I got that, you know.
A lot of the classic metal screechers actually have normal speaking voices because their singing voices are this sort of nasal falsetto.
Rick Astley and Michael McDonald - white guys with soul voices.
I also thought of Jim Nabors right off.
Thing is, with all the studio wizardry these days, how many singers these days have to sound like themselves? How can we tell when someone’s voice is being electronically distorted or enhanced? I would venture there’s a lot more singers today that sing differently than they speak then there ever was.
Billy Corgan from Smashing Pumpkins has a speaking voice that sounds nothing like his singing. Although his nasal screech works well in the context of SP, I sometimes wonder what he could do if he sang using his normal voice.
Joe Elliot from Def Leppard has a VERY deep (and rather soothing) speaking voice.
I was talking about more examples for this thread.
When those phone company (AT&T, maybe) commercials came out that had Michael McDonald singing on them, my husband happened to be home on a day off when he saw one for the first time. He E-mailed me (at work), “Michael McDonald is white?!” This from a guy who liked the music of the Doobie Brothers, Steely Dan, and McDonald’s solo work, mind you. It took me a few minutes to reply because I was laughing so hard.
I was going to nominate the lead singer of Opeth, but that’s a cheat. He does mostly very low, growled vocals, but has a rather lovely “clean” tenor singing voice when he chooses to use it, like on their Damnation album.
Michael McDonald is not, and never has been, in Steely Dan. Or did I misinterpret something here?
Anyway, let me be the first to say that Ozzy is a phenomenal rock singer, IMHO. But the guy can’t even speak in coherent sentences.
Wiki disagrees, although it does say “adjunct member”:
Yeah, he wasn’t a major member, but apparently helped enough that I thought somewhere, along the way, my dear husband might have seen Michael McDonald identified as such. Nope. Not until a commercial not that long ago - Googling around I see it was apparently for MCI in 2003.
Over 30 posts and nobody has mentioned Susan Boyle?
I did not know that. I suppose I should have Googled it instead of jumping to conclusions. Sorry.
Apologies to Ferret Herder.
No need, it surprised the hell out of me when I first learned it, too. And, I was unclear in how I presented the information.
Karen Walker (Megan Mullally)
???
Kristin Chenoweth. Her speaking voice is squeaky (she refers to it as a “chipmunk voice”), but her singing voice is very clear and strong (at least, unless she’s trying to make it squeaky).
Eric Clapton. When he talks, he sounds like the Brit he is, but when he sings, he sounds like he could be from over here in the colonies.
Any number of Scot singers: Edwyn Collins, Jim Kerr, Stuart Adamson…