Today a radio station played a song from about 10 years back, I believe it’s titled “Mmm mmm mmm mmm” by the Crash Test Dummies.
That made me realise that lower register vocals are pretty much unheard of in rock, or if they are heard, the singer and song are pretty much treated as a novelty act and not taken seriously.
Perhaps a higher voice just carries better in the context of rock. There are a lot of Robert Plant, Geddy Lee types on the high end, but how many lower baritone to bass singers are heard in rock?
Kevin Ayers is probably the major low register singer in roc-‘n’-roll. Everything he sings is low register.
Leon Redbone would be even lower, if rock-‘n’-roll was what he sang. When I was young I was inspired by Leon Redbone because I like to sing low register too and wasn’t interested in forcing my voice up high, anywhere near Franki Valli range. (“Walk like a man, sing like a girl…”)
Billy Idol does his his best singing when he gets down into the lower registers. Ronnie James Dio, on the other hand, is an upper-register kind of a singer. When it comes to female singers, I have a definite preference for the alto over the soprano.
Eddie Vedder seems to spend a lot of time in the lower registers, and I love his voice.
Really, I can’t understand what seems to be a preference in the pop music industry for singers, both male and female, whose vocal range runs toward the tenor/soprano range, or, if their voices are naturally lower pitched, get the falsetto thing going. God, I hate that Franki Valli/Lou Christie duct tape your balls to the ceiling falsetto.
I think that, by and large, the baritone/alto voice projects more power, although Ronnie James Dio, who is pretty much a tenor, probably has the best voice in all of rock.
I’m no musical expert, but it seems to me as though the singer for Godsmack sings relatively deeply, especially on “Voodoo.” Same for the singer from Ramstein, especially on “Bestrafe Mich”
Dead on, Thea Logica. Who the hell decided that this should even happen, much less be commonplace.
Check out Evanescence…the woman has a beautiful voice, and the music’s not bad
Most women in rock sing very low (for women). In fact, I have a harder time singing some songs made popular by women than by men for this reason (I’m a mezzo).
I think that high-pitched singing stands out above the instrumentation more than lower pitch, because most of the instrumentation in rock is midrange. Doesn’t mean I like it, though.
You’ve never heard Christopher Lee’s rendition of I Was Born Under A Wandering Star, then. (OK, so it isn’t rock - but it’s sure as hell a low register.)
I follow An Arky around the SDMB (at least for 2 days now), and I agree wholeheartedly with his analysis that the lower vox don’t carry over instruments as well as the piercing power high vox like a Dio or a Bruce Dickinson.
Are we considering the growly-type stuff heard in more hardcore metal? There’s a ton of that around, but it’s not really “singing” as much as it is “yelling in key (sort of)”. I’m on the high side of baritone, and so trying to handle the higher vox puts a real strain on my throat; annoying, but that’s how it works.
