Top 101 Vocals Quotes

It was a song I wrote for my wife as a present, never intending for it to be a Styx song. ‘Babe’ was a demo. The demo became the hit record, including all the background vocals, which were done by me.

I don’t believe that recordings should sound radically better than the artist, I think that’s dishonest. For example, I’m not a great singer but if I spent enough time tweaking my vocals, I could sound like one. But I don’t, what you hear is pretty much what I sing.

Singing is something that I have done all my life, but what I did on my first two records was to hide the vocals. They’re there to thicken the web of the cello.

The thing about covers is that the first thing you’re going to notice is the vocals, because it’s not the same person.

The thing I find frustrating about rock music is, how different can you make an acoustic drum kit sound, an electric guitar and vocals?

Enya was a huge deal for me. That kind of woman vocals and how wide those productions were.

If I improvise vocals at an early stage of the song, I just kind of listen to the roll, and then I kind of have a little vocal hook.

It’s like a painter with various layers of paint. I start with a drum loop and add keyboards, and then melodies start to take shape. The vocals happen later. I’ve never really done therapy before, but it’s a form of therapy. Everything else falls away.

As a producer, when I’m trying to make something soft, I start with a slow tempo. Then after that, it would be straight to acoustic guitar and vocals, or I’m going to go strings and just piano.

Recording vocals has the same kind of physical demands as you experience a lot in theater work.

Something on mainstream radio is very in your face with the vocals. I tried that, and it just doesn’t feel like Washed Out. It’s got to have that haziness to it.

There’s not a day that I don’t work on vocals, have vocal coaches, go to acting classes, read books.

With Mr. Bungle, I’d lay down a really rough demo of my vocals and then play them for the guys without telling them what I was saying. Our drummer at the time had the coolest takes on what he thought I was saying, so I’d ask him to write out what he thought the lyrics were.

Technically, a Ghost song could just be piano and vocals, but it could also be full, pounding, heavy-thrashing hard rock.

With its breezy guitars and sweet backing vocals, ‘Norway’ blows away any semblance of Beach House’s previously bleak approach to pop.

On ‘Idol,’ I understood that everyone wanted to hear my vocals, so I stuck with the ballads.

I usually like to hide my vocals behind the music. I don’t like to hide them consciously, but I have a tendency to prefer the vocal at the same level as everything else and put lots of reverb on it.

Maybe I was just born with a little bit of vocals or natural talent, but I feel like I taught myself.

I do most of my vocals – aside from a couple of little one-shot vocal samples. I record everything into the Saffire with an SM58 then scratch it with loads of plug-ins. I don’t do much vocoding to be honest. All my vocals are usually done with Melodyne and a ton of other plug-ins to make it sound weird.

We’re basically a rock band – guitar, bass, drums and vocals. But we take it further than that. We can be rotten, dirty, and heavy as anyone, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot of melody.

I’m always saying in the studio, ‘My vocals are too loud!’ or ‘My vocals have too much effect on them!’ I like some of it, but I’m not a fan of loading effects onto my voice.

Bands such as LiLiPUT and Essential Logic were just as unorthodox as Gang of Four or Wire, even taking their sounds a step further with shrieking vocals and saxophone.

I don’t think it’s important to be that good at singing. I think people who are good at singing sing backing vocals for pop stars. It’s about how you project. I wouldn’t consider myself to be a singer.

I have been a huge fan of ABRA ever since I discovered her in 2016. I love her gloomy fresh universe and her youthful unique vocals. Also I find her lyrics and visual output super exciting.

I can do some vocals in England; I can come across to LA You can do various versions – replace this, replace that. You can use software that almost makes the record for you.

Blind Willie Johnson is a pretty big vocal influence. He can be very harsh, like gargly, gruff vocals, but also just slip into some very delicate, vulnerable soft stuff. I like that combination.

My whole goal in this industry nowadays is to keep doing the underground stuff, but to be able to add vocals that are sexy and underground.

I’m tired of being around men all the time. I’m going to start a band called Skirt with three girls and I’ll play the guitar and sing backing vocals in drag. I went window shopping when I was in New York, saw a lot of amazing dresses.

I grew up writing songs in my room on GarageBand, and I would make the beats just out of layering my vocals over and over again. Very Imogen Heap-inspired.

When I listen to the radio, I just hear so much music that doesn’t even sound like people. The vocals are all tuned, and the drums are all fake.

I usually prepare a track and then I work with the artist when it’s time to do the vocals.

I live for playing live. All my records are live, since After the Gold Rush, with the exception of Trans and the vocals on Landing on Water.

The music that I listen to is very minimalistic. I listen to a lot of old blues that is just guitar and vocals.

When I first started writing songs, I never intended on singing. I didn’t really consider myself a singer at all. I was just kind of recording the demo vocals as a holding place until someone else came and sang.

For a young band about to make a record, make sure you get the vocals right.

The vocal arrangements are a big part of the formula for a Bad Religion song – layered harmonies and background vocals. So when I start to describe the elements of Bad Religion’s sound, it starts to sound like a Christmas choir.

To me, dance is so ethereal and elusive, so much of an illusion. After a performance, that’s it. With vocals and music, you have good recordings.

What it means to look like a woman or man changes regionally – from mannerisms to clothes to posture to makeup to even your vocals – so I just observe, and I replicate.

We were gradually playing larger venues and in the early days PA systems were kind of non-existent. So to play loud, we had to use louder equipment. The PA systems back then didn’t mic the instruments – only the vocals.

I always layer my vocals a lot. I sing a minimum of three layers of the same line every time, and then it’s always one or two or sometimes even more harmonies.

When making the first album, I think I wrote a song about every six months. The first album was so much about the vocals carrying it.

My inspiration is R. Kelly, Michael Jackson, and Prince – for the vocals, anyway.

A lot of my vocals were the first time I ever sang the song.

The vocals are what immediately draw people in and sell the song.

I strongly believe that Professor Longhair playing just instrumentals would be just as effective as stylized vocals; that’s how much I believe in his music.

I do guest vocals all the time.

I got into punk at 17 after discovering an all-girl band from Long Island on the Internet called The Devotchkas – four crazy-looking girls with fast, driving basslines and high-pitched gang vocals who shared the same dress sense as the punks I used to eye up curiously in Camden.

If you are blessed with good vocals then it doesn’t mean you start picking up anyone’s song and start singing it. You should sing less but with quality.

I don’t think my vocals demand effects. I like reverb to a certain extent, but I don’t want to hide my voice. I like stripped-down vocals, but I also like crazy, powerful, doubled vocals like in dance or electronic music.

The neighbors prefer I don’t do vocals at night. It gets a little iffy when I’m screaming.

I loved Celine Dion. I loved Whitney Houston and these big powerhouse vocals.

You get some confidence in your songwriting abilities and go for the essentials – guitar, bass, drums, vocals. Those are the basic band essentials that have to be in place before you go any further.

I don’t try to make one thing. I really try to experiment, even if its just the vocals or the beat. I can’t really describe my sound.

It’s a particular skill, I think, doing backing vocals. You’re blending the vocals between the gaps, between the music.

As a musician, I don’t think I’m the greatest guitar player. I’m a bigger fan of the drums than I am the guitar; I just happen to play guitar. I play drums almost every day at my house. I wrote a lot of songs behind the drum kit, just having the music and vocals in my head and playing the rhythm.

The only time it dominates is during a solo, or when we play a low blues and I put figures in behind Eric’s vocals. There’s never any real problem fitting guitar and organ together.

In the studio you can auto tune vocals, and with drums, you can put them on a grid and make them perfect. I hate that sound. When someone hands me a record and the drums are perfectly gridded and the vocals are perfectly auto tuned, I throw it out the window. I have no interest in rock music being like that.