Of all the singers who have experienced voice changes over their careers, few can compete with James Hetfield. He started as almost a tenor, effortlessly singing upper fourth octave melodies, but almost always dodging full-voiced fifth octave notes, and instead resorting to falsetto or non-modal screaming. As his voice lowered, he stopped doing much higher singing until 1998, by which point his voice had changed to the baritone sound for which it is known.
1. 0:00 - Here's one that everyone knows: the outro of the "Enter Sandman" (1991) vocal track, bottoming at D2.
2. 0:19 - A count down to D2 before switching to vocal fry, from Metallica's 1998 "Tuesday's Gone" cover.
3. 0:24 - A C2 and short fry A1 from "Devils Dance" (1997).
4. 0:26 - A C♯2 from a cover of Waylon Jennings's "Don't You Think This Here Outlaw Bit's Done Got Out Of Hand" (2003).
5. 0:38 - The bridge of "Enter Sandman" (1991) (the vocal track again), where Hetfield speaks C♯2s.
6. 0:54 - A fry B1 from "Bad Seed" (1997).
7. 0:55 - Some VERY strong C2s from "Flamingo" (2008), the demo version of "All Nightmare Long".
8. 1:00 - Now for the studio version of "All Nightmare Long" (2008), where Hetfield takes the passage down to B1!
9. 1:04 - A low spoken passage from "Loverman" (1998) with, despite having large amounts of vocal fry, makes it down to B♭1 in full voice.
10. 1:38 - Another similar passage from the same song, also bottoming at a full-voiced C2 amidst a lot of vocal fry.
11. 2:07 - A count down to B♭1 in full voice and F1 in vocal fry, from the beginning of "Low Man's Lyric" (1997).
12. 2:10 - A spoken bit around C2 from "Of Wolf And Man" (1991).
13. 2:17 - A passage bottoming at B1 in full voice and G1 in fry from the "Wherever I May Roam" (1991) vocal track. In the original version, this bit is buried under other instruments!
14. 2:20 - A countdown to B1 in full voice and F1 in fry from "Mama Said" (1996).
15. 2:24 - Hetfield's lowest note overall: a slide down to a very fryish E♭1 from the ending of "The House Jack Built" (1996).
16. 2:48 - Now for the high register! This clip may sound familiar to a few subscribers, as the original version of it was featured in my Ozzy Osbourne video: "Sabbra Cadabra" (1998), where Hetfield sings some very melodic and sustained A4s.
17. 3:18 - Some A4s from much earlier in Metallica's career, where Hetfield's voice is audibly very different. Song is "Escape" (1984).
18. 3:42 - Strong A4s from "The House Jack Built" (1996).
19. 4:03 - B♭4s from the "No Remorse" portion of the live "Kill/Ride Medley" (1996).
20. 4:11 - A powerful B♭4 from the ending of Metallica's cover of "Remember Tomorrow" (2008)!
21. 4:13 - Some wonderfully energetic B♭4s from the vocal track of the"Mercyful Fate" (1998) medley.
22. 4:46 - B4s from the ending of the "Broken, Beaten & Scarred" (2008) vocal track, including an entire line done at that pitch!
23. 5:18 - Some short but very melodic B4s from the otherwise instrumental cover of Ennio Morricone's "The Ecstasy Of Gold" (2007).
24. 5:26 - A sustained B4 from "The Unforgiven III" (2008); very powerful!
25. 5:32 - Some surprisingly melodic singing up to B♭4 and C5 from the "A National Acrobat" portion of the "Sabbra Cadabra" (1998) cover.
26. 5:53 - A live clip of the high notes from the verse of "The Four Horsemen" (2004), which Hetfield usually has a lot of trouble with. However, in this performance, he flukes his way up to C5 instead!
27. 5:55 - An entire line done at C5, though pretty strained, from the "Frantic" (2003) vocal track! This is then followed by a climb up to a falsetto E5.
28. 6:15 - Back to the earlier days of Hetfield's career for some rather screamy C5s and C♯5s from the vocal track of "Ride The Lightning" (1984).
29. 7:00 - Some falsetto C♯5s from the 1982 "Jump In The Fire" demo, then a full-voiced one on the "yeah" at the end of the line.
30. 7:02 - A short C5 from a 2004 live performance of "Metal Militia" in Padova.
31. 7:05 - Some very screamy high notes from the ending of "My World" (2003), topping at B4.
32. 7:10 - Possibly Hetfield's most random high note: a slide up to a sudden D5 from "Broken, Beaten & Scarred" (2009) live!
33. 7:13 - A rough D5 from "Purify" (2003), then an even more strained E♭5! Clearly his upper limit
34. 7:19 - A falsetto laugh from Metallica's 2006 "Iron Man" cover, topping at F5.
35. 7:23 - A falsetto A5 howl from "Of Wolfgang And Men" (1999) (the orchestral version of "Of Wolf And Man").
36. 7:26 - A short whistle D6 from the 1982 "Hit The Lights" demo.
37. 7:27 - A whistle F♯6 from the 1982 demo of "Jump In The Fire".
38. 7:28 - Hetfield's highest notes ever: A6 and B♭6(!) in whistle, from a 1982 live version of "Hit The Lights".
Thanks to Spydrfish, Jowox, StageHolder, Gregsynth and Goblonaut for helping.
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lets see one for King Diamond.
SuperVilliany101 1 month ago
@SuperVilliany101 Talk to Danerage about it!
Thetarantinomaniac 1 month ago
i can scream like he does in hit the lights, that means i can reach A6? cmon....
ChineseTOP 1 month ago
@ChineseTOP No...but if you can scream like that up to A6 it means you can reach A6.
Thetarantinomaniac 1 month ago
@Thetarantinomaniac your videos are cool but i mean james doesnt haves a 5 octaves vocal range..
ChineseTOP 4 weeks ago
@ChineseTOP I agree that he doesn't have a five octave range. But the fact remains that the range spanned between the notes at 2:24 and 7:28 in this video is four and a half octaves.
Thetarantinomaniac 4 weeks ago