Talk:Death growl

message: These two inpaticular are essential to the development of the death grunt/scream vocalizations, I added them.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Impaled Incision (talk • contribs).
:According to who? Cite a source or gain consensus instead repeat adding those vocalists. --Leon Sword 03:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added Sean McGrath & Ross Sewage 

message: No sources have shown "death grunt" to be the most common term for this vocal style, so, for now, this page should be titled "growled vocals." Jon138 21:32, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Based on what criteria is growled vocals the best term - I didn't see any discussion reaching consensus? All articles link to death grunt anyway. try starting up some discussion first before taking such drastic measures. Spearhead 21:57, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Growled vocals

message: Corpsegrinder (Actually lead vocal in Cannibal Corpse) can be considered as an example of very extreme death grunt?,...I think that his voice is very brutal,...Thanks for your attention. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Dcamposurquiza (talk • contribs) 14:23, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  No...there are thousands of people using the death grunt. The short list on this page is supposed to only contain some vocalists that played a part in it's development. Isilioth 11:30, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  And,....George "Corpsegrinder" Fisher of Cannibal Corpse? 

message: It seems unproductive to have a list of key vocalists and yet have no separate list of other people that also use this style in their music.  At the moment, these names are added to the existing list and almost immediately removed – a separate list would give these names a home, without being overly trivial.  I imagine that such a list might be quite long and eventually require a separate article, but not so long as to be completely useless.  The only argument against another list that I can think of is that there may be a few artists who only border-line on death vocals.  I suggest that from this point on, rather than removing anonymous entries they should instead be added to a new list (if appropriate).  — Lee J Haywood 21:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Go ahead - I proposed that long time ago, but no one seems to be interested in doing it, altho I'm not sure a list is necessary. Maybe a category would be more suitable. Anyway the list would be long, including all singers of death metal and grindcore bands as well as lots of gothic metal, doom metal and probably other singers. Spearhead 21:32, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  A category is a sensible alternative, but it would suffer from giving a long list of people without the names of the groups that they belong to.  Now that I think about it, a few people will have used these vocals in several groups – but then lists can handle that too, see for example List of female television actors.  Thanks.  — Lee J Haywood 22:09, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  Looking through some of the discussions above, I'm forced to recognise that I'm not familiar with enough artists to make such a list by myself.  I had hoped to use the edit logs to gather together other contributions, but the repeated renaming of the article seems to have truncated its history.  Also, I can see now that such a list would be almost as difficult to keep clean as the list of 'key' vocalists – as there would be argument over who should truly be on it and who doesn't count...  Personally, I'd be more interested in a list of bands than people, but that seems out of touch with this article. — Lee J Haywood 11:26, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  New list of artists 

message: Someone who thinks he or she knows everything there is to know about death metal keeps deleting Ross Dolan (Immolation) from the list using revisions. Please don't. The man has a very distinct and easily recognizable voice and is also one of the very few vocalists who can pronounce his lyrics clearly while utilizing a very deep growl. He's been an influence for well over a decade now. I think that removing him and at the same time keeping guys from fringe bands like Mourning Beloveth on the list isn't very prudent and subjective to the extreme. On the other hand, if you want to be anal about control: go ahead. It isn't that important. Harachte 00:59, 22 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Is he a "Vocalists essential to the development of the growl"? "a very distinct and easily recognizable voice" isn't a good reason. "is also one of the very few vocalists who can pronounce his lyrics clearly while utilizing a very deep growl" is also not true - there are several examples, such as Dave Ingram Karl Willetts, Nick Holmes and POV. "He's been an influence" is debatable. If I think of Immolation, I think more of the guitars and drums, not the vocals that are only in a reach of 2.5 notes or so. "He is also notable for having extremely long hair" (from Ross Dolan is also a silly statement to add. Spearhead 15:47, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added Ross Dolan. Again. Undone. Again. 

message: If anyone wants they can use this template  on their user page... it looks something like this: . Asics talk Editor review! 18:52, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Singers

message: I believe that Joe Wolfe of Heinous Killings, ex- Clean Flesh, Erotic Incisions, should be added to the list of pioneers of the death grunt.  He has proven himself as to having the lowest guttural vocals with his most recent release, Hung with Barbwire by Heinous Killings.  Along with Joe Wolfe, I think that Blue Jensen of Guttural Secrete should be added for having very unique, low, gurgle vocals, and having a rapid rate of delivery.  Nikfuk, the vocalist of Sikfuk, should too be added most notably for his lack of lyrics.  It has been said, that Nikfuk does not write his lyrics down but rather writes down vocal patterns for performance and recording purposes.
The following are websites that have recordings of the musicians:
Blue Jensen - http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=7015555
Joe Wolfe - http://www.myspace.com/heinouskillings
Nikfuk - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dn7TUM-Hx5k
These three very influential vocalists should be added to the list of death metal grunters.  They are the sound of the new wave of death metal.  Thank you for taking the time to read my claim and more importantly listen to the links i have provided, and hopefully make the changes to the list.
68.74.123.77 06:33, 6 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Joe Wolfe, Blue Jensen and Nikfuk 

message: :The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 
I really don't see why this article is titled death grunt when most people know the vocal style as growling.
I see people objecting to the use of the term death grunt in the discussions, people use growling in the discussions, regardless of the title of the page, and in most magazines, newspapers, e-zines etc. growling is by far the most commonly used term.
I saw google results was mentioned in a discussion about the topic, but to get somewhat valid results you have to know how to search.
Here's some results from google, using quotation marks to make sure the words are used in the right context, and putting a minus sign in front of "wikipedia" and "answers.com" to try to minimize any biased search results caused by this very article.
It's not entirely unbiased, as there are other web sites wich have wikipedia articles on them, but it nevertheless gives a reasonable picture of which of the two terms are the most commonly used:
"death growl" -wikipedia -answers.com : 10.600 results
"death grunt" -wikipedia -answers.com :      850 results
"death metal" growling -wikipedia -answers.com :186.000 
"death metal" grunting -wikipedia -answers.com  : 49.900
"death metal growling" -wikipedia -answers.com : 3.110
"death metal grunting" -wikipedia -answers.com :    440
"death metal" growl -wikipedia -answers.com :111.000
"death metal" grunt -wikipedia -answers.com :  34.900
"death metal vocals" growl -wikipedia -answers.com: 14.900
"death metal vocals" grunt -wikipedia -answers.com :     946
And finally, the meaning of the words themselves gives quite different associations to the vocal style.
Growling is defined by dictionary.com as: "To utter a deep guttural sound of anger or hostility", and by the American heritage dictionary as: "The low, guttural, menacing sound made by an animal".
Right in the vein of the aggressive nature of death metal.
Grunting, on the other hand, is defined as "to utter a deep guttural sound, as a hog does" Pigs wallowing in the dirt is not what first comes to my mind when I listen to death metal.
I think the whole idea of wikipedia is undermined if one or two persons are governing the titles, what terms to use and the content of the articles. I haven't seen any good arguments to why this article should be titled death grunt, other than "I have always known it as death grunts" wich is irrelevant and purely anecdotal. But to follow that argument I will say that I have always known it as death growls, and I heard it back in 1908, so I am right and you are not.
The second argument was: "why change it anyway... every thing seems to link here and the most dominant terms are mention in the first line". And that was the end of discussion. In other words, the message was "yeah, maybe it's wrong, but why change it? If we spread the disinformation to as many people as possible, for a long enough time, someday it will become truth" Which is commonly known as propaganda. I'm sorry, i got a bit carried away there, but I hope you get my drift.
I hope someone change the title of the article, or that there at least will be a decent discussion without "I heard" or "I have always" in it.
--Anabiose 00:20, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I support that death grunt be moved to death growl. I aggree with Anabiose, every reference to this singing technique I have heard or read has been "growling" or "growled vocals" or the most common, "death growl". I had never heard of the term death grunt until I was redirected to this page. I think the article should be moved to the most common name used because it's definately not death grunt. A reference that is currently being used in the article,  never even mentions death grunt only growling. Oh and by the way, if you look at the archived talkpage you will see that a number of people have suggested before that the page be moved to death growl.--Leon Sword 04:56, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

text: Support –Pomte 21:14, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

text: The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal.  Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.
This article has been renamed  as the result of a move request. --Stemonitis 06:23, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Requested move

message: Can someone please tell me why he keeps getting added to the list? What did he do that was so important?? The Key Vocalist section is supposed to contain only "Vocalists essential to the development of the growl and the bands they represent". Wow, Mikael used clean vocals as well as growls. But what did he contribute to the development of the growl? Nothing. If I were to record an album with me growling and rapping, would that make me "essential to the development of the growl"? I will continue removing his name from the key vocalist section. Isilioth 09:16, 21 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opeth's Singer... 

message: Why the hell Devin Townsend and Amorphis singer Tomi Koivusaari are not in the list. They are also most important growlers. Justin Broadrick also must be in the list.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 88.112.15.197 (talk • contribs). 
:Who is an important growler is a matter of opinion, and the short list is for "key vocalists", not for "people who use growled vocals". By the way, sign your posts. --Leon Sword 22:19, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  There is more important growl-singers than this short list 

message: Considering some of the others on the list, I think the frontman of Deicide would fit right in. While he didn't exactly invent the death growl, "Deicide" was released in 1990 and I think is a pretty influential death metal release. Any opinions? Demonofthefall 11:22, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Glen Benton? 

message: What about Nergal from Behemoth? Isn't he a key death metal vocalist too? Bopash4 09:44, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nergal? 

message: The list of key vocalists needs to be cleaned up - the first two entries, Angela Gossow and Quorthon need to be placed in the correct alphabetical order. Also, the wikipedia article on Quorthon states that his full name is Ace Thomas "Quorthon" Forsberg - the entry here should probably also be expanded to show the full name, as with George 'Corpsegrinder' Fischer, and so forth. 
Also I'm not sure what the purpose of the list is when most of the people in the list are discussed in the main article itself.  Jayaprakash Satyamurthy 07:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Key Vocalists 

message: I sure hope this doesn't get deleted again. The technique is invaluable to the history grindcore and pornogrind. 
I also think it is important that someone mentions the ridiculous vocals that powerviolence bands use. I really don't know what to call them, I've always refered to them as hort vocals. I do think they should be mentioned as a variation because they are infinitely differint from the death growl itself, but are used constantly by powerviolence and powergrind bands. 71.117.98.90 19:02, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mentioned Inhales, Powerviolence vocals need mentions

message: This is the singing voice used by Louis Armstrong, isn't it? He should be mentioned somewhere among all the death metallurgists. Flapdragon 13:35, 24 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Louis Armstrong 

message: These guys need to be added:
*Devin Townsend 
*Justin Broadrick
*Tomi Koivusaari
I mean: these all are from the influential/important bands who play or played death metal and own their unique-style.
PS. This is definitely NOT my opinion of POV.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.114.157.102 (talk) 12:21, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Then be bold... if it is not simply your POV, then add them with a citation explaining why they're important. Other editors of this page should possibly bear this in mind as well, as the article's beginning to look like a list in prose form with little or no actual information about death growling in it. Blackmetalbaz (talk) 19:54, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  More key vocalists 

message: I'm not quite sure who added him, but it definitely gave me a giggle this morning. Atonal crooning and screaming has no fundamental connection to the death grunt, and that's pretty much Anselmo's style just like all the other groove/post-thrash singers. We might as well add Rob Flynn, too, while we're at it! LOL --Danteferno (talk) 15:55, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: LOL I couldn't agree more --Kmaster (talk) 16:42, 24 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed inclusion of [[Phil Anselmo]]/Pantera 

message: Does anyone know of any books on the technical aspects of how the body works while singing like this?  I know there is the Cross instructional DVDs, but they didn't really have what I was looking for.  I am looking for books or other sources that are more focused on the actual sound, instead of just who sings what and general descriptions of the sound.  Probably a stretch, but I thought I would ask anyways.
The article states: "Death growls are sometimes criticized for their ugliness".  I would like to know where in this book it says that?  I'm not criticizing, I just don't want to go looking through a 600 page oversized book to find it, and I need it for a reference. :) Ibanez Guy (talk) 07:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Literature on this sort of stuff 

message: I'd like to point out that the terms growls or growling, death metal vocals, death grunts and harsh vocals, guttural vocals or (uncommonly) unclean vocals respectively are not synonymous. Harsh vocals etc. are general terms for "extreme" metal vocals, death grunts etc. are obviously specific to the vocal style typically used in death metal. While the correspondence may not be perfect, black metal bands typically use a higher pitched vocal style, described as screams or rasps. Growls and grunts are also sometimes found employed as less specific umbrella terms for harsh metal vocals, but this is not entirely proper usage as they refer to low-pitched death metal vocals specifically. This is my personal observation of the usage of other metal fans. As original research, I cannot add all this to the article, of course, but I'd like to mention it here, at least. Florian Blaschke (talk) 18:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think it's also worth mentioning that the terms clean and melodic vocals/singing are used as catch-all terms to describe non-harsh vocal styles in general when contrasted with harsh vocals. Even pop vocals might be used, though this tends to sound derisive. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:37, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

text: See also this interesting discussion, which reminds me that black metal vocals are also often described as "shrieks" and that another umbrella term could be "aggressive vocals". Rapped vocals are outside of the clean/harsh dichotomy, I think; they are not clearly harsh, so by default clean, but they are clearly not melodic, either; like Sprechgesang and spoken word parts, while they are vocals, one would hardly describe them as "singing", while harsh vocals are more readily described as a form of singing. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:05, 17 March 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terminology 

message: An article about growling without a single mention of Angela Gossow? For shame, you sexist editors...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.102.215.241 (talk) 15:54, 11 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Sexist because one vocalist who happens to be female isn't mentioned? Geez, what a narrow statement. Also, it's spelled as "what". Backtable Speak to meconcerning my deeds. 01:47, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: "Wat" != "what". It's Internet slang. Check Urban Dictionary or Know Your Meme, or something. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:50, 4 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wat 

message: I'm not an expert and am just passing through without a dog in this fight, but Charlie Patton and Blind Willie Johnson, both of whom recorded in the late 1920s, would be much earlier and far better examples of proto-growling than Screamin' Jay Hawkins' drunken gabbling.  Take it for what it's worth, editors...  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Skip Zipper (talk • contribs) 00:03, 22 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Charlie Patton, Blind Willie Johnson 

message: this should not be listed as a synonym for the growl, it does not mean the same thing.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.42.227 (talk) 23:05, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bad Vocals? 

message: I've noticed that my addition of Mike Oldfield's "caveman" vocals in "Tubular Bells" has been removed by Blackmetalbaz in this edit. I'm not sure I understand his rationale. How is this example different from the others given? Is it the lack of guitar riffs? However, the other examples don't all have them, either, and I thought this article is about the style, regardless of genre. Or is it the fact that they are artificially distorted, not actually done with a special vocal technique? But that is also true of some of the other early examples. I ask for an explanation.
Perhaps Eloy's The Zany Magician (1975) is a better example, even though it's not a stylistic element, but supposed to portray the eponymous crazy wizard, and does not seem to have been an influence on later bands. But it does feature heavy (for the time) rock riffs.
There's an even much more curious – and really early – possible historical precedent: The oratorio Ordo Virtutum by Hildegard von Bingen has a role for the Devil, and whatever he does, it's definitely not singing in the conventional sense and it's not pretty sounding. Sure enough, I don't know what exactly Hildegard wrote and what she intended for the role to sound like, and I've never heard any modern performance of it, but I have read a review of one on Amazon where the reviewer said that the performer doing the role of the Devil indeed grunts like a pig, interrupting the plainchant again and again, which the reviewer found rather disconcerting. The description in the article also suggests that the performer employs a form of unpitched singing. This is certainly suggestive. But also mind-boggling, especially if you remember that there are nuns performing soaring, angelic soprano vocals and choirs in the piece, the plainchant that the male performer keeps interrupting with his yells and grunts. A beauty & the beast vocal interplay à la Theatre of Tragedy or Tristania in the Middle Ages?! Again, it seems that truth is stranger than fiction.
I see that Alpha Ursae Minoris has chimed in in the meanwhile. Great! Do you happen to know any details about this? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 03:46, 6 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Early precedents 

message: A Wall Street Journal article mentions Lemmy as a precedent:
* 
Rather than argue this, I'll let WSJ's credibility in the metal community make a case for his inclusion. / edg ☺ ☭ 12:36, 19 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Lemmy

message: In Talk:Trill consonant#A laymans defintion, Tropylium confirms my above description of growling (at least the imitate-a-snarling-dog variant) as epiglottal trilling (in the case of death growling, then, as coarticulation). This means that there is even a non-standard diacritic mark (or even several) in the International Phonetic Alphabet (namely the one for strident vowels – well, actually, there are two possibilities –, or perhaps the one for harsh voice, or possibly the creaky voice one for the hardcore punk technique), which could be used to signal growling in scientific written notation. Neat! --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:18, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Phonetic description 

message: "21st Century Schizoid Man" has no place in this article.  Since when does adding a distortion effect to a NORMAL vocal make it a death growl?  You might as well throw in The Beatles' "Revolution" if that the case.  "Boris the Spider" is a much better example of a proto death growl.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.57.179.61 (talk) 21:00, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  King Crimson? 

message: Does anyone else think the "death metal growl" invariably sounds exactly like the character Cookie Monster, from an American childrens' educational television program of the past?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.41.40.24 (talk) 17:45, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Obviously yes, "Cookie Monster vocals" is a common nickname for this vocal style. This was actually noted in the intro, but at the time you posted this, it had been  by an anonymous editor who apparently did not like the term and missed the fact that the cited source was originally precisely for this term, which in turn was due to an earlier  of the term through a different IP editor, which had resulted in the loss of the association between the term and the cite, even as the term was reintroduced later. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:05, 9 June 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cookie Monster growl? 

message: I have never heard a death growl referred to by either of these names, and neither appears to be sourced. If a source for these terms can not be found, they should be removed from the page.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 140.103.44.193 (talk) 14:39, 28 October 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point. Both were added by IP users without any justification, so I've removed both terms. "Grim vocals", on the other hand, is occasionally used, especially for black-metal style vocals, as black metal is often described as "grim" by fans. But this usage seems to be rare, probably too rare to be worth mentioning.  --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:47, 15 February 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Deadly howls" and "Black speech"? 

message: Don't get me wrong, death growls are definitely a subset of harsh vocals, but in my limited experience (I'll look around for sources in a bit), the term covers other styles of "non-standard" vocals used in modern "extreme" music, including screams but also various other harder to classify styles.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 181.115.8.167 (talk) 04:26, 3 March 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Should "harsh vocals" be a redirect? 

message: * Greek: εμώφωνα φωνητικά
* English: vomit-like vocals  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:587:4103:C000:1416:D2E6:270A:C624 (talk) 13:19, 10 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Norwegian vomit-like blackster vocals (one out of the many styles), translations 

message: I may have had some letters capitalized in my edits that are not supposed to be; I apologize. Fruitebay123 (talk) 20:11, 18 December 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Possible Spelling Errors on my part