you're not cool at all

So, I've been having a huge Scott Weiland-mood during the last few days and I've been going through his music really much. I'm still not convinced about his voice type, that's why I want to give some links:




Songs like this definitely give the first impression of baritone voice to me, Weiland sounds a bit like Vedder here (especially during the awesome beginning lines after 0:15). This is definitely really baritonish singing, no matter what his voice type is.



0:24 He darkens his notes pretty well and 0:49 still sounds like a lighter baritone to me. 3:51 was surprisingly tenorish note though, he hit that G4 pretty easily and all (I can hit G4s that light too but I'm definitely a baritone, still how clean that note was surprised me and was definitely more tenorish there than in the studio performance).



After 0:22 Weiland makes really accurate vocal imitation of Cobain, he sounds just like him.



He sounds a lot like Jim Morrison here, really good vocal cover.



The intro and the later vocals have more raspy approach by Weiland here.



Here he imitates Layne Staley and sounds almost exactly like him!


Einheerjar view about Weiland's vocals post-Velvet Revolver:

Einheerjar wrote:Yes I agree his voice started sounding much like a low tenor. But the funny thing is, Weiland is also known for his strong hard drug abuse, and the moments when he was more unhealthy and harmed by drugs were exactly the ones his voice started thinning out and getting tenorish. Its the same case of Layne, their voice thinned out and lost the original weight of it, giving the low tenor impression. Drug abuse make muscles fibers to retract, the reason people start getting very thin when using too much drugs. There is alot muscles engaged in voice production, so drug abuse ends up also thinning out the voice as the muscles in this area also atrophy.

Einheerjar wrote:Indeed lol. But still in libertad I think he still retains some of his pretty light high baritonish although it starts getting very low tenorish . Usually I think its better to classify on lows, because, its much more easier to learn to make your voice getting higher than convincingly lower, as there are much more muscles involved in the production of high tones and notes than in lows, you can develop much more and "fake" much better a high voice than faking a low one. What I mean is, highs can be much more decieving than lows. I guess its the combination of drugs, with another singing style he (Weiland) developed.

1:38 onwards has some tenorish A4s, Weiland was having an extremely strong heroine addiction at the time and was on heroine during the recording too.

I wonder if Einheerjar's theory would be true? Just wondering because it seems pretty legit to me... Weiland's voice definitely turned lighter and more tenorish after his drug addiction (which he developed REALLY fast in the 90's already) got worse and worse. He also got like ten times thinner thanks to his drug addiction, I think this could have affected his voice.

Here are comments by other users:

gt1995 wrote:I think these arguments are legit. The time where his voice sounded thinner would make sense too.

subby33 wrote:I guess he could be a low tenor, I dunno . . . but he goes into a scream right around a4 and b4 which is where most baritones start to enter their "danger" zone.

Whatever he was . . . god he was good. Such a unique voice.

"IF . . . I . . . WOULD . . . COULD . . . YOU?"

. . . oh and also for what its worth, I think Scott Weiland is straight up baritone no doubt. How many tenors sing that dark and thick?

Sherick wrote:I never thought he sounded tenorish in VR.

I personally hear him mostly as a really light and high baritone, kind of close to Kurt Cobain. His speaking reminds me of Cobain a lot too. His singing was definitely more tenorish during Velvet Revolver, could his lenghty drug addiction from the beginning of those days have affected his voice?