When I’m sanding I like strong sounding, distinctive music playing in my ear. I have an old-fashioned 60’s and 70’s guitar rock playlist that is getting a bit old and I need something else to listen to. My thought: great falsettos. If you could recommend and please, please include a YouTube clip (or however you can legally link the song).
I’ll start things off with the fantastically earsplitting Philip Bailey from Earth, Wind and Fire Keep Your Head to the Sky and, of course, the great falsetto classic Sherry which I saw Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons sing about a decade ago (maybe even longer-- these years start coming and they don’t stop coming!). They sang it about a whole octave lower and I really thought ole Frankie was going to burst a blood vessel in his neck, but it didn’t sound half bad.
I don’t have pop suggestions but you might also look for classical music with countertenors (Purcell, Tallis, etc) and try the recordings of Alessandro Moreschi, the only castrato to be recorded solo.
You and me both! This is one of my favorites and I just found out maybe 5 years ago that that wasn’t a woman. More trivia about this song. It’s actual original title is They Just Can’t Stop It-- which is ridiculous. The single came out with They Just Can’t Stop It (Games People Play) as its title. Everybody calls it Games People Play, even Wiki.
Whoa, hold the phone. That Soul Train video is all kinds of wrong. According to the wiki there are three lead singers credited: Bobby Smith, Pervis Jackson, and Evette Benton. There is no way a man sang that part, but why would they fake it like that?
Then I thought of “She Drives Me Crazy” (Fine Young Cannibals). And, maybe because the current Wings thread has me thinking of him, McCartney’s “So Bad”—not sure if it’s a true falsetto, but he sings pretty high on that one.