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omegalomania · 2 years

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i would like to hear more on the patrick vs brendon vocal ability discussion if you would maybe want to rant 👀 👀 (hshsgehdv also I've recently come to know that mr urie is Not that great of a Person so appreciate you for making that post <3)

all right so full disclaimer: the last time i had any notable vocal training was like about 10 years ago. i did get some vocal training but i have undergone hrt since then so most of what i did know is pretty useless since ive never taken the time to actually relearn my range. my understanding of this stuff is old and limited so if anyone whos actually up to date on this shit can weigh in thats always great. im doing this because im a salty mccuntnugget whos had too much honey jack daniels for one night and that apparently is what supercharges me to write emo bandmember cringe compilation posts. somehow.

this got long so im throwing it beneath a cut. click for more if you wanna read about one guy on the internet having Opinions about which of these two dudes sings better

so once again: this is MYYYY OPINION im not your mom you are free to disagree or whatever i literally do not care. but an anon asked so im going to answer. here we go.

FIRST NOTE. comparisons between patrick and brendon have been going on since the dawn of the fucking age but brendon his own damn self decided to act like patrick was copying him vocally so that means i can be as mean as i want cause he started it. we’re doing playground logic here cause this is my blog and i do what i want and also cause hes that much of a cunt.

so i want to start things off with a reminder that patrick stump did not set out to be a singer! he was not picked out of a lineup for his vocal ability. he mostly just wanted to write songs, and it was joe and pete who made a point of saying "no actually you should sing." and it takes patrick a while to actually grow into his range and gain confidence as a singer since his real love is composition. it's not until infinity on high in 2007 that you really hear him growing into his own as a vocalist and it's not until the hiatus/posthiatus that you really hear his vocal confidence.

brendon got to be the singer for panic because bassist brent wilson knew him in high school and he thought his vocal ability was top notch. the rest of the band agreed. it also took brendon a while to grow into his voice. in fact in the early days before panic actually took off (aka before ryan ross badgered pete wentz into signing a band of mostly high schoolers), people on old fob forums legitimately thought that brendon WAS patrick. old articles refer to panic as fall out boy clones for probably that reason.

brendon actually made his vocal debut on a fall out boy record, from under the cork tree (which was released may 5 2005, whereas panic's debut a fever you can't sweat out wouldn't release until september 27 2005). he does a little part in 7 minutes in heaven (atavan halen) on the chorus (he does the second "i keep telling myself, i keep telling myself i'm not the desperate type") and it's genuinely something a lot of people miss, because he sounds a lot like patrick here. later in 2008, this would happen again on 20 dollar nosebleed, which gave brendon a much bigger vocal part (again he splits the chorus with patrick) but in which their vocal inflections are very very similar to the point where a lot of people don’t realize he contributed vocals there.

so there are a lot of similarities, particularly when these two guys were still growing into their voices. it was during fob's hiatus that these started to diverge, and by 2017 they would be wildly different.

patrick readily admitted a lot that he never really intended to be a singer and it wasn't until infinity on high (2007) that he made a genuine attempt to be a singer in earnest. this reticence would often show live. it wasn't until the hiatus and then posthiatus that patrick, and also the rest of the band, had a consistent live presence imo. fob had a lot of infamously sloppy shows - fun to watch, but sonically kind of all over the place - and patrick wouldn't always be the most consistent vocalist. he'd be strong one night and breathy the next, and it wasn't until the hiatus that he started taking vocal lessons.

but the improvement really really shows now. patrick is a much more consistent and powerful vocalist posthiatus, and he's reportedly incredibly diligent in taking care of his voice. that's why you often see him making these kinds of faces in backstage videos; he's doing vocal trills, which are a specific kind of warmup that helps limber up the voice preshow. they look and sound a little silly, but warmups are important to make sure you dont damage your voice. patrick has specific warmup routines and also goes on vocal rest and doesn't do a lot of talking prior to doing a show.

so brendon does double shots before every show. i’ll be honest here i tried to do more research into what goes into warmup routines before panic shows but i Cannot deal with hearing this man talk about himself more than i already have tonight so if anyone else wants to source whatever he does. please do. i would not be surprised if he treats his voice fucking atrociously but even if he doesn’t...his upper register (which is basically his one party trick in live settings) is starting to sound awful strained on studio vocals as of 2022, which is not a good look.

i also want to emphasize that even if his technical ability took time to really come into its own, patrick has always been an incredibly emotionally versatile vocalist. from under the cork tree is really the first time you get to see this shine, where patrick swings from cocky tongue-in-cheek irony (our lawyer made us change the name of this song so we wouldn't get sued) to aching vulnerability (i've got a dark alley and a bad idea that says you should shut your mouth) to snarling anger and accusation [get busy living or get busy dying (do you part to save the scene and stop going to shows)]. factor in the bonus tracks and you get patrick at his most ruthless (my heart is the worst kind of weapon), his most raw and desolate (star 67), and a rare appearance of some borderline unclean vocals (snitches and talkers get stitches and walkers).

posthiatus this is even more apparent. save rock and roll in 2013 demanded an incredible depth of emotional and technical range, and patrick was noticeably a little gun-shy about actually committing to doing those kinds of riffs live, since he wasn’t sure he was going to have to perform those songs live. by 2018′s mania, i want to emphasize that you can actually HEAR patrick smiling in "sunshine riptide." on mania, you also have songs that demand a diverse range of tone and vocal depth: “stay frosty royal milk tea” is a snarling, punchy opening track that reminds you that patrick was a drummer first, but this is also paired with the eclectic edm-soaked “young and menace,” the crooning doo-wop style ballad “heaven’s gate,” the reggae-flavored “HOLD ME TIGHT OR DON’T,” and the closing track which, full disclosure, is probably one of my favorite songs of all time, “bishops knife trick.” and patrick pulls them all off! the best display of this was that he was able to do young and menace live in both its original incarnation and in the somber, stripped-down piano version.

also, as a note: fall out boy songs are really fucking hard to sing. the vocal range they demand is absolutely insane even if you’re not some drummer who got strongarmed into being a singer. the fact that patrick can replicate these vocals live and maintain a rich emotional diversity in tone is really, really noteworthy.

panic songs are also pretty hard to sing. they require a lot of vocal acrobatics, which was an ambitious thing for a band composed of mostly high schoolers when they started out. early performances were really rough because not only was brendon struggling, the rest of the band was struggling to perform songs live that ryan ross wrote on his computer lol.

so now is the part where i start drinking heavily so i can talk about brendon vocals. brendon has the technical talent, even if, like patrick, it took him a while to grow into it. but his emotional versatility is, imo, sorely lacking, and that was evident in early days but it would only get more glaring as time went on. a fever you can’t sweat out in 2005 had a lot of really intensely emotional moments and emotionally charged songs, but it took me a few listens to really grok that because brendon sings them all with the same upbeat energy. and you can put that down on him being an inexperienced singer still figuring his way around this whole “being a frontman” gig, but the trend actively continues and in fact gets worse over time. i think 2008′s pretty. odd. gave us some insight into this due to the pronounced vocal role that ryan ross gets on that album. he takes lead vocals on “behind the sea” and gives us some audible backing vocals throughout in a way that suggests to me that, on some level, the band was aware that they needed someone with more emotional range to counter brendon’s straight-on belting.

so it’s...kind of uncomfortable seeing brendon do said full on belting and also a borderline striptease dance to “camisado” live (which, for those not in the know, is a song ryan ross wrote about his life with his abusive alcoholic father). and i’m not gonna pretend i have any say in whether or not ryan was okay with something so ruinously personal being performed in that kind of way when he was no longer in the band, but it SURE does sit kinda weird with me!

cause brendon is a belter, and that’s just kind of his one mode. this really got more apparent after vices and virtues (2011), and too weird to live, too rare to die (2013), because there was a little more emotional range there. but that pretty much dies out after those records and brendon kind of has these two moods for everything released here on out: it’s either “i love weed” or “i love my wife” and there’s not a lot of range between. he doesn’t have much in the way of moderation. my one single experience in attempting to see panic live (in 2019, no less. it wasn’t a good time lol) was just kind of...relentlessly high-energy regardless of the song, because again, that seems to be brendon’s one setting. he frantically climbs the scale and hits really high notes to keep the energy up without ever actually letting it dial down at any point. it’s not about playing to the song; it’s about reminding the audience, constantly, of what a vocal powerhouse he is, at all times. this does nothing whatsoever to counteract how emotionally flat he is as a performer.

remember that point i made about the differences between patrick’s performance of the high-energy original flavor young and menace and its acoustic piano version? well, you get a superficially similar instance in brendon’s renditions of “this is gospel” in both its original incarnation and the piano version, but i want to point out the difference in tone here. or rather, the fact that there kind of isn’t one. contextually, “this is gospel” is a pretty somber song. it was written for and about spencer smith and his struggles with addiction before his eventual departure from the band, but it’s kind of hard for me personally to reconcile that with the way brendon vocalizes it, even in what is supposed to be a slower, more intimate rendition of it.

this got more glaring in 2018 on pray for the wicked, which gave us “dying in la” which...is i guess, brendon’s attempt at some tonal diversity on an album that was basically back to front “CHECK OUT THIS WILD PARTY I’M AT” but it doesn’t really go anywhere, imo. it builds to something, but...doesn’t actually resolve. i’m gauging this all on vocals, not lyrics, because that’s the point of comparison i’m making - lyrics are a whole other kettle of fish. it’s just like, the guy cannot dial back even for a second and as a result there is NO variation in the way he performs, studio or live. after it’s been long enough, it just kind of starts to wear at you.

another very telling difference is how different patrick and brendon’s backing vocals are. backing vocals by definition need to be much more restrained than if you're taking lead. here's patrick backing travie in 2010 - he's very understated here. distinct and audible, giving us some nice vocal harmonies, but he keeps the spotlight very truly and deservedly on travie. this is also true for studio vocals, like on the lupe fiaso track "little weapon" from 2007 in which patrick isn't even one of the vocal features. he's audible if you know what to listen for, but most of his touch comes from the track's production and composition. more recently, here's patrick doing studio backing vocals in 2017 for a cover of "same drugs" with matt nathanson. once again, he's very good at dialing things back because he's not the lead here and he knows it.

let's contrast this with the cover 2010 panic did of "skid row" from little show of horrors, wherein dallon is meant to be the lead. fortunately dallon manages to shine regardless, but it's...a little jarring that brendon is ostensibly meant to be the support here but vocally and stylistically is belting like he's front and center. another telling instance is this performance of “america’s suitehearts” featuring brendon. in fairness, both patrick and brendon sound pretty rough here since this is a hard song to pull off! but brendon is supposed to be pulling support, and he’s riffing like he’s center stage. and it’s not particularly good riffing either lol.

“what a catch donnie” is the most egregious example of this though. i’ve said this before, but brendon REALLY sticks out in a not great way on what’s supposed to be a soulful, honorary vocal feature. the rest of the fueled by ramen guys singing along are doing their guest spots in a very understated, tonally consistent fashion: distinct in their own rights, if you know what to look for, but definitely doing what they can to fit into the tone of the song. brendon comes barreling in singing DANCE DANCE like this is his fucking show, and it sticks out so badly because he’s doing nothing whatsoever to conform to the tone of the piece.

a couple more points of comparison that i personally find really interesting:

“one of THOSE nights” off of the cab’s debut album whisper war (sidebar: GREAT ALBUM. i miss this band so fuckin much man) features both brendon and patrick; brendon is heard doing the post-chorus, and patrick does the final bridge and can be heard on the final chorus. both of them are belting here, but patrick’s got a strong emotion that suits the finish without being too overpowering and also crucially doesn’t just stay...flat.

patrick actually does backing vocals on a couple other tracks on whisper war, like “i’m a wonder,” and in both that track and “one of THOSE nights” you can hear how much technical and emotional dexterity he has. the former has him belting and the latter has him doing a very restrained backing falsetto.

folie a deux era gave us two gentle lullaby pieces for pete’s first kid. the first is “lullabye,” the album’s hidden bonus track. the second is “bronx’s lullaby.” patrick does the first, brendon does the second. the first sounds very gentle and tender, and the second sounds...i mean, i can tell what he’s going for. but it just kind of sounds ominous to me. so basically i can see why most people will talk about the former and ignore the latter lol lol

did you guys know brendon was on broadway. im kidding im kidding he has literally not shut up about being on broadway and seems to have made that his tertiary character trait since kinky boots. anyway here’s brendon sounding like brendon on kinky boots and basically performing the song like any other panic song. here is patrick covering rocky horror and nailing tim curry’s part. i don’t have any live covers of patrick to have a more accurate point of comparison (he’s in his studio here so he had the luxury of picking the best take) but i just think its fucking wild that patrick wasnt the one of them to go on broadway. fucks sake man.

i COULD compare the two of these guys covering queen but that just seems mean because fob was doing a whole entire studio session and brendon was just doing it over zoom and nah im just kidding i really am that petty. anyway here’s fall out boy covering under pressure and patrick dueting with himself and managing to nail both freddie mercury and david bowie’s parts without losing his own distinctive touch. here’s brendon doing his cover of under pressure and thanks i hate it.

lastly, cause i did my fuckin research here. here are some vocal coaches taking notes on live vocals for patrick and brendon respectively. you might note that they have a lot more notes to give to the latter, a lot more cautionary tales about how much brendon pushes his voice. if they do have critique to offer patrick, it’s in regards to clips of his prehiatus performances (or for that one 2013 thnks fr th mmrs performance when he was sick lol).

the bottom line for me is that patrick, stylistically, just has more range and more versatility. he can do virtually any genre - dancehall, rock, pop, rnb, hardcore, ska, funk, and SO MANY FUCKING MORE - and he can still sound distinctly himself. and for me, brendon only ever sounds like he’s singing the same song in the same genre; molding the song to suit his tastes and his range, and not the other way around.

all right thats all ive got steam for. patrick has always been a much more distinct and capable vocalist in my opinion and it kinda sucks that general public opinion seems to favor brendon so heavily cause brendon’s basically only got one emotional setting and couches the fact that he has no vocal dexterity in a lot of high notes and everyone just eats it up. it’s a diverting tactic and it’s worked. but that kinda seems to be brendon’s m.o. these days since he’s trying to shake low opinion of him by drumming up controversy and writing a song about a dude who hasn’t been in the same band as him in 13 years so

#askin hours #anon #i had to open so many incognito windows for this cause i dont want this infecting my youtubes lol #i just use youtube to watch vinesauce streams and once a month i rewatch line goes up and sherlock is garbage #ive also said this before but its really really telling to me how patrick and brendon get involved w other artists #patrick loves music. he loves composition he loves instrumentation #he loves writing songs for people and he'll sing if he's asked to but mostly he just loves music #brendon just seems to love attention. he never takes a project that doesn't put him in center stage

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