgement. These are some of the CD's I have in my collection.
Into Eternity - Dead Or Dreaming
Killswitch Engage -Alive or Just Breathing
Meshuggah - Contradictions Collapse & None
Sevendust - Animosity
Thyfing - Urkraft
Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos, Figure Number Five
Opetn - Deliverance, Blackwater Park, Damnation
Lamb Of God - Ashes of The Wake
 
Hey look at that, you could write a song on the titles of these cd alone!
Dead or Dreaming,
Alive or Just Breathing,
it's just Natural Born Chaos 
Filled with Contradictions, Collapse & None
but I regress again!
 
I just don't find this type of vocal "technique" to move me, but there are some that I do like. The new Lamb Of God is kicking my ass. I don't know what it is, but I can understand what Randy Blythe is saying, Now You've Got Something to Die For! just floors me! In the end I respect that this is a current style and "technique", but one form of art that I don't find appealing. Most of the music that has Growling/Scream vocals just doesn't touch me in a emotional way like Halford singing Screaming For Vengence or Last Rose of Summer.
 
 
 
 

Growling vocals and great music

Oxymoron if I ever saw one.  As you can tell, I'm not a fan.  Trivium is a good example, they have some great music, and some great clean vocals, but then the chorus starts and you get this growling crap.

I will say it again and again in every forum about this subject:
 

  GROWLS KICK ASS

 
... just check Death, Into Eternity, Trivium, Opeth (Damnation is a great cd, but it's just half of Opeth), Bloodbath, Samael, etc, etc.

Fuck y'all. Now listening to Malevolent Creation's Manic Demise.  

Sometimes a love growling... like in Carcass, Napalm Death, but i prefer mix like Into Eternity, Opeth o Metalcore voices like KillSwitch Engage...

Anybody who listens to The Leper Affinity and does not absolutely love that chaotic moment when Mikael finally breaks into the growls needs to get their head examined.  (Z-RAYED!)

Necrophagist... these guys are insane!

I can handle "growling" for a short time. A few songs, then it gets kind of silly. Mixing it up is always a good thing to do. Same with the "screaming" bands. It's great as part of the vocals, but not THE vocals.

It's all a matter of context.  There are places that growling works and places that it shouldn't ever rear its spiky head.  My band from the early 90s (pretentious little metal outfit called Creepmime) featured growling vocals almost exclusively.  While it seemed to fit much of the music, as one of the band's lyricists, I found it very frustrating to hear carefully crafted texts being mangled into an incoherent mess on a regular basis.  These days I really favour Opeth's approach - keep it in its proper place and make room for some kick-ass singing as well.

i respect singer who can growl and sing which is is why i like some of them
 
for example
 
opeth
slipknot
later pantera
testament
shadows fall
killswitch engage
in flames
etc...
 

Wow...a 3 page post on growling. The only band I listen to that growls is Opeth. i first bought Damnation, and LOVED it. That I got BWP and hated it!!!! I just couldn't stand Mikael's aggressive vocals. Then someone let me listen to Deliverance and I really gave it a chance. Now I love both BWP and Deliverance. His vocals fit the music and his growls are almost tasteful and is annunciation (spelling) is incredible. You can understand what he says when he growls. And the stark contrast between his clean vox and growls is simply amazing. Anyway, there's my 2 cents. Looking forward to Ghost Reveries.

Personally, I loathe any music that uses growling as their primary form of vocals.  It sounds rediculous, and I think it gives metal music a bad name.  Whenever I tell someone that I listen to heavy metal, they automatically assume that I'm an angst-filled guy who growls and writes overly depressing poetry in his spare time.  Personally, I think it sounds rediculous, and in my opinion, it ruins music which has the potential to be excellent without the lame growling. 
 
One big example of this for me is Opeth.  I listened to one of their songs and thought, "Hey, this is damn good music, a little overly depressing, but still good."  Then the chorus hit and it sounded like cookie monster on steroids.