He’s dead now, you know.
Not really.
[nods]
Tom Waits. Like Dylan, has a following that thinks all he does is wonderful, but to the uninitiated one is left pondering - who told him he could sing?
Yes, Dion may have projection and control, but there is something about her voice which I cannot stand. Every time I think it’s finished grating on my nerves, it takes a barbecue brush and continues scrubbing harder. Her music is cheesy and hackneyed.
And my mother plays it very, very often.
Now, Green Day on the other hand, that I’ll agree with you on.
From what I can tell most of you all just seem to be choosing singers you don’t like, or otherwise annoy you.
Dick Dale, for instance, is someone who truly can’t sing. Heck, even his attempts to just grunt clashes with what he’s playing. Actually feel sorry for the fellow–if he’d been able to sing even a little, he probably would have been 20 times more famous.
Listening to Joni Mitchell sing Big Yellow Taxi is like fingernails down a chalkboard. At least to me.
Michael Bolton. Esp. when he took on opera.
The guy in The Jesus and Mary Chain couldn’t sing his way out of a paper bag. Same goes for the guy in Birdland.
The guy in Cake and Fred from the B-52s have a similar somewhat atonal style.
Florence Foster Jenkins . (Though Jenkins did have one concert at Carnegie Hall, which sold out. And her recordings are still in print.)
What do I win? 
Oh, sorry, probably not famous or “serious” enough. :smack:
Nick Cave, like many mentioned here, is not a GOOD singer, but he & they have a certain character to their voice that make it listenable.
“Miiiiister Peppermint Maaaaaaaaaan!”
You win my admiration for listing this cow. Darlene Edwards (Jo Stafford) at least had tongue in cheek (making the singing rather difficult) when she tried to outdo FFJ.
My local radio station was able to electronically isolate Linda McCartney’s voice from a Wing’s concert. Good grief, was it ever horribly off key and shrill! I was positively embarrassed for her.
Neil Diamond might have an inoffensive singing voice if he didn’t have so many annoying mannerisms.
Coincidentally, The Loud Family had a CD called The Tape Of Only Linda…nothing to do with Linda McCartney herself, but a hilarious album title.
There was (may still be) an internet audio file of that very clip! Horrible. The site also had Shatner’s abomination about Lucy in the Sky.
Worth searching for.
This would probably carry more weight if I knew his name, but, I nominate the guy from Canned Heat. He sings like Kermit the Frog with his genitals caught in a car door.
I would just like to point out that whether someone is a good or bad singer, and whether they have a good or bad voice, are two very different things.
And that it’s not fair to call someone a bad singer just because they sing in a style that you don’t like.
The screeching horror of the singer from Evanescence. I will never understand why people like her.
Oh, how it pains me to say this, but Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip.
They are my favorite band and he’s a fantastic singer to watch and I love their songs, but my friend’s brother doesn’t call them The Tragically Tonedeaf for nothing.
I ignore the quality of his singing, as the rest of the music is kick-ass and more than makes up for it!
He *can * scream, though. See them live. It’s a treat.