Unconventional Singers

[Phantom Engineer]

With American Idol and The Voice and such there's a lot of attention put on technically perfect singers (and has always been) and that's cool. But many of my favorite singers have often bee those that would never have made it on American Idol. Often conveying an emotion is more important than technical perfection.

Of course Bob Dylan is my most obvious example. He wouldn't have made it through the first round of American Idol. But he has an authentic quality that generic perfectionists can lack. As he put it in a recent CD he has "The the blood of the land in my voice."

Keith Richard as well. Not your conventional singer but I love his vocals. At heart he wants to be a crooner. And he does a pretty good raspy job of it.

So who do you like that that's off the beaten path?

[The Mad Plumber]

Keith Richards sings?

Well, the first name that pops into my mind when I think of singers that do not fit the mold of conventional quality is Rod Stewart. Characters like him and Janis Joplin possess distinctively raspy singing voices, though I wonder if their speaking voices are also raspy.

I think that Roger Waters will admit that he can't sing, or at least that he can't sing as well as David Gilmour can. However, one amazing skill that puts Roger on the map is his amazing bird caw.

[Phantom Engineer]

Mar 17, 2012 18:00:57 GMT -5 The Mad Plumber said:

Keith Richards sings?

Like an angel.

[Satchmo]

Mar 17, 2012 18:00:57 GMT -5 The Mad Plumber said:

...Characters like him and Janis Joplin possess distinctively raspy singing voices....

On that note, I think no thread about unconventional singers is complete without some mention of Tom Waits. I don't think anybody's gonna say he has a "good" singing voice (at least not since about 1976), his signature growl fits his music perfectly, and the way he contorts his voice to fit his material is something I wish other singers would catch onto.

Also, I wouldn't call Johnny Cash a great singer by any means, but again, he really shouldn't have been. It seems like a lot of unconventional singers have those voices somewhat intentionally, so that it fits a character that they're trying to embody. For instance, Dylan can sound okay when he wants to (he sounds great on "The Man in Me"), but that isn't what he's going for.

Oh, and I do consider Janis Joplin to be conventionally good. If you say that raspy voiced singers aren't great singers you'd have to say that about people like Wilson Pickett or Otis Redding, and them's fighting words!

[TheNewMads]

i'm gonna have to go with thom yorke. not only is he warbly and shaky voice-wise, he's also one hell of an ugly bastard.

[Phantom Engineer]

But he can hit the high notes.

[mummifiedstalin]

What about that Crash Test Dummies dude? That was certainly a kind of vocal novelty act.

[TheNewMads]

Mar 19, 2012 8:03:17 GMT -5 Phantom Engineer said:

But he can hit the high notes.

oh, don't get me wrong, i think he's great and "radiohead" is pretty much the last decent rock band existing, but he's definitely not conventional and the American Idol judges would definitely laugh in his face if he was just john q. public.

[BJ]

I think most of our favorite singers would flunk out of American Idol. Having a big, loud voice is nothing compared to having an emotional voice that can work night after night in a smoky bar. It's very rare that you can just "find" a great singer without them having to struggle with a band.

Anyway, my voice gives out just about any time I try to talk over a crowd, so I gravitate toward gravelly singers. So Madplumber's Rod Stewart mention was my first thought. Even though it's not his original, I can't imagine hearing "Reason to Believe" without his raspy voice. And since he also made a hit out of Waits' Downtown Train, it's like a tag team of unconventional singers.

Dylan, Joplin and Cash have been mentioned, so I'll throw out Mellencamp, Springsteen, and Steven Tyler. All those guys sound like they were born in a bar. I couldn't believe it the first time I heard "Dream On." I was convinced someone else sang the song.

Lastly, there's Morrissey. His voice is smooth, but he'd have been booed off a karaoke stage within seconds. Fortunately, there was a time when musicians weren't judged by their karaoke skills.

[BJ]

I thought of a good one today.

Nina Simone

I don't even know how to describe her music, but her androgynous, tortured voice is truly unique. I was introduced to her through the finale of the Thomas Crown Affair remake, and was amazed. It's a scene I could watch almost every day and not grow weary.

[MonsterX]

Mar 19, 2012 7:55:12 GMT -5 TheNewMads said:

i'm gonna have to go with thom yorke. not only is he warbly and shaky voice-wise, he's also one hell of an ugly bastard.

When I saw the thread title he was the first person who poped into my mind. (I like his voice BTW.) I would like to nominate one of my favorites, Gary Numan. No one sings like him and it's the uniqueness of his voice that makes him so memorable.

That could be said of all of my favorite singers actually. The crap that American Idol and it's ilk spews out is the musical equivalent of gas station food. (IMO.)

[Emperor Cupcake]

I tend to prefer singers whose voices are instantly recognizable as opposed to ones who have voices that are technically "correct." Moz was a good choice upthread, and another thing I like about his voice is that it's pretty much the same range as my own singing voice, so I can sing along with abandon (except for that pesky falsetto, which I can't do very well despite being a girl). But yeah...Ian Curtis, Nick Cave, John Lydon, Shane MacGowan, Tom Waits -- give me some gravelly passion, if not mellifluousness, and I'm down.

[inlovewithcrow]

son house. I'm not a christian, but him singing "John the Revelator" gives me chills; Music only: