Music: Singer's Voices: Do they matter?

[TheAngryHank]

What can also be interesting about a singer is when a band looses one but the replacement sounds so similar it feels they never changed.

I'm going to have to totally disagree , Bon to me was the greatest " rock " singer ever...mind you not the best singer by any means. He was dirty ,raunchy ,sleezy sounding with rasp. Everything rock should be.
I LOVE AC/DC but won't listen to anything beyond highway to hell, It's just two different bands .I'd love to say Angus IS AC/DC ,but for me it's Bon.
Also Angus is a very underrated guitarist.

 

[TheAngryHank]

All things being equal would you prefer your vocalist to have more range, cleaner cleans, grittier grit, and more versatility or not?

Then the answer is obviously yes it matters. How much it matters depends though.


I dunno I think Scott is the substantially better vocalist.

Both are similar in that they are sort of scream belters as their primary sound. Johnson has more grit but aside from that Scott is better at everything. He can actually sing cleans (Johnson can't except at lower registers), he can sing falsetto with good timbre, and he's more dynamic in his tone up and down the scale.

There's not a single Scott song I think would be improved with Johnson on the original recording. Where as I think Scott could easily pull of most of Johnson's catalog and even improve a good bit of it.

I'm picturing Johnson singing " ride on" ..barf.
You summed it up nicely.

 

[SniperHF]

I'm not so sure you would. "Less is more" is a thing, and the right amount of something often matters more than pronounced extremes.

Just because your singer can put more doesn't mean they have to, it means they have more options for different sounds.

The two singers in my post are a perfect example. Bon Scott can shut off his grit and sing cleans up high. This makes a song like Whole Lotta Rosie or Jailbreak much more dynamic between chorus and verse. Brian Johnson can't shut off his grit so the song, when he sings it live, kinda has a monotone quality that doesn't match the original.

If you *NEVER* need cleans to match the material, then that goes to what I was saying about how much it matters. Or grit, or screaming, or vocal fry, etc. But it can never hurt to have your singer capable of such things.

 

[Shareefruck]

Just because your singer can put more doesn't mean they have to, it means they have more options for different sounds.

The two singers in my post are a perfect example. Bon Scott can shut off his grit and sing cleans up high. This makes a song like Whole Lotta Rosie or Jailbreak much more dynamic between chorus and verse. Brian Johnson can't shut off his grit so the song, when he sings it live, kinda has a monotone quality that doesn't match the original.

If you *NEVER* need cleans to match the material, then that goes to what I was saying about how much it matters. Or grit, or screaming, or vocal fry, etc. But it can never hurt to have your singer capable of such things.

I think that's fair. "Cleaner cleans, grittier grit" just sounded like you were suggesting "should" rather than "can" to me.

 

[Ducks in a row]

Of course it matters. It might not matter to many people like it once did but it will always matter to others.

 

[beowulf]

I'm going to have to totally disagree , Bon to me was the greatest " rock " singer ever...mind you not the best singer by any means. He was dirty ,raunchy ,sleezy sounding with rasp. Everything rock should be.
I LOVE AC/DC but won't listen to anything beyond highway to hell, It's just two different bands .I'd love to say Angus IS AC/DC ,but for me it's Bon.
Also Angus is a very underrated guitarist.

Guess since I like some of their stuff but not exactly my favorite band, I just find their voices are often so similar and I know a number of other people who feel the same way. I really got into them with the release of The Razors Edge in 1990 when I was 14. I knew Back in Black before along with Who Made Who because of the Stephen King movie that it was the soundtrack for " Maximum Overdrive". So...

 

[GKJ]

I think it's more important to have a distinctive and recognizable voice as opposed to a quality voice when it comes to a lead singer.

Any really good bar band can have a generically good voice but it's not going to be enough to stand out from the crowd.

Pretty good summation here.

 

[tacogeoff]

this is an odd one but I really like Taka's vocals from the japanese rock group One ok Rock. ridiculous imo for English as a second language.

I never really listen to rock music, nevermind international rock music but his vocals drew me in to explore their catalogue after randomly hearing them on a reaction channel.





this one is def cleaned u[ as the echo gives it away i think but his range is quite good

 

[angusyoung]

Kind of like Pavlos dog, when first hearing a song,one wants to hear it replicated,if not,sounds off/different. Can be wonderful singers,but not what is expected.
Sabbath started with Ozzy and went to Dio who is a very good powerful singer,yet doing Ozzy material,imo,is not satisfying. Then Ian Gillan came in and it was more or less the same story.

Journey had faltered until the got a Steve Perry clone and they had a resurgence.

 

[Cas]

Kind of like Pavlos dog, when first hearing a song,one wants to hear it replicated,if not,sounds off/different. Can be wonderful singers,but not what is expected.
Sabbath started with Ozzy and went to Dio who is a very good powerful singer,yet doing Ozzy material,imo,is not satisfying. Then Ian Gillan came in and it was more or less the same story.

Ian Gillan was definitely not a fit for the Black Sabbath sound, even being as good as he was. He was the first singer I thought of when I read the topic - great singer, known for an adjacent band stylistically, but just didn't fit with the mid-80's Sabbath sound.

Tony Martin, on the other hand, fit like a glove and with him they produced four excellent albums (plus a fifth forgettable one). Martin had range and power, and a sort of breathy quality to his voice that almost lent him an atmospheric note that fit really well. It's a pity the Iommi-Martin collaboration didn't continue and just became Ozzy's backup act, with a another brief Dio interlude.

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

Ian Gillan was definitely not a fit for the Black Sabbath sound, even being as good as he was. He was the first singer I thought of when I read the topic - great singer, known for an adjacent band stylistically, but just didn't fit with the mid-80's Sabbath sound.

Tony Martin, on the other hand, fit like a glove and with him they produced four excellent albums (plus a fifth forgettable one). Martin had range and power, and a sort of breathy quality to his voice that almost lent him an atmospheric note that fit really well. It's a pity the Iommi-Martin collaboration didn't continue and just became Ozzy's backup act, with a another brief Dio interlude.

Granted it was a "new" band (Velvet Revolver), but Guns n Roses effectively replacing Axl Rose with Scott Weiland definitely worked. Weiland could do the things Rose could and was just as good doing GnR covers in concert as on the original Velvet Revolver songs. In addition, the Velvet Revolver songs were great on their own and hold up against the GnR catalog

 

[The Macho King]

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Kind of like Pavlos dog, when first hearing a song,one wants to hear it replicated,if not,sounds off/different. Can be wonderful singers,but not what is expected.
Sabbath started with Ozzy and went to Dio who is a very good powerful singer,yet doing Ozzy material,imo,is not satisfying. Then Ian Gillan came in and it was more or less the same story.

Journey had faltered until the got a Steve Perry clone and they had a resurgence.

I think it's song dependent with Dio. War Pigs off of Live Evil is the definitive version of that song to me. Iron Man? Eh give me Ozzy's version.



Heaven and Hell is their best album though and I'll die on that hill.

 

[Mikeaveli]

Yeah obviously the voice matters, saying otherwise would be like arguing that your guitar tone or synth patch doesn't matter, it just doesn't make any sense. As for whether perceived vocal talent matters, I'm drawn to most of my favourite singers due to their vocal timbre and how it works within the context of the music, not because of high technical ability (Trish Keenan (Broadcast), Valerie Cooper (Sweet Trip), Georgia Ellery (Jockstrap)), though there are some that of course will cross over into that category (The Beach Boys especially).



There is really only one album I can think of that I think is both great and has an underwhelming vocalist that doesn't really fit the music: Van Dyke Parks' Song Cycle.

 

[angusyoung]

Ian Gillan was definitely not a fit for the Black Sabbath sound, even being as good as he was. He was the first singer I thought of when I read the topic - great singer, known for an adjacent band stylistically, but just didn't fit with the mid-80's Sabbath sound.

Tony Martin, on the other hand, fit like a glove and with him they produced four excellent albums (plus a fifth forgettable one). Martin had range and power, and a sort of breathy quality to his voice that almost lent him an atmospheric note that fit really well. It's a pity the Iommi-Martin collaboration didn't continue and just became Ozzy's backup act, with a another brief Dio interlude.

Perhaps but I did enjoy Born again,great show! saw the next few tours,previous ones as well,but after that it just started getting ridiculous.

 

[angusyoung]

I think it's song dependent with Dio. War Pigs off of Live Evil is the definitive version of that song to me. Iron Man? Eh give me Ozzy's version.



Heaven and Hell is their best album though and I'll die on that hill.

It's definitely Dio's best with them.

 

[DanielPlainview]

In the halls of rock music, there aren't many Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury level singers. As long as you have a stage presence, are able to hit and carry the correct notes, and have a distinct voice, you're good to go.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

In the halls of rock music, there aren't many Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury level singers. As long as you have a stage presence, are able to hit and carry the correct notes, and have a distinct voice, you're good to go.

I think Bon Jovi and Steven Tyler certainly had real quality vocals. They weren't just treading water. Tyler uses the bel canto technique.