Phil Anselmo

Voice type: Baritone
Vocal range: (E♭1-)G♯1-G5(-B♭5)
Best display of range: "Goddamn Electric" (G♯1-C5)
Cock size: 9 inches

Significant high notes:

• G5 ("Cemetery Gates")
  
• F♯5 ("The Will to Survive")
  
• E5 ("Cemetery Gates", "The Will to Survive", "Down Below", "We'll Meet Again")
  
• D5 ("Over And Out", "The Will To Survive", "Psycho Holiday" live)
  
• C5 ("Goddamn Electric", "Overthrown")
  
• B4 ("The Path", "Domination", "Shattered")
  
• B♭4 ("Time Is Mine")
  

Significant low notes:

• G♯1 ("Lysergic Funeral Procession", "3 Suns, 1 Star", "New Orleans Is a Dying Whore", "In the Thrall of It All", "Goddamn Electric", "Floods")
  
• A1 ("Underneath Everything")
  
• B♭1 ("Revolution Is My Name", "3 Suns, 1 Star")
  
• B1 ("Medicine Man", "Cowboys from Hell", "Overthrown")
  

Sorry to be a pain but can you upload the G1s again? Can't find the email where you sent them before. Let's work our way up as we did with Kiske and Cornell!

There was only one G1 that I listened through far enough to hear, but here it is. There may be others, but the other really low note that I found in it was a G♯1, and he may already have sung (or at least spoken in a song context) notes as low as that. Do you still have all the bass notes that Spydrfish sent?

And yeah, let's work our way back up with his range. Definitely has lows down to G1, and there's a C♯5 on this one recent Down song, "The Path", that Spydrfish has brought up a bunch of times as the highest thing he's recorded lately...a little strange-sounding, but probably full.

I'm pretty ready to declare the "Cemetery Gates" screams to be falsetto...take a listen to this at 0:04, after he's slid down to the C5 and the vibrato comes in. You can hear how the note grows weaker on the lower note that he doesn't have to scream, but with it being as high as C5, that means it's falsetto. Agreed?

Agreed! Doesn't sound very strained on the C5 though. Assuming I interpreted your message as you intended...

Yeah, that's what I meant...I mean with falsetto notes like E5, it's probably easier to hit them by screaming and adding grit; but C5 is more mid-range between the lower and naturally softer falsetto notes and the higher falsetto notes, which can only be emitted as screamed notes or squeaked notes for most guys. Paul McCartney is an exception from the latter statement, as he can go as high as A5 doing soft "ooh" notes. But yeah, if it were just an E5, it would easier for Anselmo to cover up the falsetto, and even if it were a C5, he'd probably still be able to treat it in a screamy manner...however, with that slide down from one to the other, he lost the grit for the C5, and it came out sounding too weak to be anything but falsetto. Long story short: the C5 is audibly falsetto, so that means the E5 that precedes it is too, and all the high notes that come after it are falsetto as well.
We can check out the A5s in "Shattered", but considering that we already know the one in "Cemetery Gates" is and that these ones are in a HARMONY, I'm ready to be that they're gonna be falsetto. Spydrfish even admitted that he thought Anselmo's high notes sounded like falsetto...

Speaking of Spydrfish, we've been talking about some Anselmo stuff, and he said he recently got a DVD of a performance of one of Anselmo's bands, and there are some lows in that too. What stood out to me in particular was the fact that he said Anselmo introduces "Lysergic Funeral Procession" and one other song with some sort of low speaking, like Gibbons does with the "how 'bout some down 'n' dirty blues?" bit; though he says that that doesn't necessarily mean it's AS low as Gibbons's. I also noticed a low note in "Revolution Is My Name" yesterday, which may be worth checking out, though I'm not sure if it gets lower than C♯2. Sounds very strong nonetheless...in fact, if it turns out Anselmo's notes above F5 are all falsetto, I'll be ready to declare him a bass.

Oh yeah, lots of falsetto on "Shattered", and the A5 harmony is no exception. On to G5!

I'd also be very ready to call him a bass! There's five G5s so surely at least one is full... to the emails!

Proud To Be Loud 1... falsetto.
Proud To Be Loud 2... falsetto.
Down Below 1, sounds falsetto but the E5 he slides down to sounds full.
Down Below 2, eh, sounds all falsetto here.
Hard Ride, falsetto, but again the E5s sound full.
Rock the World... E5s could be full... G5s are way too thin though.

I don't have a "Medicine Man" clip. But yeah I'll give him G1-E5 for sure.

Wow, there's a LOT of fairly obvious falsetto stuff that we overlooked here! Just checked "Medicine Man", and those ones are pretty obviously falsetto too...good lows in that one, though. The more he goes along with them, though, the fuller they sound...like after a certain point they actually sorta start sounding like David Coverdale or Chris Cornell's high notes. I still think Anselmo's are falsetto, but they may be causing me to question some of the latter singers' high notes...though I'm pretty sure about Coverdale, at least.
As for the other clips, they all sound very falsettish on the G5s...even the E5s in most of them sound like falsetto to me. That applies to both clips from "Proud To Be Loud", the "Hard Ride" one, and the first "Down Below" one. Contrary to what you said, I think some of the E5s and F5s in the second "Down Below" clip have a CHANCE of being full, but may not be...same goes for some of the ones from "Rock The World". So I wouldn't give him G1-E5 FOR SURE. Let's start a little lower...C♯5!

Man, that C#5 sounded like a piece of cake. So G1-C#5 for sure, which is... 3.5 octaves. I'm still not sure about the Down Below clips though...

I've actually been a bit skeptical about it just because it's so weird-sounding; but yeah, I don't see how that could be falsetto, so I guess we've got a definite G1-C♯5. Could still due to get some verification on those E5s, I agree. There's also a chance that he gets lower than G1 in Pantera: Behind The Music, judging by how easily he hits that; we'll have to check the whole thing out.

Did you ever listen to the "Lysergic Funeral Procession" clip? Spydrfish said that that one probably gets down to at least G♯1, if not lower. According to what I gathered from all the old e-mails, there's also a possible A1 in the "Overthrown" clip; so you'll have to check that out too.

Kind of hard to tell with "Lysergic Funeral Procession". G#1 at least? On that first one I heard three B1s, and a short Bb1. On the third I heard three G#1s, but nothing lower in full voice. As for "Otherthrown"... B1s is the lowest I hear in the sung stuff, that spoken passage starting with "individuals", there's a G1 on "some"... fry? "conTEND" is a full A1, the syllable after... "ing"? is a G#1. Not sure if it's full but sounds it. As for that "is trembling" at the end, holy dick! Slowing it right down reveals that when he first goes for it he breaks into fry for an F1, stops, then picks up as a full voice F#1. Here it is, see if you agree on the fullness.
http://www.zshare.net/audio/76463412502648ed/

Yeah, Spydrfish always said that "Lysergic Funeral Procession" was probably "at least G♯1 if not fry". I completely forgot about how scarily low the notes in "Overthrown" are...I'm in awe listening back to it! Man, I wish I could do that. At this point, I'm easily ready to say that Anselmo has just GOT to be a bass...no way around it. Those Pantera clips are probably falsetto, though I'll listen to them a few more times to make sure...from what I've observed, though, he seemed to usually switch to non-modal screaming before he'd end up getting high in full voice during his Pantera days. F♯1-C♯5 ain't too shabby, though...I wouldn't have caught the fry in that "Overthrown" clip if you hadn't slowed it down. I hear how it starts out in fry for the F1, then slides up into full voice for the F♯1; but what about the VERY ending? That sounds like the lowest, on the "tremBLING" bit...sounds to me like it could be as low as E1!

Feel free to check the pitches of some of the other clips too. Spydrfish didn't completely pitch all of them, he just kinda gave some "possible" pitches for some of them, and didn't give any for the rest. I still don't have any pitches for "New Orleans Is A Dying Whore", "Underneath Everything", and "Temptation's Wings". What do you make of these notes from "Revolution Is My Name"? May not get much lower than C♯2, actually...

Agreed on the bass thing... come to think of it he reminds me of Snowy Shaw down low...

Trembling sounds like fry to me so I didn't mention it. But yeah let's see if we can confirm those E5s.

B1s in that "Revolution Is My Name" clip, and a Bb1 at the end.

Wait, hold up on "Overthrown"...I just listened to the whole thing; and it turns out when Spydrfish made those clips from it, there was a bit more to that last one that got cut! Listen at 3:54, sounds lower than anywhere else...pretty fryish-sounding too, though. Perhaps it's just a fryish-sounding full note, like Steele's G♯1s and F♯1 from "She Burned Me Down"...like, those notes have a fryish timbre; but as he goes down to them from the second octave, you hear how it's still part of the same register as his full-voiced second octave notes. In any case, I still don't think the note on "tremBLING" sounds like fry; definitely less so than these new ones...what was the pitch on that, anyway?
If you listen through the song, there are also some highs up to C5 that I think Spydrfish mentioned...however, it sounds like they could be a very gritty and rough-sounding falsetto, actually. I'm actually now starting to consider the same possibility for the "The Path" C♯5...though listening back to it, it's hard to say WHAT exactly it is; it just sounds so...weird. I'm at least positive that the B4 before it is full, though. I'll see about checking out more of these high notes, though I'm logically ready to conclude that anything above F5 is gonna turn out to be falsetto...at lowest.

Still need some pitches on those songs that I mentioned in the previous message...also, try "Medicine Man" and "Floods". There are low notes scattered throughout those ones, though the latter features some effects on them.