It's true. All of this era's haters, please just listen to the songs and concentrate on the vocals. He doesn't rely on that growl, nor does he overextend himself and try to hit notes he can't hit as he does on the latter albums.

I truly believe it's during this time period that Ed really developed as a singer.

Meh I kind of like the growl. The vocals on a lot of the No Code/Yield songs are damn good though.

Of course I still feel many of his best vocal performances come on Vitalogy(Corduroy, Nothingman, Betterman, Immortality).

I think this is where he started to come into his own as a singer, so I would agree with you. Vitalogy has some awesome vocal performances, which paved the way for No Code and Yield. I would say that Vitalogy was the reformation of his singing, but it wasn't fully realized until the next two albums.

You speak the truth. Before that I would have said Eddie had a great voice, but wasn't a great singer. This changed that for me.

Needed something to make up for the shit songs from those albums .......

only kidding frank

You need hearing aids.

he was really good live then too but at the same time, Faithful is one of my least favorite Ed studio performance. after that and until S/T, his studio voice went downhill imo.

Is it the singer, or is it the songs? Yield, in particular, seems to be a collection of songs that show Ed's voice to its best advantage.

He sounds awful on mankind.

I think the production on some of the songs hurts him. He's muted on songs like Red Mosquito and I think he's really singing his heart out. This album is still the last of his truly transcendent vocals, unfortunatley. I'd take vitalogy and vs over it but this is really a great piece of work (except for habit and lukin)

Yup.
He is very good now, but in those years you could say he was among the bests ever.

There seems to be a tremendous range of tastes in vocal performances. I personally think that Ed sounds better today on all of the Vitalogy songs than he did in the studio versions. That is probably contrary to the opinions of most.

I think that Stone sounds okay on the studio version of MANKIND. The heavy reverb helps, but live the lack of resononance in his voice is really apparent.

this is the era when he lost some of his aggressiveness

it is more that the aggressiveness just turned into shrieking, which is less compelling. You still have habit and lukin--but you've lost that animal/last exit middle ground which was where he was at his best

He is awesome in Sleight of Hand, his voice really shows all the dragging, frustation that the song is about.

agreed--but what is noticalbe for me post vitalogy/no code is that you no longer have the guarantee that he will be awesome. You used to be able to take it for granted.

I agree 100% specially on the live version.

However that is not the point. He just lost it. I blame it on the smoking.
He just can’t sing the way he used to. He can’t deliver the aggressiveness, the complexity and the range of emotions that are present in the early record. He now has this high tone that totally butchers some of the old songs and that is only suitable for a much reduced type of songs.

I reeeally disagree actually - he sounds awful on Satan's Bed nowadays...and the ones where his voice needs to be strong (Last Exit/STBC) he always sounds a bit weak...not bad...but you can tell he's struggling a bit. Of course it doesn't matter at all when you're watching in a live setting.

I think Stip's posts have been spot on from the start. *licks Stip's arse*

i believe the 98 era is the best ed vocals.

See, I don't hear that at all. As I said in my first post, he stopped relying on that growl so much and broadened his vocal delivery. Ed's got a great voice, so why waste it by doing nothing but screaming?

i dont think it was broadened at all. i dont think he can hit alot of the lower notes w/ the power he used to.