The Top 200 Greatest Rock Singers - 20 to 11

 

Now we are in the top 20 and  harder choices are having to be made. I am having to be more honest with myself; in what we are doing here which is focusing not only on technical vocal ability, in terms of range and power, as well as their dynamics, phrasing and the overall character of their voice. Can they emote from different places? How well does their voice hold up live? . How they control a crowd or their entertainment value as performers is also not a factor; there are some great front men who are also sub-par singers. There are also not going to be any Bob Dylan like singers, who are better songwriters than vocalists.

Pop singers, are far and few between, with; a few country or jazz singers who crossover just enough to qualify for this list, while having a significant influence on rock music. Don't expect rappers on this list or metal vocalists who just scream or growl, but never actually sing. I am keen on singers who are derivative of other singers. The bulk of these do their own thing, the few paying tribute to other artists made enough of an impact with their music. Having a unique vocal quality is going to be one of the most important factors often trumping technical ability. If they sound too much like Steve Perry from Journey after listening to their vocal coach rather than developing their own style, it is also not going to fly. Some of these might have been ignored by mainstream music media, but by the time we get to the top 10, I am sure it will all make sense, so here are the Top 200 greatest rock singers.

20- Morrissey 

If we were talking about lyricists then he would be number one. Some people might be upset that he is on this list at all since he is supposed to be cancelled. By why is rock n roll supposed to be polite or care about your feelings? It should only give you the middle finger ,which is what Moz does but with the depressive grace of a proper English Man

 

 19- Roland Orzabal 

The bigger bolder voice of Tears For Fears, sounded just as good on stage last summer as he ever has. At 61 he sounds like he could keep it up for another 10 years. Of the 80s radio icons , he has some of the best pipes going. 

            

18 Brendan Perry 

Before I saw Dead Can Dance live, I was under the faulty impression that Perry was like a darker Neil Diamond, I liked a few of his songs , but most were fast forward classics, then I saw them live and that changed everything he was jaw dropping. 

                

 17-Mike Patton

 Where to start, we could just look at his work in Faith No More and that alone would justify his place here, not to mention Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom, Fantomas, Dead Cross... I can keep going, but if you know who he is and what he does there is no reason.

   

 16-Danny Elfman

 Oingo Boingo was ahead of there time, but that answer alone is not going to work for people wanting to know how did he rank higher than Patton, well he was doing what Patton does before Patton did it, and I am sure Mike would agree. The end of story answer is he is the voice of Jack Skellington Mike Patton is not

.  

 15-Jeff Buckley

The only problem here is we never got enough music from him to hear what he was really capable of , but the glimpse we did get out shone decades of work by other singers who would never have a chance to come close to what Jeff did on the "Grace' album. 

                     

 14- Peter Gabriel

 The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway alone says it all , but He do not even have to bring up Genesis which would be enough to justify his place on this list. Based off his solo work alone, which was less theatrical than the prog grandeur of Genesis, his vocals still retain the emotional urgency and his stellar range.

   

 13-Rob Halford

 He refers to himself as a metal god, and as long as we are talking about poly theism then I agree. His wide range and blending of various registers influenced metal singing. The first three Priest albums alone earn his place here.

   

12- Ian Gillan

If you think my only defense for this guy beating out Halford is "Child in Time" , you have forgotten his album with Sabbath and the fact he was Jesus in The Original Cast Recording of Jesus Christ Superstar.

   

11-Bruce Dickinson

Rob Halford is not the only metal god, if you saw them on their last tour Bruce is a beast. He belts it out to the rafters. He is operatic in the least pretentious manner, and knows no matter what voice you have you have to serve the song. 

the Top 10 Power Metal Albums of the Decade

The decade began before this blog was started , I can not just rely on sorting through previous reviews. I am just embedding video clips to support the reasoning for these albums to be listed as such, since I already did a best of the year list for each sub-genre. This is a sub-genre that split off from my mainstream metal lists. Typically power metal is too happy for me, so with my list it should be no surprise that you are getting the darker and sometimes more aggressive side of it. Considering the genre this is not going to be  the most hipster of the lists that say Vice puts out, what matters is the fact; these are the albums I listened to the most. Any ways here are the Top 10 Power  metal  albums of the decade.




10- Witherfall - " a Prelude to Sorrow"







9- Symphony X - "Iconoclast" 2011 








8- Nevermore- "the Obsidian Conspiracy"&nbsp ;







/>


7- Judas Priest-"Redeemer of Souls" 2014




 



6-Khaotika<- 2015="<br"> - " the Flame Unleashed " 2015 
<- 2015="<br">
<- 2015="<br">
<- 2015="<br">
<- 2015="<br">
 5- Primordial- "Redemption at the Puritans Hand " 2011




 





4- Ghost Ship Octavius-'Delirium" 2018




 




3- In solitude - " the World , the Flesh, The Devil" 2011




 






2- Kamelot- "Poetry For the Poisoned "2010



 





1- Iron Maiden - the Final Frontier" 2010



 

London Calls it

Last night I had to correct London who was under the impression that everyone went to Live Aid to see Queen. I had to correct this by showing her clips of the Live Aid performances by Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Black Sabbath and Judas Priest. She like Ozzy and the boys best so has been on a tangent of wanting to see videos of Ozzy going crazy.  This morning I expanded upon it and took the opprotunity to play live videos of other bands to get her thoughts on it so here we go

Ozzy - "Mr Crowley"  from 83

London- "He kinda looks like you when you had long hair. He is not going crazy here"

Motley Crue - "Looks That Kill " from 87

London : "Eh, they are not as good as Ozzy"

Marilyn Manson- Live show from 96

London : "He has black hair like you used to. Why is he wearing booty shorts. He is having a fit. I don't even wear booty shorts. Who could have a crush on this guy?"

Judas Priest - "Heading out to the High way " live mid 8os. 

London-" He is not singing like an old lady hear , so that is better, I like it"

Slipknot-"Live From 99" 


London- "I don't think they sing as good in the masks , the sound is too low, I don't like them"

Gwar - Live from 90

London- "He doesn't sing very well, why is he more famous than you, you think better than he does, so does King Diamond. "

King Diamond - "Deadly Omens" live from 89

London- "I can tell be the singing that this is King Diamond, so of course it's good"

Ghost- Live from 2018

London- " This is crap, if they want to be King Diamond they have to sing better than that"

Lita Ford " Kiss Me Deadly" 

London- "This is not metal, how can this be metal"

In This Moment -Live 2018

London- "Are they going to just dance or sing" singing starts "I guess this is ok for a girl"

Chelsea Wolfe- "Live 2016" 

London- "This is a little better than the last one, rather see Ozzy"

Ozzy Osbourne - "Crazy Train Live 83"

London- "I think I can go crazier than him, I think I could crush faces if I had to"

The Top 100 albums of the 90s : 90 to 81

Here we continue with out Top 100 albums of the 90s a decade generally assumed to be dominated by grunge, while there will be some on here sooner or later its the open door to experimentation that alternative hitting the mainstream that brought out some of the interesting sounds we look at today in 90 to 81.


90- Entombed - "Wolverine Blues"
Continuing to be ahead of their time, this Swedish band also birthed the groove fill death n roll sub genre with this album that slayed things like "Far Beyond Driven". The title track alone was worth the price of the album.Yeah it was back in the days when you paid for albums.

89- Veruca Salt -"Eight Arms to Hold You" No, this is not the album with "Seether" on it. While that one is good, the song writing on this one is more mature , emotive and rocks out, with "Volcano Girls" having way more balls to it than "Seether' which fit more neatly into what was becoming expected of alt-rock at that time.

88-the Get Up Kids - "Something to Write Home About" Emo had been alive and well in the underground and this album pushed it towards a larger audience and prepped kids for bands like Jimmy Eat World who would later bring the word "emo" to mainstream audiences when things went wild with in on Myspace in the 2000s. But when this album came out it was just more thoughtful punk rock.

87- Judas Priest-"Pain Killer" Seeking to redeem themselves from being turbo-lovers, Priest came back to prove they could hit it as hard as all the thrash bands they influenced. A new drummer helped them pull this off and Tipton and KK, showed they had some impressive chops up their sleeves and could shred with the best of them. This album would be one of the last great metal albums before grunge.

86- Katatonia-"Discouraged Ones" They transitioned from being a gloomy doom ridden death metal band to switching over to clean singing and touching on more of a Cure like goth ambiance.

85-the Gathering-"Nightime Birds" Before the slew of symphonic melodrama that bands like Nightwish would be out of Europe, the Gathering brought a more majestic soaring to gloomy doom thanks to the vocals of Anna Maria van Giersbergen or Anneke as she would later be called. This album is way ahead of it's time.

84-Butthole Surfers- "Independent Worm Saloon" Gibby and the boys stopped clowning around and began rockin on this one , though it still retained much of their signature weirdness. Not hard enough to be metal, but to trippy to be punk. They would later really sell out with the album that followed.

83-Warrior Soul - "Drugs, God, and the New Republic" While they saw some popularity in Europe, they deserved to hit bigger in the States as they were better then bands like Tripping Daisy, who you won't see on this list. They toured with Danzig and Soundgarden, which is where I caught on to them.

82-Dj Shadow - "Entroducing" The drums sound is the only thing that sounds that dated to me, there are many other elements on this album they stand the test of time and find this to be an electronica classic.

81- Skunk Anansie "Post Orgasmic Chill" Another album that was an alternative to mainstream alternative.Skin their black lesbian lead singer has a set of pipes on her that take these songs to the next level. The songs held up well with the years as I can go back and easily listen to this one.

 

The Weekly Shuffle

Yep... here we go again, I hit shuffle on.. well iTunes as my iPod has bitten the dust, if anyone know a spell to resurrect an iPod classic please hit me up and let me know or how to get the volume to work after the Apple store cleans lint out of the head phone jack then hit me up.  So with that said reviewing the first ten songs that crop up.  

"Back Door Man" - the Doors

They take a simple blues jam and turn into something drunkenly great, most of this lies on Morrison, but the drumming and guitar playing on the song is pretty classic as well.

"Her" - Swans

Gira's voice sounds great when he lays back and croons.Sounds like it was at its peak on the "Love of Life" album which had the band at the perfect balance of punishing and melodic.

"Diamonds and Rust"  - Judas Priest

They now own this Joan Baez cover. Halford is more restrained her and really serves the song in more of a mid range croon. It has more of a Heart like gallop in this incarnation.

"Unearthly Kingdom" - Immortal

This band really find powers when they slow down and find a groove like this. The croak of the vocals form a creepier narrative at this tempo. When it does pick up the pace its more double bass driven than blasty.  The guitar playing on this part sounds mean as hell

"What She Said" - the Smiths

This is an underrated song by the band , because it's not played at 80's night or Brit Pop night or where ever kids are dancing to "Girlfriend in a Coma" and "How Soon is Now". It kicks pretty hard so it's not for the pop minded.

"How Does the Grass Grow?" - David Bowie

It holds the quirky sensibility of  Scary Monsters mixed with the almost doo-wop of Aladdin Sane. The bass is killing it on this song thanks to Gail Anne Dorsey. This songs holds up to the rest of Bowie's work which says a lot.

"Curse of the Pharaohs" - Mercyful Fate

 Why Metallica ever attempted to cover this with James singing I don't know, as King owns it even thought the majority of the song is in his more crooning voice, which I have grown over the years to appreciate almost as much as his shattering upper register.

"Flying High Again" - Ozzy

As far as the songs on Diary of a Madman, this is one of the cheesier platters on the album, steeped in the sounds of the 80's from which it came. Most of this is on Randy Rhodes, whose playing is the most dated element to the song. I think Diary is a much better and darker album than Blizzard, though Blizzard has it's moments, It's Ozzy we are taking about so even at his worst he is endearing, if you are a total metal guitar geek then this song can do no wrong.

"Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed" - Thin Lizzy

It took me a long time to get into this band as the singers sounds like a cab driver from Jersey. It came down to me hearing some of their deeper album cuts to really appreciate them. These guys are clearly a guitar players' band, they have incredible tone and are pretty versatile songwriters, even if you don't like their more beer commercial efforts like the "Boys are back in Town".

"Black Dragon" -Dissection

I'm not sure why Reinkaos gets so much flack, sure compared to Storm of the Nights Bane its a little on the cock rock side, but these songs are all awesome, this one might have its black wings raised above the rest. Awesome riffs and groove with a great sense of dynamics.      

The Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums: 10 to 1

Here we are at the final top ten of our The Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time.

10- Dissection-Strom of the Light's Bane

This Swedish band bridged the thrash with black metal.



9- Dio - Holy Diver

Last In Line is a great album and it set Dio apart from the other bands he had sung for, but Holy Diver is tighter more dynamic song writing.



8- Voi Vod- Dimension Hatross

Light years ahead of it's time this sci-fi based Canadian thrash band took a turn to
progressive.

7- Slayer -South of Heaven

Sure Reign in Blood is a great album, but this is where thrash got it's groove back .



6-Ozzy Osborne- Diary of A Madman

Blizzard might have the hits but Diary is darker and harder. The title track alone sets it apart from his first solo album.



5-Mercyful Fate-Don't Break the Oath

The vocals on this blow the other Fate albums out of the water and the guitar tone is fuller.



4-Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny

They go beyond just rock to more dark and progressive place here.



3- Black Sabbath- Sabotage

Not the tired old greatest hits, but a drug band who dabbled in rock.



2-Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast

For any one who wants to say Dianno era is better, none of the songs could have seen the light a day with him singing them.



1-King Diamond - Abigail

This album has every element you could want from a metal album, blazing leads, amazing drumming and some of the best vocals ever recorded with the power of Halford , but delving in much darker places. The heaviest of his solo work.