Obviously everyone's voice changes with aging, so this isn't even meant as a criticism. I'm just looking for examples of singers who ended up almost unrecognizable from how they used to sound.

The obvious example here is Tom Waits. Listen to something off Closing Time and then something off Bad As Me and it boggles the mind that they're the same artist.

Every time I hear "Dream On" I forget that it's Steven Tyler singing. He sounds completely different from what would become his classic sound.

Tracey Thorn from Everything But the Girl

John Prine before/after throat cancer is something else.

Cmon people: Bob Dylan. Nasal, country croon, Cookie Monster, old man wheeze - he’s all over the place.

Ok boomer

When I was a kid and I heard Dream On I thought "I didn't know Aerosmith used to have a different singer."

Samesies

I just heard the new Bon Jovi. Jesus he sounds like shit. I'm gonna give Eddie a pass from now on.

Mick Jagger changed a lot from the early years to the 80s. He got better and better with age.

Vedder has definitely changed how he sings at least twice.

Johnny Cougar sounds a lot different now. 70 years of smoking has really taken a toll.

Elton John
James Hetfield

Hetfield is a good call. I like the change.

Jorge led with the best example of this phenomenon.

Shut it down.

Listening to Leonard Cohen sing "So Long, Marianne" and then something like "Everybody Knows" is pretty wild.

You should hear "You Want It Darker!"

One fun thing about getting covid is that I sounded like "You Want It Darker" era Leonard Cohen for a couple days.

Funny, I love those last couple Cohen albums but always think how his voice never really changed, just got a little more gravelly

The last two Cohen are my favorite. I think his songs carried even more weight with the gravelly voice

He sounds eerily similar to Homer Simpson now.