50 Greatest Lead Singers

singemonkey

Note! This is interesting precisely because it's not going to conform to most people's expectations. They even break their own selection rules several times. This is a very alternative take. But the great virtue is it got me looking up some artists that I'd never got around to.

http://pigeonsandplanes.com/2012/11/the-50-best-lead-singers-of-all-time/

It's also interesting to think that the popular music may be divided into those who like punk-rock and those who don't - since many of the artists appearing here who would not be seen in similar lists come from that world.

Tokai-SA

No Paul Rodgers in the top 50? :?

Or David Gilmour?

?

Gearhead

No ways they should have listed Jagger above Mercury. They admit about Jagger

without even possessing a particularly strong voice

and we all know Mercury had twice the vocal range.

Stubbs

Gearhead wrote: No ways they should have listed Jagger above Mercury. They admit about Jagger
without even possessing a particularly strong voice
and we all know Mercury had twice the vocal range.

That's 100% true, but I think there's more to what makes a singer 'good' than just vocal ability. Showmanship, song writing, crowd enjoyment etc.

vic

Stubbs wrote:
Gearhead wrote: No ways they should have listed Jagger above Mercury. They admit about Jagger
without even possessing a particularly strong voice
and we all know Mercury had twice the vocal range.
That's 100% true, but I think there's more to what makes a singer 'good' than just vocal ability. Showmanship, song writing, crowd enjoyment etc.

Yip....even more reason to put FM above MJ. ?. Don't get me wrong...I like ol' Mick....he's a true legend and pioneer and he co-wrote some classics as well.

These lists, whether it is a 50 best guitar players list, or whatever, will always generate different opinions. I'm surprised to see Kurt Cobain so high up.

EDIT: thought I'd share this

"For me, Bob Dylan and Patti Smith, just to mention two, are superb singers by any measure I could ever care about — expressivity, surprise, soul, grain, interpretive wit, angle of vision. Those two folks, a handful of others: their soul-burps are, for me, the soul-burps of the gods. The beauty of the singer's voice touches us in a place that's as personal as the place from which that voice has issued. If one of the weird things about singers is the ecstasy of surrender they inspire, another weird thing is the debunking response a singer can arouse once we've recovered our senses. It's as if they've fooled us into loving them, diddled our hard-wiring, located a vulnerability we thought we'd long ago armored over. Falling in love with a singer is like being a teenager every time it happens".

This is an excerpt from Jonathan Lethem's introduction to the Greatest Singers of All Time feature in the November 27, 2008 issue of Rolling Stone,

Psean

Stubbs wrote:
Gearhead wrote: No ways they should have listed Jagger above Mercury. They admit about Jagger
without even possessing a particularly strong voice
and we all know Mercury had twice the vocal range.
That's 100% true, but I think there's more to what makes a singer 'good' than just vocal ability. Showmanship, song writing, crowd enjoyment etc.

I think those other things are what make a good frontman or a good songwriter but not necessarily a good singer.

Vic wrote:
Stubbs wrote:
Gearhead wrote: No ways they should have listed Jagger above Mercury. They admit about Jagger
without even possessing a particularly strong voice
and we all know Mercury had twice the vocal range.

EDIT: thought I'd share this

"For me, Bob Dylan and Patti Smith, just to mention two, are superb singers by any measure I could ever care about expressivity, surprise, soul, grain, interpretive wit, angle of vision. Those two folks, a handful of others: their soul-burps are, for me, the soul-burps of the gods. The beauty of the singer's voice touches us in a place that's as personal as the place from which that voice has issued. If one of the weird things about singers is the ecstasy of surrender they inspire, another weird thing is the debunking response a singer can arouse once we've recovered our senses. It's as if they've fooled us into loving them, diddled our hard-wiring, located a vulnerability we thought we'd long ago armored over. Falling in love with a singer is like being a teenager every time it happens".

This is an excerpt from Jonathan Lethem's introduction to the Greatest Singers of All Time feature in the November 27, 2008 issue of Rolling Stone,

These kinds of things, along with vocal ability, are probably some of the major things that contribute to someone being a good singer.

jt

That list is quite fail, since when is music subjective!

DaFiz

No David Byron...? :-\

Bob-Dubery

Gearhead wrote: No ways they should have listed Jagger above Mercury. They admit about Jagger
without even possessing a particularly strong voice
and we all know Mercury had twice the vocal range.

Yeah and?

Heard Pavarotti sing rock and country?

Arno-West

They should have called it 50 greatest frontmen. Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison don't qualify as great singers to me, in fact, I think they're both pretty crap singers.

Gearhead

X-rated Bob wrote: Heard Pavarotti sing rock and country?

Yes and no respectively, but he ain't no great rocker and I cannot imagine him singing country. My point was that if you're going to call your list Greatest Lead Singers, your number one should be the better lead singer of the list in most respects. Singing included.

Bob-Dubery

Gearhead wrote:
X-rated Bob wrote: Heard Pavarotti sing rock and country?
Yes and no respectively, but he ain't no great rocker and I cannot imagine him singing country. My point was that if you're going to call your list Greatest Lead Singers, your number one should be the better lead singer of the list in most respects. Singing included.

My point was that range isn't everything. Pavarotti was a truly great operatic tenor, you want range then Pav has that. And I think it's not what the guys who compiled that list had at the top of their list. Being a lead vocalist in a band is actually not just about singing. The lead vocalist has to interface between the audience and the band, has to deliver the songs with conviction. There's phrasing, there's getting various moods into your voice. Ian Anderson was never a GREAT singer, but he does "cynical" very well. Timing. Knowing when to put your foot on the monitor and swing the mic (something Pavarotti was particularly poor at) and when to get all sensitive.

We can argue about the rankings, but I think they made a fair fist of justifying placing Mick where they did. Interestingly Freddy Mercury's challenge in Queen was similar to Jagger's for the Stones - they both had to cover quite a lot of stylistic ground, and still be credible whilst doing so. A different kind of range.

Bob-Dubery

Arno West wrote: They should have called it 50 greatest frontmen. Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison don't qualify as great singers to me, in fact, I think they're both pretty crap singers.

I think they set their stall out quite clearly. They even said that they were paying attention to style as well as skill (and they didn't limit skill to ability to hold a note, range of notes and so on).

Mick was pretty good (even if he was a mimic of note). Jim judged just as a vocalist was not much cop, but clearly they gave him points for whipping the audience up and for strutting around the stage (though one hopes they weren't dishing out points for leather trousers).

vic

X-rated Bob wrote:
Arno West wrote: They should have called it 50 greatest frontmen. Mick Jagger and Jim Morrison don't qualify as great singers to me, in fact, I think they're both pretty crap singers.
I think they set their stall out quite clearly. They even said that they were paying attention to style as well as skill (and they didn't limit skill to ability to hold a note, range of notes and so on).

Mick was pretty good (even if he was a mimic of note). Jim judged just as a vocalist was not much cop, but clearly they gave him points for whipping the audience up and for strutting around the stage (though one hopes they weren't dishing out points for leather trousers).

I enjoy Mick's voice and his range is fine for what he's doing...However I prefer Freddy's for the music within his voice...

Bob-Dubery

singemonkey wrote: Note! This is interesting precisely because it's not going to conform to most people's expectations. They even break their own selection rules several times. This is a very alternative take. But the great virtue is it got me looking up some artists that I'd never got around to.

http://pigeonsandplanes.com/2012/11/the-50-best-lead-singers-of-all-time/

It's also interesting to think that the popular music may be divided into those who like punk-rock and those who don't - since many of the artists appearing here who would not be seen in similar lists come from that world.

Thanks for posting this. I think this is one of the most interesting such lists I have read in a long while. They've got well thought out positions. Who cares about agreement?

Tokai-SA

David Coverdale didn't make the list.

=

Charlie4

Whether you like him or not, or his band for that matter, Bruce Dickinson deserves to be on this list.
He is a great singer, has a demanding stage presence - runs around like crazy, he has to be fit from all that fencing.
However, lists will ALWAYS be subjective.
This one is not too bad though.

Sneaky-Pete

The thing about Jagger is that he can really SELL a song to the audience. So can Steve Tyler, Robert Plant and numerous other frontmen.
If you can't sell it, you have the short career that Tracey Chapman had...a stage presence like a bucket of sand...

studmissile

Another silly list I feel compelled to add my 10 cents. I feel as lead singer it has to go Steve Tyler. They not my favorite group (but up there), he can sing, dance (those back flips and shit) and play the harmonica (and drums) like no leading man can. I'd happily put him at no 1.

Bob-Dubery

studmissile wrote: Another silly list I feel compelled to add my 10 cents. I feel as lead singer it has to go Steve Tyler. They not my favorite group (but up there), he can sing, dance (those back flips and shit) and play the harmonica (and drums) like no leading man can. I'd happily put him at no 1.

It's an interesting thing (to me, anyway) that a lot of singers can play instruments but don't do it much live. Bowie can handle guitar and sax (played both on albums, on and one album played all the guitar. He played keyboards in Iggy Pop's band for a while). Plant plays guitar and pretty good harmonica - also played some bass in a sort of nearly-Zep-reunion project that JPJ wasn't involved in. Freddy Mercury played piano on the records and occasional piano and guitar on stage. Daltrey was the lead guitarist for the Who whilst they were still operating under another name. Paul Rogers played a lot of guitar on Bad Company records (on one track he played everything). Etc etc.

Which gives a hint about the job - you're not there to just stand in front of the mic and sing. There's more to it than that. Joan Armatrading was, for a long time, a good example. She's fully up to the job of playing lead guitar, but for a long time she always had a lead guitarist in the band who did a job that she was fully capable of doing herself - and she's not exactly given to prancing around the stage, getting a foot up on the monitors, whirling the mic on it's cable etc.

So it seems to me it's a demanding job. You're not just trying to remember the lyrics and utter them in tune.