Edward, you're checking out his passeport and concluding that, as the rest of his body,, Mick's voice has aged. I listened as closely as I could for years and I cannot tell that his voice has aged and I don't believe it has at all.

Debra is definitely right about Wild Horses: if you can sing Out Of Tears with such a light, pure voice, you can sing Wild Horses as on Sticky Fingers (neither are among my fav Jagger performances either).

Jagger has immensely increased his capacity to nuance and his enjoying it a lot. It is true that he sometimes overdoes it, but that is his style: distanciated, well-read, a little kitsch somehow.

And the bottom-line is that Jagger is very often purposefully inserting fake struggles in his deliveries, instabilities, shortness of breath, BECAUSE they are where the song's effect comes from (opera singers sound like shit on traditional tunes because they don't struggle).

You hear how he corrupts his voice for a song's sake on the documentary about Goddess. On every song, he's almost looking for the revealing flaw.

OTONNEAU, THAT WAS BRILLIANT! The perfect explanation indeed! My question is WHY do people nit-pick so?? I do not think it's a crime to age! Hey, the alternative is not pleasing to me! However, as you said, one cannot detect AGING in Mick's voice as much as a preference for a different kind of phrasing and enunciation and to be honest, I prefer the Mick oftoday because I can understand the lyrics! His lyrics on ABB are so great, so interesting, that it would be a shame if they were garbled!

Settle down there, Debra. We nit-pick because we care. Honestly, I think you are in love with Mick, so your adoration for his singing must be taken in light of that....

Let's hear him sing Back Street Girl and see if his voice hasn't aged.

Right on, Debra. Let's keep close ranks and front the blasphemy!
By the way... and here I go again... didn't YOU at least agree with my reading of Sweet NeoCon?

One of his best vocals in the nineties was on Evening Gown. That was truly beautiful. The lyrics, the arrangement and the way he brought them together by singing it in such a mature manner. Stunning.

OTONNEAU, I'm not sure I read your post on SNC but could you re-submit it!? I'd love to read your take on it! And I think Mick would do a lovely, 2005 version of BACK STREET GIRL!! And OTONNEAU, this babble about the quality of Mick's voice today is just that, BABBLE! Mick can SING rings around ANY front man in the biz today. As you said, for those who are in doubt, listen to WANDERING SPIRIT and GODDESS! He can still YELL,. as in GUN and he can emote like in BRAND NEW SET OF RULES, which I happen to love! I guess if you're not a TRUE JAGGER FAN, you WILL find fault but if you happen to love his style and voice and presentation and persona than you'll be happy as OTONNEAU and I happen to be....SO KINDLY, DO NOT RAIN ON OUR PARADES!

Debra, I don't know how to put direct links to threads but the one I had started on Sweet neo con was titled:

who calls whom a hypocrite in SNC? (a grammatical, NOT a political question).

Easy to get to through 'search' using grammatical as the key word!
Look, I'd really care for your opinion on this, I'm actually becoming ridiculous about it but I just don't like everybody to believe Mick has written lyrics so silly as the ones of Sweet neo con has been presented. I kind of hoped my view would be shared but apart from Rutgers (hi Rutgers!) who found it interesting, nobody was convinced - I still am, so do let me know what you think!

OTONNEAU, I liked your interesting perspective on NEOCAN but I agree with LORENZ because I think you went in deeper than Mick intended! I think Mick keeps the same " speaker" or Voice all the way through; he is addressing the NEOCANS, the Bushes of the world and asking WHY THEY ARE SO WRONG! Mick is the one fearful of crazies , bombers in his bedroom and he is belittling the oil people, especially BUSH! Not that Mick is not DEEP, he certainly can be, I just believe he kept it simpler than that.He admitted that he wrote it very quickly! I like your mind however! Complex and many-faceted.

does the equitment they use in the studio make a difference on his voice compared to what they used in the 70s or 80s????

Good question, Mandu! I don't know the answer but I'll guess that technology has removed the tinny sound that was a trademark of 60's and 70's music. It seems thin compared to the built up, big sound of today. Even Phil Spector's WALL OF SOUND was thin by comparison! Mick sounded like he was singing in his shower back then! I remember seeing pictures of the Stones in the recording studio, sitting in those little cubes with the big head sets and huge microphones! Technology has had to impact the sound of his voice somewhat but I'd say for the better!

Aaargh... still not convinced a soul! Feel like Galileo.

I wonder if people would like "Winning Ugly" more if it werent; for Jagger's vox. There's a killer riff and a good bridge. The words are vintage Jagger. It's those 80's Jagger-phrasings; the w3ay he stretches "Winnaaahhngggg". That is a bitch. But in a way those are the Jagerisms. I rememeber the first time I heard "Hot Stuff" and wondering what tyhe @#$%& he was saying at the end when he screeches about "u knauwadImtaukinbout musicmaikufagidallyourtabells..".
Maybe I just haven't digested his "Ugly" voicings yet. When IORR came out I read all the magazine reviews. All they focused on was Jagger in the quiet part when he keeps going "but I like it".
Jagger is cool. I was listening to Fingerprint File and he is breathing, sniffing, cackling, cawing like a crow. What a cool dude.

i love the way he sings on iorr,black and blue,goats head soup,tattoo you some girls, ER,exile on main street alot better than the way he sings today.i do love the new album ABB.but it seems like micks singing is just to goood or to nice.

Iam not putting him down. its my personal taste.