Companion thread to go with the top 5 metal guitarists thread. I don’t have a very musical ear, so I’m unable to judge things like vocal range and technique, and end up liking or disliking vocalists based on ‘feel’. It’d be nice what people who can judge technique and talent think of them. Here are mine, to kick things off, in no particular order.
James Hetfield - Metallica got me into metal. I started with what most fans consider a sell out album, their eponymous ‘black’ album, but it got me listening to the rest of their stuff and metal in general. And Hetfield’s delivery was a big part of what I liked about the black album.
Bruce Dickinson - The ‘feel’ thing again, although I suppose he’s also actually a really good vocalist too. His version of Sabbath Bloody Sabbath? Yeah, that’s how an impressionable young teenager looking for usernames in the days of character limits on usernames comes up with something as weird as ‘bldysabba’
Rob Halford - The first song I heard by Halford was ‘The Wizard’ on the Nativity in Black tribute album(the same one with Bruce Dickinson singing SBS. God did I wear that tape out). I went hunting(metal was tough to come by in India before the internet took off), found a friend who had Metalworks 2, and Rob Halford screamed his way into this top 5 list. That live performance of Victim of changes? Man.
Dio - My favourite Dio song is Heaven and Hell from when he was with Sabbath.
Chuck Schuldiner - This may be an odd choice. I suppose I don’t really like him so much for his vocals as his song writing, but I love Symbolic and Sound of Perseverance so much that it’s hard to leave him out.
Maybe not strictly metal but to me Chris Cornell definitely ranks up there as one of the greatest male vocalists. There are singers that have a unique voice, those that have virtuoso or technical singing ability but a kind of generic sounding voice, and then there are those that are both technically talented and have a unique voice of which Chris Cornell would be an example.
Yep, young Ozzy with Sabbath is the perfect melodic metal voice for me. Sweet, not too nasal, full, but still primal. I submit “War Pigs” and “Fairies Wear Boots” as my cite.
Bon Scott is perfection of the other extreme. An on-key buzz saw.
Those are my #1 and #2. Lemmy, Robert Plant and Ian Gillian round out my favorites in no certain order.
How about Doug Pinnick of King’s X? They were my OTHER favorite band for a few years, and then kinda sorta went off the rails.
They also skated on the edge of Christian music for some time, until something was revealed that I had never suspected (and even if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered) and that’s that Pinnick is gay.
maybe this is how Dylan should have done it, in any case Bonnet hits and holds the notes way better.
Bon Scott - AC/DC. You just cannot fail to rock to this - oh, and Angus does a half way reasonable job too
