Thanks for the feedback, all. It’s helpful to get other perspectives.
My quite biased opinion…
Freddie Mercury (Queen)
Steve Perry (Journey)
Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
Roger Daltrey (The Who)
Jim Morrison (The Doors)
Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
Burton Cummings (Blood, Sweat, and Tears)
Prince (The Revolution, The NPG, solo)
Bono (U2)
Sammy Hagar (Montrose, solo, Van Halen)
Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo)
Michael Stipe (REM)
Van Morrison (Them, solo)
Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
And if I had my way he’d be so far off this list you’d have to use a telescope to see him:
Joe Cocker
Top 5:
- Prince
- Freddie Mercury
- Bono
- Michael Stipe
- Roger Daltrey
Most of them do nothing for me, so I’m really not qualified to judge.
I was thinking much the same. I’m biased because I like Eddie Vedder, but while I’m aware he’s never come anywhere near say Freddie Mercury in terms of vocal range or technical ability, I’d rank him much higher than many of the other names on the list in terms of influence, emotion, and defining the sound of his band. And in terms of his status as a rock icon, while he’s not at the level of Robert Plant, Bono, etc., he’s much better known than singers like Geoff Tate or Burton Cummings.
If I had my druthers, Chris Cornell would be somewhere on that list.
This is about* how I would rank them:
1 Freddie Mercury (Queen)
2 Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
3 Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
4 Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
5 Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
6 Steve Perry (Journey)
7 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
8 Roger Daltrey (The Who)
9 Sammy Hagar (Montrose, solo, Van Halen)
10 David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo)
11 Prince (The Revolution, The NPG, solo)
12 Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
13 Bono (U2)
14 Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
15 Van Morrison (Them, solo)
16 Burton Cummings (Blood, Sweat, and Tears)
? Joe Cocker (solo only?)
? Van Morrison (Them, solo)
? Jim Morrison (The Doors)
? Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
? Michael Stipe (REM)
? Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
The ones with ?'s are those that I have no idea how to rank. Technically, most those guys aren’t very good but they get away with it because they have very distinctive voices that happen to work with the music they play.
Side note, Ian Gillian is *way *underrated. I always thought he was a decent vocalist until I heard Born Again by Sabbath. Gillian is all over the freaking place on that album.
Oh and my ranking is mostly thinking of technical skills.
Slee
- I imagine the ranking would change if I did it a second time.
This is pretty tough to do, but here goes:
1 Freddie Mercury (Queen)
2 Roger Daltrey (The Who)
3 Jim Morrison (The Doors)
4 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
5 Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
6 Van Morrison (Them, solo)
7 Michael Stipe (REM)
8 Prince (The Revolution, The NPG, solo)
9 Bono (U2)
10 Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
11 Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
12 Sammy Hagar (Montrose, solo, Van Halen)
13 Burton Cummings (The Guess Who)
14 Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
15 Joe Cocker (solo only?)
.
.
.
? Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
? Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
? Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
.
.
.
.
794 Steve Perry (Journey)
10,948 David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo)
And I know this isn’t how you play, but I would definitely add these guys to the list:
Bruce Springsteen
John Lennon
Rod Stewart
Eric Burdon
And consider these:
Paul Rodgers
Axl Rose
Brian Wilson
John Fogerty
Steve Tyler
Mitch Ryder
Bob Seger
Levon Helm
I know near zip about popular culture, so I can’t help at all with your 1st or 4th criteria. Going through YouTube, I’ll list my rankings for #2 and #3. Since I can’t possibly listen to a decently representative sample, it’s possible that I’ll get these a bit wrong since I’ll only be listening to one song per artist. Freddie Mercury, Bono, and Robert Plant are the only ones I have ever heard before.
Virtuosity
1 Freddie Mercury (Queen)
2 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
3 Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
4 Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
5 Burton Cummings (Blood, Sweat, and Tears)
6 Prince (The Revolution, The NPG, solo)
7 Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
8 Sammy Hagar (Montrose, solo, Van Halen)
9 Steve Perry (Journey)
10 David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo)
11 Van Morrison (Them, solo)
12 Bono (U2)
13 Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
14 Michael Stipe (REM)
15 Jim Morrison (The Doors)
16 Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
17 Roger Daltrey (The Who)
18 Joe Cocker (solo only?)
19 Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
20 Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
Feel/Emotion
1 Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
2 Burton Cummings (Blood, Sweat, and Tears)
3 Michael Stipe (REM)
4 Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
5 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
6 Van Morrison (Them, solo)
7 Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
8 Bono (U2)
9 David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo)
10 Steve Perry (Journey)
11 Prince (The Revolution, The NPG, solo)
12 Freddie Mercury (Queen)
13 Roger Daltrey (The Who)
14 Jim Morrison (The Doors)
15 Joe Cocker (solo only?)
16 Sammy Hagar (Montrose, solo, Van Halen)
17 Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
18 Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
19 Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
20 Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
Aaand, combining those by taking the distance from (0, 0) (translating 1 -> 0), we get:
1 Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
2 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
2 Burton Cummings (Blood, Sweat, and Tears)
4 Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
5 Freddie Mercury (Queen)
6 Prince (The Revolution, The NPG, solo)
6 Van Morrison (Them, solo)
8 David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo)
8 Steve Perry (Journey)
10 Bono (U2)
11 Michael Stipe (REM)
12 Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
13 Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
14 Sammy Hagar (Montrose, solo, Van Halen)
15 Jim Morrison (The Doors)
16 Roger Daltrey (The Who)
17 Joe Cocker (solo only?)
18 Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
19 Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
20 Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
Doh, I suspect that I ranked the wrong person then. I listened to this song. Is that Burton or someone else singing?
That’s not him. Good example of Burton Cummings, IMO, is “These Eyes”:
Righto. Then let’s reclass Burton Cummings as:
Virtuosity: Leave him at 5, actually.
Feel/Emotion: Between David Lee Roth and Steve Perry.
And doing my math that redoes my final classification as:
1 Rob Halford (Judas Priest)
2 Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin)
3 Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
4 Burton Cummings (Blood, Sweat, and Tears)
5 Van Morrison (Them, solo)
6 Freddie Mercury (Queen)
7 Prince (The Revolution, The NPG, solo)
8 David Lee Roth (Van Halen, solo)
9 Steve Perry (Journey)
10 Bono (U2)
11 Billy Corgan (Smashing Pumpkins)
12 Michael Stipe (REM)
13 Geoff Tate (Queensryche)
14 Sammy Hagar (Montrose, solo, Van Halen)
15 Jim Morrison (The Doors)
16 Roger Daltrey (The Who)
17 Joe Cocker (solo only?)
18 Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones)
19 Ian Gillan (Deep Purple)
20 Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden)
If this is your final result your formula definitely does not work!
The formula is just the length of the hypotenuse. That might not be the perfect way to combine two sets of rankings, but I don’t think it would have a significant effect versus other methods; everyone would still end up in approximately the same region in the output. It’s very possible that I caught some of the singers on a particularly bad day. If you think someone is ranked too low, link me to a song where you think they were at the peak of their ability. I don’t know nor care about nearly all of the singers so I’m happy enough to keep revising my estimates.