Well I, for one, think that Bruce Springsteen is a much better vocalist than Pavarotti. I mean, really, all Pavarotti does is stand there and sing!
Hmmm - unfortunately, it could be tough. We have some experts on a variety of genres, but I don’t know how easy it would be to articulate the “inside baseball” of how emotional communication works. I mean, Streisand comes from the Broadway / Theater tradition - it’s just *so *different than rock. Reading **Askance’s **terse dismissal suggests that he/she has made up their minds. That’s fine - YMMV and all, but it shows no clue whatsoever about how to approach music of that genre nor a willingness to learn.
Maybe you could compare it to acting styles? Like … perhaps Sinatra, Streisand and Bruce = Spencer Tracy, Judy Garland and (young) Robert DeNiro. Tracy was controlled and ‘internal’, and Garland was theatrical and vulnerable, and DeNiro is gritty/passionate. Someone who’s really into Brando/DeNiro/Pacino may not dig Tracy but every nuanced muscle on Tracy’s face tells a story. And fans of Tracy and Brando might look down on Garland but there’s a lot of honesty and power in her best acting work.
Now to me, Dean Martin or Bobby Darrin fits Askance’s description; though even with them, I suspect I just may not have heard enough of their repertoire.
All this talk about Mick being a bad singer…no one ever mentions his trousers almost falling down! Seriously, though, Jagger isn’t just the front man and co-songwriter, he’s the Stones’ prime mover. I don’t think it would be an exaggeration to call him a control freak. The band’s success has a lot to do with his drive and business acumen.
I’m picturing Jagger doing the Joe Cocker thing with the spastic T-Rex arm movements. A can’t look away from the trainwreck moment to be sure.
I like Jagger’s voice though, or at least I can’t imagine anyone else having done the songs any better. Yeah, I like Lou Reed and Neil Young as well. I guess my ears are just music whores.
That’s very very true – he is certainly not to everyone’s taste – but in Tom Waits’ defense, he can carry a tune and sing in several different styles, unlike Mick Jagger/Lou Reed/etc.
I’m stunned by this thread. Up to now, among others, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Bob Dylan (yes, him too), Janis Joplin, Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger in the OP were taken as examples of bad singers. People, it’s about rock’n roll! These are some of the finest rock’ roll singers ever. And some of you don’t tell the difference between the voice and the actual singing. Of course, Bob Dylan hasn’t a beautiful voice, a small range, but man he can work with this voice (same applies to Jagger). For a different approach, take Joan Baez. A voice that my mother would love and describe as a beautiful, clear voice. But her singing… booooring. (I know that she doesn’t fit exactly in the rock’n roll context, but you get the picture).
You just can’t compare rock’n roll vocals to opera, jazz or swing, or whatever other genre you chose.
Next time, someone brings in Aretha Franklin, Dusty Springfield, Little Richard, Ray Charles or Elvis as bad singers…
It gets worse. At Rate Your Music, many of their albums rate just a hair or two below 4.0 (out of 5), better than other Aussie bands like Midnight Oil, The Church, or even INXS.
I just feel like it’s oversimplifying to say that it’s rock and roll so technique doesn’t matter. They may be popular and well liked, but I think it’s fair to say that Mick Jagger is a bad singer. Paul McCartney may not be bad, but he’s not exactly phenomenal. I don’t think standards go out the window just because it’s rock.
Those others that you mentioned–Dusty Springfield, Aretha, Elvis–are, IMO, examples of rock (well, not exactly rock but close) singers who do have beautiful voices. It can be done. I’m not saying Mick should never have sung, just that he’s definitely not as good as others.
It didn’t suck. It wasn’t bad. It was a perfectly serviceable, professional performance by a talented singer with a good band.
But, see, that’s all it was. It was a pro delivering the goods on a cover. It was the sort of competent performance you would expect from a Tuesday night act in Vegas.
When Mick did “Gimme Shelter,” he (and Merry Clayton) SING it. You hear anger and fear and desperation. Love, it’s just a kiss away. Rock and roll isn’t about sounding like Celine Dion, it’s about sounding like you mean it.
Technique does matter to some extent, but, c’mon - Mick can carry a tune and he can project and he sounds authentic. If you want to hear rock that really could have used a better singer, listen to Rage Against the Machine.
I’ll see your Brian Johnson and raise you Udo Dirkschneider 
I did read a great interview with Brian Johnson back in the '80s. He related an anecdote where AC/DC was on tour, and he’d been walking around the city they were in. On his way back to the hotel he spotted a rock magazine on a newstand with a cover story claiming something like “Brian Johnson Quitting AC/DC!”
He got back to the hotel where he was confronted by his bandmates, who’d seen the same magazine. He said, “They must have thought I’d lost my mind! I mean, with my voice, who else would have me?”
Yes, yes, I know, I’m sure that was the style at the time, and I also imagine that the recording equipment used fails to render the most authentic reproduction of his singing. Nonetheless, I just can’t relate to that style at all – to my ears it’s nothing but a grating, nasal catastrophe.
Yo Mick, I’m really happy for you and I’mma let you finish, but Kanye West is one of the best worst singers of all time. One of the best worst singers of all time!
Yes, Mick Jagger is, justifiably, a rock legend – but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s a terrible singer. It’s always struck me as unjust that Keith Richards has gotten such grief for his solo efforts when Mick doesn’t sing any better. It’s all personality.
Exhibit #1 for the prosecution: Mick Jagger singing the blues. He’s awful. I remember once hearing a late night show – I’m thinking it was Ray Manzarek – devoted to exploring the Rolling Stones’ work. They played a track of one of the great Negro bluesmen singing one of the Stones’ blues songs. It was beautiful, and it it became clearer than ever before that Mick can’t sing.
As one of the biggest Madonna fans on the planet, I will concede that she is not the strongest singer out there. Weirdly enough, though, I think her upper range is the problem. Seriously, have you heard, ‘‘Live to Tell’’ and ‘‘In This Life’’ and pretty much any of her ballads which features a strong alto? Gorgeous.
Her vocal immaturity is pretty evident in early upper range songs like ‘‘Holiday’’ and ‘‘Lucky Star,’’ but she eventually got some vocal training (when she filmed Evita in 1996) and improved tremendously.
Still, I’ve always believed that Madonna is not a singer. She is a performer. Her first love, and greatest talent, is dance.
I came in here to say that Bob Dylan is the single worst singer I think I’ve ever heard in my life. He sounds like he’s stoned in every single one of his songs.
AC/DC (both leads) is a close runner up. My husband has joked that rock and roll singers are deliberately bad so as not to humiliate the average guys singing along.
I have to say that it is only madness to consider Dave any kind of a singer. He makes Barney Fife, Sgt. Carter, and Eddie Mecca sound like the Three Tenors. To compare Dave to Sammy Hagar is a terrible, terrible joke. Dave cannot sing, and Mick, who is horrible, is thirty levels above him, which tells you where Dave sings.
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But Diamond Dave is a wonderful, entertaining front man. His lack of vocal ability seems to support his schmaltzy approach.
olivesmarch4th:
Preach it!! Madonna may not be Whitney or Celine, but she can certainly carry a tune, and occasionally (I love “Live to Tell”) hit one out of the ballpark.
Randy Newman has been quite successful with a horrid voice.