Dave Mustaine of Megadeth. Sorry dude, you should’ve kept looking for that vocalist.
There’s a band that my daughter listens to, which I wish I could remember the name of, because EVERY time I hear one of their songs start up I think “Oh sweet - this is awesome, I wonder who it is??” - and then the dude starts singing in this terrible voice that I swear sounds like he’s wearing grease-paint and a big red rubber ball nose. But I can’t remember who it is, so I guess it doesn’t count…
These “can’t sing” threads are always interesting because people always list a number of individuals whom I consider to be among the greatest rock singers of all time.
Myself, I would nominate the guys in Phish. I’m judging solely by Round Room and Undermind, but it seems to me that none of those guys can sing their way out of a paper bag. That impression may be partly due to the fact that they seemed to record the vocals really dry. It helped when they did harmonies.
(Note: Their vocals don’t actually bother me much; they just seem to be kind of meh. There are other singers who have, I suppose, better voices, but their styles really grate on me – like Lucinda Williams, the Indigo Girls, Owl City, Secondhand Serenade, and that guy in Buckcherry.)
Lemmy
Tom Waits - can’t hear is voice without laughing.
Robert Smith of The Cure comes to mind immediately for me.
Them’s fightin’ words. I caught Taylor Swift in concert last night and she was amazing.
I GUESS you could make a case that her voice gets too high on the faster songs - I could definitely tell hearing her live that she was higher-pitched than on the recordings. (Some of her songs are auto-tuned on the album, but we’d be here all day listing off singers who use auto-tune.) On her slower songs, though, this problem disappears entirely.
Jim Morrison. Had absolutely no range.
What do you think he’s missing, technically?
And what’s up with Daltrey?
Everything else I’m with you, though.
David Byrne. But that’s fine, because he’s David Byrne.
Jah Wobble, fer sure.
Some of the suggestions, like Billy Corgan, have grating voices, but they hit pitch. So to me it’s a matter of not liking the timbre of the voice, which is different from not being able to sing.
Jah Wobble cannot hit pitch, and though he writes interesting songs and is a terrific bass player, he ought to get others to sing them. Which he often does, to his credit. Plus he has never (to my knowledge) claimed to be a good singer nor pushed his vocals up in the mix.
Peter Gabriel is one who I consider a great song writer and musical innovator, but I just don’t like the sound of his voice. To me it is thin and strangled sounding. He’s a terrific performer, though, and I have never let the sound of his voice put me off his music.
Mark Knopfler in DS’s early years. I can only assume he got lessons because he became reasonable. Not good - he’s not a singer as such, he’s a guitarist/songwriter who sings songs - but at least in the later albums he could carry a tune.
The problem with these threads is that they get clogged up with people naming people who can sing but who are not to taste. There is just no way you can justify saying Sting can’t sing. He carries a tune in perfect pitch. He just isn’t to everyone’s taste. Contrastingly, Richard Thompson, Lou Reed and Bob Dylan, well perhaps they can sing (Bob certainly can) but much of the time they are simply are not singing, they are talking or yelling but not in tune and not always in time.
Dogzilla’s List of People Who Are Great* Musicians, But Should Not Sing:
Bob Dylan
Billy Corgan
Tom Petty
Neil Young
Fred Durst*
Avril Lavigne. One of those performers who gets A LOT of help from studio tricks. I have heard her live a few times and it always sounded like a cat having sex during a fight.
Many of the listings here are merely voices that sound differently than the current popular sound. For example, I hated Neil Young’s voice, but that doesn’t make him a poor singer. It has character (as do people like Bob Dylan). Joe Cocker is one of the top singers in rock, yet people list him because his voice isn’t the current style (which tends toward sameness – the idea being that a certain vocal style is popular, so you only promote artists with that particular style).
Too many people can’t appreciate great voices because they can’t understand anyone who doesn’t sound like everyone else.
Jimi Hendrix famously remarked that one of the biggest influences on his career was Bob Dylan. Most especially because Hendrix believed he could never make it as a solo performer because of his rotten singing vioce, then he heard a few Dylan records and thought (paraphrasing) “Well if that cat can get that far, with that voice, then…”
Grace Slick has also commented over time that one of her biggest influences was Mick Jagger, because (paraphrasing) “Even though - like Mick - I really can’t sing, I do have tons of attitude.”
Natalie Merchant frequently sounds (or sounded - has she done anything in the last 10 years?) flat, nasally and off-pitch to me.
Someone mentioned Sting earlier, and this is exactly how I would describe his voice. Combined with his terrible enunciation, Sting is completely replaceable as a singer, but his songwriting chops more than make up for it overall.
Most of the post-grunge growl-rockers like David Cook, Daughtry, and their ilk are nearly unlistenable to me because of their vocals.
I have no musical training (except four years of clarinet about three hundred years ago) so it’s just my extremely humble opinion, but to me he sounds kind of monotone most of the time. I also can see how someone could find his voice grating and shouty. Remember; I like him.
As for Daltrey, to me he never does anything but shout , and not in a pleasing way.
Even on slow songs he never seems to lose that shouty tone. To be fair, he can be moved to my “has talent but not my cup o’ tea " categeory”, but I still do not like.
This thread went off the rails when Sting was mentioned, unless it was a whoosh.
Most of the singers mentioned suit a particular style of music. Bob Dylan suits his folk style, Geddy Lee suits the prog rock style, Neil Young suits the proto-grunge style, and Madonna suits the pop style.
Nick Cave and Tom Waits, IMO, are indeed testing the listening public’s definition of singer. I get it’s their style, and I do think it works, but it’s hard on my ears. I think Jim Morrison is in this category as well.
Randy Newman
How could I forget David Bromberg? I like him and I can deal with his voice, but… sometimes it sounds like something from “Worst of American Idol Auditions”. Prime example: “The Holdup”.