What pop/rock singers have the best falsetto voices?
I like Jimmy Sommerville a lot. He was the lead in Bronski Beat, the falsetto in The Communards and has done several solo albums of his one.
Tiny Tim
Ohhhh…
You said BEST 
Howyadoin,
I’d have to go with Freddie Mercury or John Anderson… Tommy Shaw isn’t bad, LaBrie from Dream Theater, Geddy Lee, Billy Thorpe… Take your pick…
-Rav
The Bee Gees. And I don’t mean this in a good way!
Wow… good catch!
-Rav
I have always enjoyed the Bee Gees (and brother Andy Gibb) falsetto vocals, although I realize that many people find them quite irritating. I also like Freddy Mercury’s wonderful range. Robert John (“The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, “Sad Eyes”) had a very soulful falsetto-- I wish he had recorded more material. I will try to think of other good falsettos and post about them later.
I love Maxwell’s voice. I love when he move in and out of his falsetto too/
I nominate Matthew Good.
He gets mentioned a dozen times in every ‘best vocalist’ thread around here, but since I don’t think there are a whole lot of the kind of singers you’re asking about, Thom Yorke has to be mentioned.
Jeff Buckley: you could rarely tell if he WAS in falsetto or in full voice a lot of the time. But when he did do flat out undeniable falsetto, it was really pretty: there’s one song on “Grace” that’s almost at least half just him singing falsetto: sounds like a medieval maiden. 
Frankie Valli
Well, this isn’t the “best man that looks like a wrinkled fetus that’s just woken up from a long nap after doing tons and tons of herion” thread, now is it?
I’ve never understood the difference between falsetto and ‘singing at the top of one’s register.’ (Michael McDonald isn’t falsetto but sings at the top of his register.)
Explanation, please?
Before his throat surgery, Elton John was as good as any of them:
“I took myself a blu-uuu-huuue canoe…”
“Hold me closer, Tiny Dancer…”
“… Yellow Brick Ro-ooo-oooad…”
etc.
That one guy out of the Flaming Lips.
And that one guy out of Mercury Rev.
And there’s a pop singer in the UK called Daniel Bedingfield, who has an amazing falsetto. He also writes very well crafted pop songs, if you like that sort of thing. He used to be a Web geek, and now he’s something of a heartthrob, which is always encouraging.
Damn.
Almost forgot Neil Sedaka. He’s done whole songs entirely in falsetto.
It’s very definitely different, and the sound is quite recognisable (it’s more flutey and less strong). If you’re a guy it’s what you do to your voice when you’re pretending to be a woman or a child. It’s a little difficult to describe how to do it, but mechanically, it’s causing the vocal cords to resonate in a different way from normal.
http://chanteur.net/contribu/cLHfalse.htm]Here’s a mechanical description:
[quote]
falsetto is a voice production in which the vocalis muscles (for simplicity’s sake the thyro-arytenoids) are inactive and lengthened greatly by the action of the crico-thyroid muscles which are at their nearly maximum contraction. The sound is produced by the air blowing over the very thin edges of the thyro-arytenoids and the pitch is controlled mostly by a regulation of the breath flow. If, at any time, the thyro-arytenoids began to resist this extreme lengthening of themselves and provide some resistance to the action of the cryco-thyroids, the vocal mechanism begins to move into head voice.
The sound of the falsetto voice is weak in overtones and produces no singer’s formant. This is because the very thin edges of the lengthened vocal folds, which do not display any tension in opposition to the stretching action of the thyro-arytenoids, are easily blown open by the breath and offers little resistance to the breath flow.[/quite]
Oops, I really screwed the coding there… Fixed link.
I’d have to go with Freddy Mercury. Then again, there are very few music questions that start out “Name the best” that Mercury wouldn’t be a good answer for!