Al sings in key or just impersonates

[bryce87]

If we're talking live performances of his songs, there are certain situations where he will try to sing as true to the key, as possible. You're always going to have certain situations live, such as the building acoustics, technical problems, that won't allow it. Most of the time this is only based on his originals, which are half of the concert. There is still a significant portion of the concert where he wants to pull off the perfect impersonation, and will completely try to impersonate that artist's live performance, which he's parodying.

By perfect impression he isn't in key or he is? For example his Kurt cobain impression. Is he in key live or just impersonating the voice?

[Elvis]

My guess is that he tries the best to impersonate the the original voice as possible, given obvious limitations. I remember Bermuda saying something like that for parodies Al gives them the original track, and Bermuda asks if Al wants them to play it "correct" or what's on the track, and Al say to play it like what's on the track. So I think that would translate to voice as well,

Dave

[bryce87]

Play it correct or what's on the track seem like the same thing to me.

[Alinite27]

What's on the track would be the 'impersonation'. Correct would be 'in key'.

Was Kurt 'in key' live? For the live performance of parodies, Al tries to strip everything away from that artist's performance of their original song. So, stylistically, it would match up to depending on the original artist's performance of 'in key'. If you go on this at an overall sense, it would be Al impersonating the original artist, sometimes 'in key' other times not.

[anthontherun]

Was Kurt 'in key' live? For the live performance of parodies, Al tries to strip everything away from that artist's performance of their original song.

Kurt was pretty anarchic in concert, especially when it came to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." There aren't many live renditions of that song that fall in line with the studio version.

[Killingsworth]

I remember when I saw Al with my dad a few years ago that after SLN he said he loved Al's Kurt Cobain and that "he sounded just like him." Al may try to impersonate in live performances to the extent that he can if, like Jeremy said, things like acoustics or venue issues may prevent it.

[AlejandraDD]

Play it correct or what's on the track seem like the same thing to me.

Bermuda mentioned many times that Dave Grohl plays the drums "very loosely". This means his beats would have not aligned with a metronome, which would be how you'd "play it correct". Al insisted that Bermuda play it as it was on the track, which must have been very difficult to imitate if you're used to, you know, playing the drums as you're supposed to.

[WHiZZi]

I recently had a discussion with our singer about this issue. Specifically because on the latest live Blu-ray released, it's notable that Al cannot reach the high note of "Another Tattoo" and is deliberately singing away from the microphone while the tracks on the back take over. Also, his recent work is showing much much more autotune than ever before.

The singer of my band had a explanation (and which fitted in my already explanation)

Back in the days, let's say RWS album. Al could easy reach all higher notes for the simple reason, there were not that many high notes. Al's vocal range is large, larger than most artists can enjoy. Personally I use Al songs to get my vocal chords warmed up. I'm having practically the same range, except I can actually go higher than Al can (if warmed up enough). Al does have better technique than me plus I'm usually playing drums at the same time (which is hard to do).

So, RWS is not that impressive in high or low singing..

Now let's go back to the song 'Another Tattoo'. That song is pretty high and extremely hard on the vocal chords. Al is trying to impersonate a Justin Bieber song. I mean, talking about using Autotune to the max. It's more than logical that Al wants to get as close to the original key as possible, but the more people using the Autotune, the more he has to use it..

Also fact is that Al's working really hard. Singing every day is not easy, I can tell. Good technique is the key here, but even with the best technique you can use, it's hard to always get the correct note, especially when the original key/singing line is autotunes like hell.

My point is, Al is in most cases singing in the original key and has to fall back on autotune (for his studio work) and pre-recorded (for live shows). Also thanks to Bermuda who makes it possible to always play in the correct tempo (because he can hear the recorded version on his headphone, also to keep the video wall in sync).

In short:
Justin Bieber cannot sing and can only use autotune.
Weird Al can sing very good and to impersonate people like Bieber, he has to use autotune or pre-recorded stuff
Weird Al sings most of his songs in the original key.

[anthontherun]

I wonder if the fact that there were so many parodies of female-sung songs on the last album that accounts for the increase in using Autotune. And I think most singers' voices tend to get lower with age and they have a tougher time hitting the high notes. I'm a big Paul McCartney fan as you all know, and I think his voice is still pretty good, especially considering he's 71, but on his newest album he breaks into falsetto quite frequently and the transition is not quite as seamless or pleasant as it was even 5-10 years ago. In most cases, it doesn't detract from the song, but there's one track in particular that would've been better off without the middle eight key change.

Then again, Al has also lived a much cleaner lifestyle than most rock stars, so I think his voice will be in strong shape for a long time.

[TMBJon]

Another Tattoo is not a Justin Bieber parody, but your point is taken.
I do think in general that as more auto-tune is used in pop music that Al is parodying, it makes sense that he would use it to mimic those songs. (If the original artist can't hit the note, why should Al be expected to?)