The 10 Shittiest Singers On Earth

THE 10 SHITTIEST SINGERS ON EARTH

Well this was fun.  Rounding out my obsession with singers of all kinds, I already brought you the one-hundred and twenty best there is in two different lists.  So now it is only fair that I rank the absolute worst.  The bottom of the barrel.  The shittiest of the shit.  At least to my ears.

Talking trash about people in many ways is easier than kissing their ass.  So in that regard, the words here just came naturally.  Most of these entries make terrible music, but a few are not in the worst bands of all time so much as they just stink up the joint something fierce with their "singing".  I have chosen not to include a link for each entry this time, since why would I want do that to you fine people?  I did tackle google images to get the pictures I needed though, so don't anyone say that I did not suffer for my words.

10.  Liam Gallagher

There is plenty wrong with this dunce cap.  He rarely wrote anything in Oasis and when he did, it was not until several albums in.  Probably because Noel Gallagher was so much better and smart enough to not let his brother have a go.  So basically, Liam's only job was to try and fuck up his brother's songs with his whinny, droning, wanker voice.  The fact that Liam has always looked like the biggest douchebag you will ever seen just makes it worse I guess.  I love Oasis, I just cannot understand why the hell this guy was along for the ride to begin with.

9.  Vince Neil

Speaking of band-ruining, you have to include this doofus.  Motley Crue actually is not that bad, but along with the Faster Pussycat "singer", Vince Neil has got to be the worst hair metal frontman there ever was.  Not saying much I know since most of them suck as much as their bands, but they apparently cannot all be Paul Stanley behind the mic.  Vince Neil really does have a shitty voice though, bad enough that I will probably never be as big of a Crue fan as I otherwise would be.

8.  Joe Elliott

I cannot stand this prick.  Besides never liking any of Def Leppard's hits, the main reason I still chose not to listen to them is because of Joe Elliott.  Ask this guy any question and his answer will always be along the lines of "Yeah, Def Leppard is the greatest band ever".  Not even close ass-whipe.  Of course his vocals are dogshit, which makes his baffling arrogance all the more annoying.

7.  Michael Bolton

I probably would not have bothered to give the guy in Office Space the time of day up until he recently thought he would milk the ironic hipster angle thing with those fucking Honda commercials.  So good for Michael Bolton as he made some more money and now he is sort of relevant enough to remind us how much he still blows goats, (I have proof).

6.  Chad Kroeger

Yet another guy like Bolton who suffers from Dude-Seriously-Inside-Voice syndrome.  Everything everybody says about Nickelback and their asshat frontman Chad Kroeger is rather justified.  Obviously this band is terrible, but they actually do not ignite my rage like they do normal folk whose ears are not broken.  For anyone who is a fan, Kroeger makes sure your ears bleed for what you pay for.

5.  Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda

I was recently reminded of these two yahoos since Linkin Crap has been off my radar since, well, always.  The handful of songs that I have heard from this band range from Jesus-Christ-Is-This-Bad to Unholy-Mother-of-Prick-Make-It-Stop.  The combined diarrhea spewing of their two frontmen Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda pretty much make it so.  Whinny, obnoxious crap.

4.  Tom Delonge

Speaking of which, now onto this schmuck.  Truth be told, ALL emo singers sound like Tom Delonge and ALL of them I cannot fucking stand.  OK, the Fallout Boy guy got pretty good later on if he counts, but I know I am not alone here since there is a multitude of people who dismiss the entire genre based on the whinny, nasally, horse-shit vocals that seem to be a requirement.  Very hard to argue with such dismissal.

3.  Fred Durst

You ever see that Hollywood Minute joke where David Spade had a picture of Milli Vannilli up and just said "These guys...no, that's too easy" and left it at that?  This is kind of the deal with fred durst.  I am not capitalizing his name twice.  Limp Shitdick is easily in the higher running for the worst band in all of creation and the blame for that lies at least 112% on durst's jaw-droppingly awful vocals.  As AMG brilliantly put it, "in fred durst, they have the worst frontman in the history of rock".  Yes.  Yes they do...

2.  Dexter Holland

 ...but that still does not mean that there is not room for this guy.  The matter here is rather, well, personal.  First off, Dexter Holland has my last name so fuck him.  Secondly, ALL of The Offspring's singles, hits, sharts, whatever you want to call them are the worst music I have ever heard.  Thirdly though and most importantly is the fact that not nearly enough people out there hate this band as much as I believe they should.  Everyone hates ICP, Nickelback, Limp Bizkit, as is natural.  Yet how the sound of The Offspring does not immediately make people scream and leave the room just refuses to sit me well.  I really cannot stand this guy's voice and I can honestly say that the band he is in remains my most hated ever.

1.  Attila

Well, for once one of my lists might have an unexpected number one.  I debated including Mayhem's returned vocalist Attila Csihar for the simple fact that he is the only extreme metal vocalist to appear here and well, the rules I made for my "100 Favorite Singers" list of not including such vocalists maybe still should have applied here.  I was not prepared to do a top whatever worst extreme metal singers though so fuck it, this is where Attila belongs.  He is...shit, the words escape me.  Basically if you put someone with down-syndrome in front of a mic and told him to pretend to be a vampire and vomit, Attila's vocals are what you would get.  More than anyone on this list, the fact that this guy has a gig is utterly mind boggling.  Also, I seem to be rather alone in thinking this.  Every metalhead friend that I have made over the years who is into Mayhem either simply tolerates this fuckwad or worse, actually digs him.  I even know some of the drugs some of these friends of mine are taking and I still cannot excuse their defending.  Attila is awful, unbearable, and just pure, confoundedly and unbearably awful.

20 Favorite Extreme Metal Vocalists

20 FAVORITE EXTREME METAL VOCALISTS

As promised, here is a mini-list of my "20 Favorite Extreme Metal Vocalists".  I was originally open to including some of these entries in my regular "100 Favorite Singers" list, but since I came up with more than enough for that one, I figured that a better idea and fairer representation would be to rank them in their own countdown.  It really would have been the same as including MCs in my list, since cookie monster growling/screaming is most often as far removed from melodious crooners as Tu Pac is.

20.  Dave Hunt

The first time I heard Anaal Nathrakh it most certainly woke me the fuck up.  Mainly because it was "Pandemonic Hyperblast", which is probably the most ludicrously heavy song ever recorded.  Dave Hunt can actually do far more than just sound like he is trying to shred his voice out of his body though, as his Ihsahn-esque clean singing attests to.

19.  Corporate Death (Lance Lencioni)

The silliest vocals in all of metal?  Pretty solid bet right here.  I prefer not to take metal the least bit seriously so Macabre's Corporate Death's absolutely ridiculous vocal delivery just tickles me to no end.  I really cannot describe what the hell this guy sounds like.  One truly has to hear it to believe it.  Even after you hear it, you still probably will not believe it.

18.  Barney Greenway

I have been a Napalm Death fan as long as I have been a death metal fan and that band's longest serving vocalist Barney Greenway has always gotten the job done quite nicely.  Napalm's chunk-tacular riffs are that much heavier with Greenway barking and roaring right over them and the dude is relentlessly running all over the place live.  You would never would know the guy was in his mid-forties already.

17.  Chuck Shuldiner

Possibly the most well respected man in death metal history, I am actually a bigger fan of the late Chuck Shulinder's writing and guitar playing than his singing.  His vocals also evolved from album to album.  Barely out of his teens when Death's debut Screaming Bloody Gore was released, Chuck eventually transformed into one of the foremost screamers the genre has ever had.  Yes I know that I also put "Painkiller" to represent Rob Halford on my other favorite singers list, but I have go with Death's cover here as well since Shulinder's ball-exploding wail was never better represented.

16.  Randy Blythe

Lamb of God's Randy Blythe has improved dramatically since the band's early days.  Burn the Priest and New American Gospel Randy pretty much had a, (as Chris Adler put it), "low, medium, and high" range.  Blythe more often that not just sounded like what a robot would scream like.  See Meshuggah's Jens Kidman.  Nowadays though, Randy can go everywhere with his voice, the act of pitching his screams in itself being most impressive indeed.

15.  David Vincent

Morbid Angel's post-David Vincent returning shenanigans have been rather, um, confusing.  I am using rather kind words here.  Also at some point, Vincent became comfortable enough in his sexuality to dress like this.  Yet regardless of how unintentionally ridiculous the man often is, Vincent undoubtedly delivers in the death metal vocals department and he is one of the better enunciaters too.

14.  Lord Worm (Dan Greening)

For most Cryptopsy fans, there is but one frontman for the group and it be Lord Worm.  None of the band's other vocalists over the years sound anything like him, but then again no metal vocalists out there have EVER sounded anything like him.  Rhythmless, gargling, barking lows sprinkled with random pig squeals is pretty much the guy's chosen style.  So for a band like Cryptopsy whose the musical equivalent of ADD, this was quite a glorious fit.

13.  Glen Benton

Mr. Glen Benton or as some may call him, "that dude with the fucking upside-down cross branded into his forehead" could be consider the defining cookie monster vocalist.  He is pretty much what you would play for someone who has never heard death metal singing before.  Deicide has been a staple DM band since the genre was formed and Benton has remained highly consistent.  He also layers screams on top of growls better than most.

12.  Frank Mullen

When it comes to live metal vocalists, Frank Mullen may be my absolute favorite.  I have seen the mighty Suffocation thrice so far and this guy is a goddamn riot on stage.  Yes, that picture is a perfect example of what Mullen does, oh I donno, 99% percent of the time on stage.  Yet his Brooklyn wise-guy ranting in between songs is also something that I could also listen to all day.  As far as the man's actual powers behind the mic, they are quite excellent and have been since Suffocation's debut.  Anybody else fronting this band would simply be all wrong.

11.  Erik Rutan

When I met Erik Rutan after a Hate Eternal show which was possibly the most brutal show I had ever seen mind you, I simply said "You look like you're fucking possessed on stage".  I got a laugh and a "Thanks man, that's exactly how I feel up there" from him, which is quite awesome. Seriously though, look at that guy.  The exact sound you think he is making is the exact sound that he is making.  The dude's lyrics, for what it is worth, are also great.

10.  Mikael Akerfeldt

The only singer to make both lists of mine should not be surprising since Mikael Akerfeldt is rather famous for his excellence as both a singer and as a growler/screamer.  Amazingly, Akerfeldt's beautiful clean vocals have improved just as well as his brutal ones and how the guy can bounce between them both so effortlessly live is indeed admirable.  He has all but completely left his extreme singing behind now, but we got hours of Opeth and some Bloodbath too that we can bump for the rest of our days.

9.  Nergal (Adam Darski)

Speaking of vocalists that just get better and better, Behemoth is arguably at the top of their game right now.  Very soon to drop The Satanist, (whose "Blow Your Trumpets Gabriel" video is everything music videos should be), their last opus Evangelion was their finest hour thus far I would say.  Mainman Nergal, (Adam Darski), did have a sock-in-the-mouth style on Demigod, an otherwise excellent album, but his Morbid Angel-inspired vocals are now just as stellar as his band.

8.  Ross Dolan 

Another incredibly consistent death metal outfit, Immolation has been on a non-stop roll for years now.  Since previous kings Morbid Angel have kind of been stinking up the joint as of late, Immolation has long since taken the throne as the premier hell death metal band, (us metal nerds and our sub-sub genres, amiright?).  Ross Dolan is the band's long-standing vocalists, lyricist, and bassist and he is utterly perfect at his job.  Plus the fact that he talks like Joe Pecci when he is not spewing forth his cookie monster evilness just makes him that much more awesome.

7.  Steve Tucker

Speaking of Morbid Angel and speaking of evil, we now come to Mr. Steve Tucker.  MA's second and superior vocalist only appeared on three albums with the group yet even with just those, the man proved himself as a superior vocalist in the field.  The entire Gateways to Annihilation album just oozes evil and Tucker's performance on it is one for the books.  Nader Sadek, (Tucker's supergroup with Cryptopsy's Flo Mounier and ex-Mayhem's Blasphemer), is damn good shit as well.  Also for the record, I saw this guy knock a fan the fuck out who walked into his tour bus after a show once.  True and hilarious story.

6.  Ihsahn

In the realm of Norwegian black metal, there is hardly a finer musician than Emperor's Ihsahn, (Vegard Sverre Tveitan).  The mighty Emperor long stopped putting out studio albums, yet Ihsahn has had a flawless run of solo releases, (five to date), that have taken his music into more progressive and still fantastic territory.  As a vocalist, Ihsahn has utilized his trademark scream as well as his operatic, King Diamond-esque clean vocals throughout his career.  This makes him one of the more dynamically skilled extreme metal singers there is.

5.  John Tardy

Simply put, John Tardy is one of a kind.  When Obituary unleashed their debut Slowly We Rot back in 1989, there had not been anyone who dared do with their voice what Tardy did with his.  He was twenty-one then and at forty-five years young at this writing, he still sounds like he is being torn apart by lions every time he steps up to the mic and basically blows the roof off of the place.  Obituary is certainly a contender for the heaviest band of all time and if not for Tardy roaring at the top of his groin throughout their catalog, such a title could scarcely still be there's.

4.  Maniac (Sven Erik Kristiansen)

First off, how awesome is that picture?  Secondly, Mayhem's sixth, (I think?), madman to take the vocal helm appropriately dubbed himself Maniac, (Sven Erik Kristiansen), and he is easily one of the most outrageous vocalists that extreme metal has ever had.  Yes he was prone to doing shit like in that picture on stage, but Mayhem's most "famous" vocalist Dead did far worse.  What sets Maniac apart are two things.  His bizarre preacher talking is one, but another is when he lets loose by screaming like a cat from hell torturing a pig from hell with a chainsaw from hell.  I for one cannot get enough of it.

3.  Tomas Lindberg

At the Gates have gone down in history as making the greatest metal album of all time, Slaughter of the Soul.  Riffs, songs, production, and of course extreme vocals have never nor will ever produce a more perfect result.  Tomas Lindberg's blood-curdling screams are monstrously powerful.  This guy could wake up a fucking cemetery.  I indeed lost my voice within thirty seconds of trying to scream along while seeing At the Gates' reunion tour, which did not stop me from continuing to do so throughout the rest of it.  Besides Lock-Up and his one-off the Crown appearance on Crowned In Terror, I sadly have not enjoyed any of Lindberg's other side-projects but still, the man's vocal legacy is surely sound.

2.  Phil Anselmo

I almost put Phil Anselmo in my "normal" singers list since he pitches his screams so perfectly that they often do not sound like screams at all.  More like aggressive singing.  With a career running four decades now, Anselmo may very well have the finest range of any metal singer ever.  His Rob Halford-esque power metal wailing in the early Motley Pantera Crue days quickly gave way to the best thrash metal scream anyone has ever had, which in itself eases effortlessly into a southern blues bellow at the drop of a hat.  Anselmo's large array of side projects are highly uneven, (there is the awesome that is Down and the pure shit that is Superjoint Ritual, case in point), but still, his place would be just as high on this list if Pantera was the only band that he ever joined.

1.  George Corpsegrinder Fisher

I really have to stop having such anti-climactic people/albums/movies top al ofl my lists, because really, c'mon.  Corpsegrinder cannot be topped.  This man is a pile of metal meat.  Chris Barnes, who is awesome mind you, I have to say simply got his ass handed to him when George here took the Cannibal Corpse vocal mantle on 1996's Vile.  From the opening high scream on "Devoured By Vermin" until today and counting, this man has consistently delivered the best extreme metal vocals ever heard on album to album.  Live, shit, he is a force of nature unto himself.  He headbangs so ferociously that they need to make up a different word for it, (the man's neck is I believe four feet wide).  Ferociously fast, surprisingly clear, and just as powerful low as he is glass breakingly high, yeah, Corpsgrinder is the goddamn man.

100 Favorite Singers - Part Four

100 FAVORITE SINGERS - PART FOUR

25.  Tom Jones

This man is what sex would sound like if sex was a voice.  Now in his 70s and going stronger than ever, Sir Tom Jones has sung I believe literally every genre of music that can be sung.  Pop, blues, gospel, rock, country, R&B, dance music, and schmaltzy show tunes, he has owned them all.  I have seen this guy live and yes, the panties actually do fly towards the stage.  Also if I were wearing any, they would have joined them.  Pick your favorite Tom Jones era, but he is currently doing some seriously awesome, stripped down blues standard records with Ethan Johns that I would highly recommend checking out.

24.  Maynard James Keenan

 

Alternative art/prog-rock,or whatever the hell you wanna call it has no finer band than Tool.  Rock music in general then has few finer vocalist than Maynard James Keenan.  This guy's voice has held up flawlessly and whether he is screaming his ass off for over thirty straight seconds in "The Grudge" or sinisterly crooning in an upper register in "The Pot", (not to mention all of the stuff in between), he never ceases to impress.  If every band with distorted guitars had a guy like this behind the mic, the world would clearly be a better place.

 

23.  Marvin Gaye

I am completely comfortable in my sexuality to fully admit that Marvin Gaye has the sexiest voice of all time.  I mean "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing" speak for themselves.  Of course there is also his old Motown stuff and even on the highly influential What's Going On album where social unrest was the song of choice, Gaye's voice could still command the lamentations of the women.  I actually do feel bad for having him this low, so any comments referring to this travesty are surely welcome.

22.  Ronnie James Dio

Behold, the foremost vocalist that heavy metal has ever or will ever produce.  Ronnie James Dio has the incredible distinction of fronting three legendary bands, Rainbow, Sabbath, and solo outfit Dio respectively.  Ronnie's voice through all of it remained effortlessly incredible.  "Catch the Rainbow", "Stargazer", "Heaven & Hell", "The Sign of the Southern Cross", "Holy Diver", and "The Last In Line", only touch the surface of this man's greatness.  Hail the little Italian gypsy woman that is Dio!

21.  Peter Gabriel

Peter Gabriel started out innocently and oddly enough as, well, the very odd frontman for Genesis, (see picture).  His rather flamboyant and very British vocal stylings in the old days eventually subdued and a more developed voice emerged in later years.  Gabriel's vocals throughout all of his solo work are extraordinary, his channeling of world music styles just about unequaled.  At least for a British white man.

20.  Lionel Richie

It should surprise zero people who I know that Lionel Richie was going to make an appearance here.  It should also not be surprising that he would be this high.  I would proudly put the Richie on the Mt. Rushmore of Awesome.  The man's first two solo albums are absolute perfection and though the glorious afro may be long gone, his voice is still exquisite.  Though his best work delved further into pop territory than anything else, a finer R&B vocalist barely exists, if I were to give him even more titles.  How bout one more, just King Sexy, to close it out?

19.  Mike Patton

If anyone were to tell me that they thought Faith No More was the greatest band of all time, I would not argue with them.  Yes I am partial to The Beatles and a small handful of others, but FNM is glorious stuff.  You then cannot talk about how awesome this band is without talking about Mike Patton.  One of FNM's most enduring qualities is their willingness to venture into multiple sub-genres and Patton's vocals can do anything.  Rapping, screaming, crooning, wailing like Tom Jones in "Star AD", soaring like a blue-eyed soul banshee in "Just A Man", I can go on and on.  So can he.

18.  Dan Auerbach

As Sweets would say in Coming To America, "Goddamn that boy can sang!".  Exactly what I think every time I bump any Black Keys.  When I saw what this guy looked like for the first time, I really had a hard time believing such a goofy, homeless looking white boy could sing the blues this good.  It certainly does not hurt that Dan Auerbach writes all of those great songs as well.  Man is a beast.

17.  Thom Yorke

No surprise here I would hope.  Thom Yorke has been on every "greatest singers" list I have seen and well, this should be obvious enough.  His voice is a soaring instrument in itself, making zero difference that he chooses not to enunciate as well as others.  When it sounds that haunting, you cannot help but get lost in it all anyway.  I have actually read that Yorke himself is annoyed at times by how truly beautiful his voice is, since he has tried in vain to "dirty" it up whenever he has tried to sing aggressively.  Brilliant people problems.

16.  Michael Jackson

I would go as far as to say that kid Michael Jackson had one of the most irritating voices ever, (eeeuuuugh, those fucking Christmas songs).  Yet I would certainly go even farther in saying that by the time he hit puberty, (I think), MJ instantly became one of the best there ever was.  I have loved solo Michael Jackson my whole life and Off the Wall through Dangerous are all favorite albums that set a still stellar standard for pop music.  All of those "he he" Michael Jackson orgasm-isms are great, but whatever the fuck song he was singing, he never made it sound less than perfect.

15.  Morrissey

I am not Mexican or British, but I do love me some Morrissey.  My cousin, (same guy who made me a Kiss and Alice Cooper fan, wouldn't you know), got me into Morrissey and the Smiths many a year ago and yes, the Mozz is as great of a singer as he knows he is.  His incredibly high yodeling like vocals on the first Smiths album have never returned, but his famous croon has matured into a formidable weapon, having been consistently excellent since always.   Morrissey's lyrics are some of the best and funniest ever penned as well, which is just an icing on the cake.

14.  John Lennon

I have said it my whole life because it is the truth, but the Beatles are and will always be the greatest thing that ever happened to anything.  In addition, John Lennon has remained the most beloved musical icon of all time probably, which he absolutely should be.  It has been said that Lennon himself never liked his own voice, which must have been some kind of weird mental side-effect of Beatlemania or something.  Pop music has hardly been given a better or more original sounding singer and as George Martin said, Lennon's was "a voice that sends shivers down the spine".

13.  Bryan Ferry

The undisputed king of shaky vibrato, (well, "good sounding" shaky vibrato, since I am not counting Aaron "Volume Knob" Neville), Bryan Ferry's romantic croon is highly enticing.  I am a fan of all eras of Roxy Music, from their art-rock beginnings, through Siren and County Life, to one of the greatest albums of all time Avalon.  All the while, Ferry's voice never ceases to amaze.  I can imagine women have to change their undergarments when this guy starts doing his thing.  I know I have to change mine.

12.  Dave Gahan

Mmm...Depeche Mode.  Main songwriter Martin Gore actually sings almost exactly like frontman Dave Gahan, so much so that I never even knew Gore took on lead vocals on at least one track on almost every Depeche album.  So I guess an honorable mention belongs to him as well.  Gahan's the main man at the mic though and yeah, outstanding stuff.  Another sexy, crooning vibrato, if I could sing like this guy I would never leave the house.  I would also never wear pants.

11.  Robert Plant

Damn, just out of the top ten, that ain't right.  So yes, we have made it to Robert Plant, who undoubtedly belongs.  Along with the Beatles, Led Zeppelin have and will remain my favorite band.  More to the point, they are the first band that I ever got obsessed with.  I honestly took Plant's ridiculously awesome vocal prowess for granted for quite awhile.  Eventually, such ignorance was unavoidable and shit, was their a more powerful voice in all of rock music throughout Zeppelin's prime?  Most certainly not.

10.  Eric Clapton

Yup, more famous guitar players who not enough people notice are brilliant vocalists.  I kind of surprised myself by how high Eric Clapton ended up on here but hell, this is where he belongs.  For a British white boy, the blues simply oozes from this man's pores.  His legendary guitar playing is well, well documented, but I think his voice is the most powerful instrument he has.  From his B.B. King inspired falsetto on Layla & Other Assorted Love Songs, all the way to his earthy and soothing singing on the throwback From the Cradle album, Eric Clapton's voice simply gives me goosebumps.

9.  Pete Ham

I will never, ever see Pete Ham anywhere on a finest vocalists list and this, as well as the entire Badfinger saga, is indeed tragic.  Unfortunate member of the 27 Club, Pete Ham hung himself in a drunken depression after Badfinger had their finances utterly ruined from evil management by the mid-seventies.  Devastating stuff which is slammed home even more when you hear the man sing.  Goddamn is it beautiful.  If anything at all comes from anyone reading this silly list, I hope it is that someone checks out Badfinger and particularly Pete Ham to see just what amazingness they may have been missing.

8.  Steve Perry

There are rock singers and then there is Steve Perry.  Even if you hate Journey, (which you are wrong BTW), how can you not be floored by this man's voice?  Steve Perry could sing diarrhea commercials and it would be the most amazing thing I ever heard.  Neal Schon and co certainly struck pay dirt when they added Perry to Journey's line-up and a never ending stream of glory seemed to follow.  Perry was so fucking good that the band has done nothing since but continue to replace him with the closest clones they can possibly find.  Presumably so the casual Journey fan in the nosebleeds will not even notice it is not the man himself bellowing away.

7.  Paul Stanley

I will never be as into a band like I was and still am into Kiss.  Ace Frehley was my favorite briefly when I just thought Kiss looked like horny superheroes, but after actually listening to all of their albums countless times over the years, there is absolutely no denying that the Starchild Paul Stanley is the ringleader.  I have tried singing in the shower and in the car to match Stanley's rock and roll preacher power and it is fucking impossible.  Satan bless them Kiss tribute bands, I for one do not know how they do it where Paul is concerned.  Live or on record, he demands and gets the vagina.

6.  Ray LaMontagne

My buddy and fellow bandmate actually put it best when after ten seconds of the first Ray LaMontagne song I played him, he simply said "Yeah, I'm buying everything this guy ever did".  A bastard child of Otis Redding and Joe Cocker if they played folk music, LaMontagne's voice is jawdropping.  He seems to get that "Holy shit!" reaction from everyone I know who is hip to him.  Four albums into his career, more glory I certainly hope is on the way.

5.  Paul McCartney

The "Who is a better singer, Lennon or McCartney" conversation is one that I have had with every Beatles fan that I have met over the years and my answer has never changed.   I love John Lennon, (who doesn't?), but I have to go with Paul as the superior vocalist.  It is rather silly to compare the two since their voices could not be more different.  Then again, they could not complement each other better either.  Paul spent most of his early singing career simply trying to impersonate Little Richard and well there must be something to that.  Everything has been said about McCartney's melodic sense, which really is second to absolutely no one, but he has remained incredibly tasteful behind the mic as well.  For the record, he is my favorite bass player as well.

4.  Prince

Speaking of the greatest person who ever lived, we arrive at the Purple One.  When it comes to vocal range and acrobatics, Prince's abilities are as various as his musical tastes and eccentricities are.  Prince sings all over the place and often within a single song.  So with shit I dunno, THOUSANDS of songs in his repertoire, we have heard this man nail everything.  Another god-like figure who commands respect, he can play anything, sing anything, do anything, fuck anything.  The list goes on and on.  (BTW, that is the greatest Prince picture you are ever going to see, sans this one).

3.  B. B. King

My brother actually was the first person I knew to state the obvious which was that B.B. King was the greatest singer who ever lived.  Well, damn near I guess.  I have always loved B.B. growing up, (my mother is quite the keen blues fan), always loved his guitar playing, always loved "The Thrill Is Gone" and especially "How Blue Can You Get?", (the later of which contains the greatest line in any song ever).  Yet it has only been in the last several years or so that I noticed just how ridiculously awesome this man sings.  The blues has no finer presence behind the mic.  In his prime, B.B. King pound for pound out sung EVERYBODY.  Yes most of his songs sound the same. but shit it is the blues.  In fact, B.B. King is the blues.  Damn right son.

2.  Jeff Buckley

It really does pain me to have Jeff Buckley so low.  That may sound silly but really, as we have all heard this guy by now, he really belongs at the very top of any vocalist ranking you can make.  For unofficial purposes I will say he simply shares the number one spot here, but I digress.  Jeff Buckley's dad Tim was a singer-songwriter who has maintained a nice cult following, yet his son simply blows the roof off the place.  Jeff Buckley's voice is inhuman.  Starting out as a killer guitar player, he later cut his chops slaving away at the New York City club Sin-e, singing almost every night after every night.  By the time he dropped his one and only album released in his lifetime Grace, people were surely speechless.  I know I certainly was when I heard it.  Technically flawless and as virtuosic a vocalist as any singer-songwriter ever was, Buckley's is a chillingly beautiful voice that shall forever be very, very missed.

1.  Freddie Mercury

How does one out-praise Jeff Buckley?  Well, I will give it a go right now.  Queen has always been in my "big four" of favorite bands, along with The Beatles, Zeppelin, and Kiss and Freddie Mercury has been my favorite singer for the exact same amount of time.  You can check his Wikipedia entry for details on just how incredible his range and delivery was.  Freddie effortlessly soared through any fluctuation, any pitch, any style, any anything.  I have always thought that the most impressive thing of all though was that his voice lost none of its power up until his final days.  Made In Heaven, the first posthumous Freddie Mercury's death Queen album, is testament to that as the majority of it was recorded when Freddie could barely stand and was literally dying from AIDS.  That is just insane.  The man lived to sing and goddamn was it as awe-inspiring then as it remains today.