20 best and worst singers of all-time

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Otis Westinghouse
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20 best and worst singers of all-time

Post by Otis Westinghouse »

No, not a prompt for more lists (though some may be moved... ), but I thought it would be fun to share the above from this month's the Word feature. This is a fun, somewhat irreverent. It avoids a lot of obvious choices (no Bowie!), but often in favour of more original ones. Needless to say, the fun is in the commentary that goes with each, but I ain't got all night:

20 WORST
Axl Rose
Bernard Butler
Davey Graham
Heather Small
Clifford T Ward
Dido
Phil Collins
J Lo
Rod Stewart since 1972
Simon Le Bon ('Where do you start? Honking, straining gutbucket, who yodelled some of the worst nonsense ever to reach the top 10, and somehow made it even worse.'!!!)
Meat Loaf
Chris Martin
Keith Richards
James Blunt
Kelly Jones (Stereophonics)
David Clayton Thomas (Blood, Sweat and Tears)
Fred Durst
Madonna
Tony Hadley
... and the worst of all:
Mariah Carey

20 BEST
Lucinda Williams (for Mood and Gilli!)
Paul Buchanan
Rod Stewart before 1972
Whitney Houston
Howlin' Wolf
Sandy Dennis
Scott Walker
Björk
Burning Spear
Liam Gallagher
Dusty Springfield
Jeff Buckley
Guy Garvey (Elbow - yay!!!)
Alison Goldfrapp
Morrissey
Sam Cooke
Russell Mael
Candi Staton
Ian Dury
... and the best:
Roy Orbison

Fun lists, no?

Great mag as ever. Nick Lowe interview plus new song 'The Club' on CD. Also a Suzanne Vega one. Both good. I've only heard of 4 of the 15 artists on the CD. They're always worth listening to.
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Who Shot Sam?
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Post by Who Shot Sam? »

Where is Steve Perry of Journey?

Still have that fucking song in my head from the Sopranos last night. Damn you David Chase!
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Mechanical Grace
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Re: 20 best and worst singers of all-time

Post by Mechanical Grace »

20 BEST
Lucinda Williams (for Mood and Gilli!)
Paul Buchanan
Rod Stewart before 1972
Whitney Houston
Howlin' Wolf
Sandy Dennis
Scott Walker
Björk
Burning Spear
Liam Gallagher
Dusty Springfield
Jeff Buckley
Guy Garvey (Elbow - yay!!!)
Alison Goldfrapp
Morrissey
Sam Cooke
Russell Mael
Candi Staton
Ian Dury
... and the best:
Roy Orbison

Fun lists, no? .
I know Gilli will be happy to see Bjork, too! :lol: God she can sing (Bjork I mean, I've never had the pleasure of hearing Gilli..). Moz a nice surprise, one which will irk lots of folks, but I couldn't agree more with his inclusion. It takes a perfect voice to pull off those crimped melodies. I do think they might've included Paul McCartney, however, in the best list. (You see, Otis, it's very fashionable to poo-poo the Beatles these days, so you might want to re-aim your contrarian arsenal elsewhere. :wink: 8) )
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Post by Mechanical Grace »

Oh, and I'd vote Eddie Vedder onto the worst list. It's one thing to be artfully apathetic or reductive with a melody, but there's no art to his singing at all: his rendition of Last Kiss is the most mind-blowingly off-key single ever to hit the radio waves. It made me actually laugh out loud the first time I heard it. Cats in heat can hit a note better then him.

Having Axl Rose up there more or less makes up for the omission, however.
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Post by Who Shot Sam? »

A few I would like to have seen included:

Best
Elizabeth Fraser
Tom Waits
Johnny Cash
Neko Case

Worst
Ozzy Osbourne
Yoko Ono
Michael Bolton
Cher
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Post by BlueChair »

Where's Van? Otis? Solomon? And isn't Ian Dury kind of a horrible singer (though obviously that's part of what makes him appealing)?
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Post by Who Shot Sam? »

BlueChair wrote:Where's Van? Otis? Solomon? And isn't Ian Dury kind of a horrible singer (though obviously that's part of what makes him appealing)?
You could say the same about Tom Waits I suppose, but as with Dury so much of his music's appeal is in his voice. Dury's not a name that would immediately spring to mind for me, but I can see how it might, especially for a UK magazine.
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

It's in their usual style to make this interesting rather than obvious, hence Dury over Otis, Alison Goldfrapp over Joni, etc. And to provide the fun comments:

Moz: Equalk parts chanson vocalist, punk-rock stage monster, elegist and music-hall comedian, he's absolutely unique and absolutely indispensable.

Dury: He's not Pavarotti but it takes a unique talent to write lines like 'Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly, Good Golly Miss Molly and boats' and make them sparkle, and not trip[ over them. Rappers devote their lives to it.

And on the 'cat in pain' theme:

Axl: Like a cat in a mangle, physically painful to listen to. Were the rest og them playing loud to try to drown him out? November Rain makes one envy Helen Keller.

One for 'Boo!

Can't resist Fred Durst too: It's not really singing is it? You get this sort of mindless shouting on the bus for free after about 9pm. Or from any toddler with a full nappy.
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Post by mood swung »

I've always liked Keith Richards' singing. Ian Dury is an interesting choice. Roy Orbison. Well, I'm not much of a fan or falsetto warbling. I would add Nick Lowe to the Best - his voice is always hovering on the edge of Way Too Slick, but he uses it sooo well.

p.s. MG - I love Eddie doing Last Kiss. It's soo bad it's good. (and I sound GOOD singing along!) :lol:
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Post by Mechanical Grace »

The amazing thing is, you can tell he's genuinely trying to sing it straight, but he can't. After you hear it half a dozen times it starts to sound right, but then so does Bugs Bunny's wrong note on the booby-trapped piano in that old cartoon... hold on a tic...

http://video.aol.com/video/ballot-box-bunny/1853681

Annoying Walmart ad in the beginning, sorry... once it loads, scroll to 6:00.

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Post by BlueChair »

mood swung wrote:I've always liked Keith Richards' singing.
Me too - can't go wrong with "You Got The Silver", "Happy" or "Before They Make Me Run." Unfortunately with age his voice has withered quite a bit. You can hear it get progressively worse with every Stones album.
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Post by Mike Boom »

some for the best list

Elvis Presley (how did they leave the King out?? surely THE best!)
Kate Bush
Liz Fraser
Van Morrison
Sandy Denny
John Lennon
echos myron like a siren
with endurance like the liberty bell
and he tells you of the dreamers
but he's cracked up like the road
and he'd like to lift us up, but we're a very heavy load
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Post by Mechanical Grace »

Mike Boom wrote:some for the best list


Sandy Denny
I suspect the inclusion of Sandy Dennis rather than Sandy Denny was a typo on Otis's part...
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Post by mood swung »

Image

and this was the image that sprang to my mind.
Like me, the "g" is silent.
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Mike Boom
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Post by Mike Boom »

Image

Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (1982)
echos myron like a siren
with endurance like the liberty bell
and he tells you of the dreamers
but he's cracked up like the road
and he'd like to lift us up, but we're a very heavy load
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oily slick
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Post by oily slick »

sandy dennis singing to jack lemmon in the out of towners remember--"Georrrrrge, I can't walk and you can't carry me. There are no buses or taxis and no one is gonna stop to pick up bleeding strangers"
I'm not concerned about the very poor.
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Post by Mechanical Grace »

oily slick wrote:sandy dennis singing to jack lemmon in the out of towners remember
"Oh my gawd, we're being robbed." Or was that the Anne Meara character?

I haven't seen that film since it came out in theaters. *shakes cane* Damn you, faulty memory!
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Post by pophead2k »

An all time favorite of mine. Jack Lemmon, how we miss ye.
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oily slick
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Post by oily slick »

i'm surprised to see geddy lee hasn't shown up :)

melissa etheridge needs to be on the bad side. course i haven't heard of half of those people. phil collins is a little harsh; you had to be there. if i ever run into james blunt, you won't have to worry about hearing him again.
I'm not concerned about the very poor.
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Post by so lacklustre »

best - J Strummer
Worst - S Nicks
signed with love and vicious kisses
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Yeah, Denny. It was late.

Presley would have been way too obvious. They want to make these fun, not the Q approach of 'we mean it, maaaan'.
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Post by Mike Boom »

you mean

Worst - Joe Strummer
Best - Stevie Nicks


..oh a FUN list??


Best - Marty Feldman, Eric Morcambe, Groucho Marx.
Worst - Phyllis Diller.

the Ultimate Worst - Celine Dion of course!
echos myron like a siren
with endurance like the liberty bell
and he tells you of the dreamers
but he's cracked up like the road
and he'd like to lift us up, but we're a very heavy load
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oily slick
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Post by oily slick »

and where is william shatner?
I'm not concerned about the very poor.
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Post by Gillibeanz »

Id better not post my lists - dont want to start a riot! :lol:

Actually MG I have a really good singing voice - thinking of going in for the X factor next year so you can all have a good laugh!! :lol:
COME ON YOU SPURS!!
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Otis Westinghouse
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Post by Otis Westinghouse »

Oh go on, gilli. Give us a larf. Lucinda and Emmylou featuring? (Along with scores of other American females!!!)
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