Post by Henny Macc on Jun 4, 2020 18:13:29 GMT
Philip Kenneth Collen (December 8, 1957 - )
Years active: 1976-present
Country of origin: England
Recorded vocal range: G♯2-G♯5 (A♭2-A♭5) - 3 octaves
Band history:
- 1976-1977 - Lucy (guitar)
- 1977-1978 - Tush (guitar)
- 1977-1980 - Dumb Blondes (guitar)
- 1979-1982 - Girl (lead guitar)
- 1982-present - Def Leppard (lead guitar, backing vocals)
- 2001 - Cybernauts (guitar, backing vocals)
- 2004-present - Man Raze (lead vocals, guitar)
- 2013-present - Delta Deep (guitar, vocals)
Recorded high notes:
G♯5/A♭5: "Stay with Me"
F5: "Black Coffee"
E5: "I Surrender"
D5: "Black Coffee"
C♯5/D♭5: "Love and Affection", "Stay with Me"
C5: "Billy's Got a Gun" live Rockpop in Concert 1983, "Breathe a Sigh" demo, "I Surrender", "Make Love Like a Man" live Sheffield 1993, "Stay with Me"
B4: "Armageddon It" live Sheffield 1993, "Back in Your Face", "Black Coffee", "Connected to You", "Down in the Delta", "Rock of Ages" live Sheffield 1993, "Skin Crawl", "Stay with Me", "Take On the World", "Too Late for Love" live Sheffield 1993, "Women"
A♯4/B♭4: "Action", "Black Coffee", Dreamland", "I C U in Everything", "Let's Get Rocked", "Lies Lies All Lies", "People Get Ready" acoustic, "Pour Some Sugar on Me" live Hysteria on the High Seas 2016, "Turn It Up"
A4: "Another Hit and Run" live Sheffield 1993, "Armageddon It", "Breathe a Sigh" demo, "Edge of the World", "Excitable", "Foolin'" live Sheffield 1993, "Gods of War", "I Surrender", "Kick", "Let's Get Rocked", "Low", "Over My Dead Body", "Make Love Like a Man", "Promises", "Pour Some Sugar on Me" live Hysteria on the High Seas 2016, "Rocket", "Run Riot", "Slang", "Stay with Me", "Superstition" live 2017, "Take On the World", "Take What You Want", "Tear It Down", "This Is", "Women", "You're So Wrong"
G♯4/A♭4: "All I Wanna Do", "Bittersweet", "Can't Find My Own Way", "Don't Shoot Shotgun", "Feelit", "Fire", "Have You Ever Needed Someone So Bad" live Sheffield 1993, "Hysteria" live Las Vegas 2013, "I, Superbiker", "Kick" live at the Whisky a Go-Go 2022, "Let's Get Rocked", "Miss Me", "Mistreated" live Daryl's House 2016, "Muddy Water Blues" live Gerson Institute 2012, "Pour Some Sugar on Me" live Sheffield 1993, "Private Number" live Daryl's House 2016, "Search & Destroy", "Skin Crawl", "Treat Her Like Candy", "Turn It Up", "20th Century Boy" live at the Nick Rocks 2017, "Undefeated"
Recorded low notes:
E3: "All I Wanna Do", "Bittersweet", "Halo", "Private Number" live Daryl's House 2016, "Skin Crawl"
D♯3/E♭3: "All I Wanna Do" acoustic, "Black Coffee" live Daryl's House 2016, "Bless These Blues" live Daryl's House 2016, "Dreamland", "Muddy Water Blues" live Gerson Institute 2012, "20th Century Boy" live at the Nick Rocks 2017
D3: "Bittersweet", "Halo", "I C U in Everything", "I Surrender", "Skin Crawl"
C♯3/D♭3: "All I Wanna Do", "Halo", "Muddy Water Blues" live Gerson Institute 2012, "20th Century Boy" live at the Nick Rocks 2017, "We Belong"
C3: "I C U in Everything"
B2: "All I Wanna Do", "Halo"
A♯2/B♭2: "I C U in Everything"
A2: "I Surrender"
G♯2/A♭2: "Halo"
.......................................................
*Blue marks soft falsetto notes.
*Italics mark non-melodic notes.
*Underlines marks notes in backing vocals or otherwise muffled/obscured in the song mix.
Best known as the guitarist of Def Leppard and Girl, Phil Collen has honed his vocal chops quite well over the years, eventually to the point of starting his own side band where he serves as singer, called Man Raze. In addition to that, he has also served as the occasional lead vocalist on certain Def Leppard songs and demos (in addition to having been a prominent backing vocalist in the band for the majority of their career), and most recently started a new side project in 2015 called Delta Deep - a blues rock band featuring Debbi Blackwell Cook on primary lead vocals and Collen on guitar and secondary vocals.
In some senses, he has a fairly similar voice to his bandmate Joe Elliott - in fact, you can hear how the two of them have a close tonal resemblance in their mid ranges. However, while Elliott usually gets more thin and heady in his upper range, Collen has a more belty approach, and gradually gets more throaty and raspy as he goes higher in his range, which gives him a cool, attitude-driven vocal sound. Sometimes he can sound quite a bit like Rod Stewart in his upper register, which can be particularly observed on Def Leppard's cover of "Stay With Me", on which Collen sings lead vocals. Though his fourth octave is quite solid, it sounds like his comfortable range tops out around C♯5, considering that "Black Coffee" has him singing melodies around D5 and sounding rather uncomfortable in that area (to the point that he lowers the vocal melody by about half an octave when singing that song live). On the other hand, I was surprised to find a small handful of solid second octave notes by him, which I wasn't counting on given the limited size of his discography as a vocalist.
{Best displays of vocal range}
"I Surrender" (A2-A4-E5)
"I C U in Everything" (B♭2-B♭4)
"All I Wanna Do" (B2-G♯4)
"Skin Crawl" (D3-B4)
"I Surrender" (A2-A4-E5)
"I C U in Everything" (B♭2-B♭4)
"All I Wanna Do" (B2-G♯4)
"Skin Crawl" (D3-B4)
Note that there are probably a number of backing vocal notes from Def Leppard that could be included in this thread as well, but I'm not quite confident in my ability to distinguish between all the different members' voices to pick those out. If any hardcore fans of the band care to give a stab at that and send me additional notes to add though, I would definitely be open to it!
