I had a funny feeling lately that this topic would be broached, again.
Singers that make you reach for the dial
Who are the five worst singers of pop music in the second half of the 20th century?
I thought there was a third one in there somewhere, search fu failed to find it oh well.
Without reading the replies yet, I’ll hereby predict:
Male tenors will get the bulk of the dislike here, no matter how on-key they are or how rich their voices are. Robert Plant, Geddy Lee, and Jon Anderson are the ur-examples here and I am certain at least one will have shown up before my post.
By contrast, female Altos (such as Annie Lennox) will not.
The examples will all skew from the 60’s to the 80’s, with virtually nobody mentioned who hit the big time post 1990, most notably the endless parade of off-key tuneless indie whiners that came into vogue by the middle of the decade, something NEVER discussed, here or anywhere. Tl;dr: If you think Geddy Lee is worse than Thom Yorke, I dunno what else to tell you.
And it’s Robert Plant by 2 lengths over Geddy Lee! Note I like all 3 even if Jon hasn’t gotten any love yet.