World of Weird Al Yankovic

The evolution of Al's voice is amazing to me, he used to have to shout everything in his concerts and nowadays he can sing the hell out of high Cs in concerts!

In the early 80's-1983 all his recordings and live shows were extremely...EXTREMELY throaty and shouty, it's almost painful to listen to at times. Then when he was in the studio for In 3-D, his voice under went a COMPLETE 180 and actually sounded pleasant and he hit notes with ease and without screaming, but for some reason in concerts he kept shouting everything. It got better during "The Stupid Tour" though it was still a bit rough, then when he opened for the Monkees it seemed he had gotten his "live voice" almost under control. In any rate, by the 1995 Al-Can tour he was like hitting high C's and D's practically every other song without any bad signs or strain and with ease, its amazing. Then when the new look came his voice became...even better! It had even more ease, and was actually quite a nice voice to listen to!
Such an interesting evolution. I ramble. I certainly notice the strain from some of the recent tours, but it isn't horrible, especially in comparison to others who have been touring as long as him. He's wise to having pre-recorded vocals backing him up on songs like "Another Tattoo" etc. just in case, but really it isn't that awful! It would be wise to start lowering some of the songs though, before it becomes a more noticable issue. He used to lower songs frequently in the 80's I think...

The thing I hate is that he decided to perform Tacky on Conan, which is falsetto, and would be harder for him to accomplish live. Now, in the comments, everyone is saying that he is terrible live, and is too old to perform. OBVIOUSLY they have never experienced a Weird Al concert

Muppetboy09 wrote:The thing I hate is that he decided to perform Tacky on Conan, which is falsetto, and would be harder for him to accomplish live. Now, in the comments, everyone is saying that he is terrible live, and is too old to perform. OBVIOUSLY they have never experienced a Weird Al concert

"Tacky" had a LOT of meh moments in it live, but I'm sure it'll get better with more practice. Out of all the parodies on the album that one is probably the easiest to sing live, since "Handy" goes up to a good C5, "Word Crimes" is even more falsetto and chest voice crazy, and "Inactive" and "Foil" aren't the greatest TV appearance songs.
This album's parodies had a LOT of high stuff in them, reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally hope he lowers some of it for the tour to avoid strain...

I just want to mention that I love that he added a little vibrato to "Tacky". It sounds really good, and is not overdone. Also sounds kinda sexy.

Muppetboy09 wrote:The thing I hate is that he decided to perform Tacky on Conan, which is falsetto, and would be harder for him to accomplish live. Now, in the comments, everyone is saying that he is terrible live, and is too old to perform. OBVIOUSLY they have never experienced a Weird Al concert

There was a discussion on Facebook as to whether he actually WAS performing Tacky live on Conan, or whether he was synching. My personal opinion is that he was synching (all those different acoustic environments backstage would have been a nightmare) until he got into the studio audience, and he switched to live at that point. But what do you all think?

It was too off to be lip sync. Not that that is a jab at Al, i just dont think he is used to singing it yet. But it was the best choice for the show.

minnick27 wrote:It was too off to be lip sync. Not that that is a jab at Al, i just dont think he is used to singing it yet. But it was the best choice for the show.

DEFINITELY was live singing. It would have been perfect if he was lip syncing, not to mention that you can hear the breathing into the microphone.

It sort of breaks my heart to hear his voice deteriorate. If you watch the 1999 live special, his vocal range is ridiculous! If you watch the 2011 live special, there are quite a few cringeworthy notes. It really reminds you that age is inevitable. Don't get me wrong, he's still a good singer, but there's a significant difference between being in the studio and being on stage.

I agree with tomatochives. Though I've heard a few odd notes in 1999 already. In both 2011 special as well as when I saw him on tour, he used a backup vocal line on the higher notes which he simply cannot reach anymore. This is also caused by the fact all these 'artists' use auto-tune like crazy which Al has to do as well in order to get the same 'vibe' on the song. Something which isn't easy to do in a live show (not undo-able.. I mean, Bieber is using it too in his live shows).

It's probably also because of age and high level of touring. I'm still surprised by what Al's voice can still do and I can only hope he will continue as long as possible and not do like Ozzy Osbourne or Brian Wilson to always auto-tune and use too much effects over vocal-lines so it sounds higher

His voice was as impressive as it was in '99 during the 2010 tour, which is really surprising. But by the end of the Alpocalypse tour you could tell that being on the road constantly from 2010-2013 had done its work on Al's voice :/ Especially considering how high so many of the songs in Alpocalypse are, having to belt out all those A's in PITCIA and Tattoo, and the Ab's in Perform This Way, Craigslist goes all the way to a B multiple times during the song, then high notes in songs like SLN, goodness doing that for almost 3 years is gonna leave a mark o.o

I'm sure with some time off it'll strengthen back up, his voice has always been quite impressive, and his range is pretty shockingly high O.O He even sings a few D's in "First World Problems" (which is one of the reasons that maybe he may lower it in concert?)