Joey Belladonna | The Range Planet

Hennessy Macklemore III
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Joey Belladonna Apr 24, 2020 3:33:06 GMT Holsety, Zedd Squared, and 5 more like this

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Apr 24, 2020 3:33:06 GMT

Joseph Bellardini (October 30, 1960 - )
Years active: 1980-present
Country of origin: United States of America
Recorded vocal range: G2-B♭5 (G2-A♯5) - 3¼ octaves

Band history:

1980-1983 - Bible Black (lead vocals)
1984-1992 - Anthrax (lead vocals)
1995-2003 - Belladonna (lead vocals)
2003-2010 - Belladonna (lead vocals, drums)
2005-2006 - Anthrax (lead vocals)
2010-present - Chief Big Way (lead vocals, drums)
2010-present - Anthrax (lead vocals)
2020-present - Beyond Journey (lead vocals)

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Questionable notes}
B2: "I'm the Man '91" - suspected to be Charlie Benante
A2: "I'm the Man '91" - suspected to be Charlie Benante
F♯2/G♭2: "I'm Alive" - backing vocal note during a section where the bottom harmony would logically bottom there, but is completely inaudible in the mix, "Rocky Mountain Way" live 2017 - not clear if this note exists due to the poor audio quality of the recording and the guitar playing over his singing
D♯2/E♭2: "Rocky Mountain Way" live 2017 - not clear if this note exists due to the poor audio quality of the recording and the guitar playing over his singing

.......................................................
*Blue marks soft falsetto notes.
*Italics mark non-melodic notes.
*Underlines mark notes in backing vocals or otherwise muffled/obscured in the song mix.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Detailed bio}
The iconic vocalist of Anthrax, known for his contrast of soaring melodic vocals over the band's raw, thrashy music. This made for a stark difference to most of the rest of the Big 4 of Thrash vocally, as most of them featured vocals that were much more shouty and gritty, and less centered around actual "singing". Joey's vocal evolution was a strange one, as he started out with an extremely agile and resonant fifth octave in the mid '80s, which you could hear him utilizing to its fullest on 1985's Armed and Dangerous EP and the Spreading the Disease album. All too soon, however, he seemed to experience some kind of vocal damage in 1987, which I've never been able to get any details about, but the evidence of is very apparent on Among the Living when you hear how much thinner his C5-D5 notes got, and how much screamier everything E5 onward became. You could also hear that he was greatly struggling with live performances around this time, as many recordings from that era feature voice cracks and flubbed notes, and on some songs he would omit the highest notes altogether at times. This downward spiral continued through 1988's State of Euphoria, until he completely eliminated all fifth octave notes entirely on 1990's Persistence of Time, and and played it very safe with all his vocal parts.

From there, he launched a solo career that was very hit-or-miss vocally, as it featured some impressive performances on his first album with songs like "Down & Out" and "Power Trip", but then other albums like Spells of Fear and 03 were almost completely centered around his mid range, and rarely featured anything above A4 (for shame!

). Occasionally he would still go for some fifth octave screams, but they tended to be much more "gritty falsetto"-oriented; as opposed to the resonant, powerful notes he was hitting up there back in the '80s.

I admittedly had lost hope for Joey as a singer for a while, and didn't expect that he would ever recover his high range, but in the late 2000s he made the comeback of a lifetime when he rejoined Anthrax, and suddenly started busting out fifth octave notes again no problem! The first studio album to indicate that some kind of recovery had been made was his 2010 solo release Deadly Night Shade, which was his first album in decades to feature melody singing up to D5 and E5, which was then followed by a new Anthrax album, Worship Music, in 2011, which featured similarly strong singing. The 2013 Anthrax EP Anthems was also particularly impressive, as it showed Joey covering Rush, Boston, and Journey, and singing melodies into the fifth octave with considerable control and ease.

Since then, he's continued to perform with impressive consistency in Anthrax, and on his off time does lead vocals and drums in a small-time cover band called Chief Big Way with two of his neighbors. Chief Big Way regularly covers all sorts of classic rock acts such as Journey, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Rush, Deep Purple, Foreigner, and many others, and Joey continually proves his ability to perform both the vocal and drum parts for those artists. Though his singing is very primarily geared towards high notes (so much so that for a number of years we basically thought his low range was non-existent), some of his recent performances and Chief Big Way covers have confirmed that he does in fact have something of a low range, but he seemingly prefers not to use it. Nonetheless, he's still managed to display over three octaves of strong, sung notes, so he definitely has a decent range either way!

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Vocal range video}
Here's the vocal range video I currently have uploaded for him on YouTube, from 2013. It's mostly accurate/reliable, though at the time we hadn't found as many sung second octave notes by him yet, so it's a bit lacking in that department. Still does a good job of showcasing his high range abilities at their prime however!

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}{Best displays of vocal range}
"Rocky Mountain Way" live 2017 (G♯2-D♯5)
"Hard Life" (D3-G5)
"More Than a Feeling" live 2010 (C♯3-F5)
"Out of Sight, Out of Mind" (E3-G♯5)
"Vice of the People" (G2-B4)
"Madhouse" live Bloodstock 2016 (C♯3-D♯5)
"Woman from Tokyo" live Scranton 2017 (E3-F♯5)
"Medusa" (E3-F♯5)
"Blood" (A2-B♭4)
"What Is and What Should Never Be" live 2019 (D♯3-D♯5)

Last Edit: Aug 25, 2024 19:06:10 GMT by Hennessy Macklemore III

Rodney Blazershorts Moderator Offline Posts: 407 Likes: 543 Join Date: September 2019	Joey Belladonna Apr 24, 2020 3:44:23 GMT via mobile CT likes this Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by Rodney Blazershorts on Apr 24, 2020 3:44:23 GMT It’s always great to see the third best Anthrax singer having a thread again.
	Last Edit: Apr 24, 2020 3:44:34 GMT by Rodney Blazershorts

Hennessy Macklemore III
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Joey Belladonna Jun 10, 2020 4:34:40 GMT

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Jun 10, 2020 4:34:40 GMT

Since the vote ended up being in favor of counting the F♯2 as a questionable note, I'd now like to open some discussion about his next-lowest note. I've gone back and forth on what I hear this clip bottoming at a few times - usually G2 or F♯2, but every once in a while I'll get something as low as E2 (though I'm pretty sure that isn't right). But anyway, the notes in questions are "do you solemnly swear to use your powers for eVIL? Only then can you be the vice of the peoPLE".

thatsnotcool33 Vocal Novice Offline Terrible with harmonies 101 Posts: 57 Likes: 35 Join Date: April 2020	Joey Belladonna Jun 11, 2020 4:59:48 GMT Quote Select Post Deselect Post Link to Post Member Give Gift Back to Top Post by thatsnotcool33 on Jun 11, 2020 4:59:48 GMT Definitely not an E2, sounds like a F♯2 to me.

Hennessy Macklemore III
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Joey Belladonna Aug 30, 2024 21:52:28 GMT

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Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Aug 30, 2024 21:52:28 GMT

Apparently when you sing low as rarely as Joey does, it takes singing stuff like Rush and The Scorpions to get low notes out of you :innocent:

Solid B2 here! And an E5 a bit later.

Quite a few strong D3s here too.

I also checked out all the footage I could find of his Dio tribute concerts from earlier in the month, and managed to find at least one recording of every song in the set (though some I've only been able to find uploaded in really bad quality so far, like "Voodoo"). Overall, it seems like he put on a good show with that, but you can hear a number of moments where he's struggling to hit some of Dio's fifth octave notes. He usually sounded pretty consistent up to B4, and then C5 was a note that he usually hit consistently enough, but sometimes sounded weaker or shakier on. C♯5 seemed to be around the danger zone for him though - he hit some of those decently, but then others like in "Neon Knights" and "Die Young" he had to dodge completely, or if he went for them they turned out reeeeally flat. Same for D5s, though he only hit a select few of those successfully - namely the sustained one in "Don't Talk to Strangers" and the melody ones on the last verse of "Tarot Woman", plus a short one in "Rainbow in the Dark".

Overall though, I don't consider the flubbed notes so much of reflection of weaker vocal condition/ability on Joey's part as I do consider them a reminder of just how crazy hard Dio's melodies were to sing! He really just regularly wrote parts in that higher passagio range that would murder many men's voices, and the fact that someone who's managed other parts as high as Joey still has trouble with some of them is pretty telling.

Joey Belladonna (4,540 views)

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Apr 24, 2020 3:33:06 GMT

Post by Rodney Blazershorts on Apr 24, 2020 3:44:23 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Jun 10, 2020 4:34:40 GMT

Post by thatsnotcool33 on Jun 11, 2020 4:59:48 GMT

Post by Hennessy Macklemore III on Aug 30, 2024 21:52:28 GMT