I thought CDL was a bit of an improvement vocally... there were some off moments like Because of You and Pride, but the concert as a whole wasn't really that bad. She was holding back on the vibrato and songs like teddy bear were just fine. She always seems to have one song where she completely somewhat butchers vocally in the TV version (06-07 had Free&Easy, 07-08 had SURREAL, 08-09 didn't really have anything that bad, 09-10 had Pride/Because of You..) so it's not like it's anything new.
I think she really is trying to fix things, but she's not going to be able to just train for a few days and then magically get better, you know? We'll see with the start of AT10 if she's been working hard to recover. (This seems all too familiar to me... 2006-2010 seems to be repeating the same pattern of opinions every year...) IIRC, she did quite well at the start of AT09 after a lot of people doubted that she could do it or not. Also, Mirrorcle World at Kouhaku in 2008 was much worse than the Rule performance last year so what gives? It is a little weird that she's got this sort of "out-of-breath" sound to her vocal lately, but it seems to be a combination of her not using a nasal voice anymore/her voice naturally deepening along with some unknown factor affecting her voice. I wonder if it's much harder for her to control her deeper register?
She's never been the greatest vocally, so sometimes I wonder what people are talking about, haha. But her best years imo were during the era of her talk show where she would have a new song to sing every week... there were some amazing performances between 2002-2004, but since then things have kind of gotten back to the way they were before 2002, if not a little worse sounding since her singing voice is much deeper than usual...
I have to say "Oh my goodness" at the way she'd sing Boys & Girls during lives back then... it really was a bit of a chipmunky vocal back then. I have to admit that her 2005 voice was rather strong and audible without the out-of-breath feeling, but there were are pitch problems present that she generally has always had at TV lives.
Hm, listening to an AYUREADY? performance of RAINBOW and comparing it to the CDL07-08 version, you can really hear how different her vocal was 7 years ago. But then again, she was constantly singing on a weekly basis (I think...) so that could kind of be a sort of "vocal training" that isn't as strenuous as say, touring for 30+ dates. She doesn't do that badly at CDL07-08, but there are points where she obviously goes off in the latter half of the song. Perhaps it can be blamed on the ear issue, as it had just happened a week (or less?) before... -sigh- I have faith that she'll be able to get out of this, but I disagree that "A BREAK AND VOCAL LESSONS" are going to simply fix everything. She can't just press pause on her career, and I think we all know that. If change is going to happen, it will be gradual if she is pushing on as usual with touring and doing her job as a singer. I have faith that she will be able to fix whatever's making her voice go wonky, because I believe that she can do it.