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Best Worst Singers.


Tony Baloni

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I love Willie Nelson. Love him. His voice, although highly unique (and listenable, IMHO) is quite nasally, and some (my mother) would be inclined to say it peels the paint off fences.

Same with my fave female, Stevie Nicks. She's been described by critics as having a "racuous" voice, and my mom says her voice is much too "rough." I, however, love it.

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Ian Curtis fits the bill.

Indeed. His voice took a while for me to get used to. It sounds so... strained. Strangely enough, Bernard Sumner doesn't have a good singing voice either. His tone might be a bit pleasing, but he doesn't have any range. It's basically the same throughout - much like a lot of NewOrder's music :cool:

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Jimi Hendrix ... sounds like he talks through the songs more than singing...but it fits well with the music he played....

Same way I feel about Dylan...yeah his voice isn't good but it fits well with the type of songs he writes...

I once had a blow out arguement in a gym about Hendrix and his singing. There was this once guy saying "Hendrix stinks." When pressed he said, "The guy couldn't sing". I went on to argue that his guitar skills may have made up for his less than perfect voice...and BTW, this is rock and roll...his voice worked just fine for his music.

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Dylan, Hendrix, Leon Russell, Willie Nelson and many other musician/songwriters don't have great voices, but they are distinctive, and expressive voices. Thats especially true when singing their own compositions, no one else expresses that feeling like the writer does (in the above cases).

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Hey, how about Ohgr (Skinny Puppy) and Blixa Bargeld (Einsturzende Neubauten)? Hell, how about Douglas Pearce (Death In June)? He has such a soothing monotone voice, though. I don't care if he doesn't have vocal range, or that it's basically just his monotone voice, an acoustic guitar, a broken synth, and tubular bells - DEATH IN JUNE ROCKS! DEAL :rockon:

Speaking of Death In June, listen to Leonard Cohen :beatnik:

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Today I heard "What I Like About You" by the Romantics. For the first time ever I noticed how ummmmm.... average the singer's voice was. Because the song is so awesomely reminiscent of my late teens and early 20s, I never actually heard the singer before, I've always just sung along.

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Hold your fire. Janis Joplin's voice (to me) is like chewing tinfoil. She sounds like a scalded cat. When she does that screechy, fishwife "Whaaaaaaaaaaa", my fillings vibrate and threaten to fall from their moorings. Some of Neil Young's material (particularly "After The Goldrush") is annoying. I've never understood what Dylan's fans, liked about that nasally twang. And Billy Ray Cyrus could have chosen plumbing as a career, and that'd have been fine.

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Hold your fire. Janis Joplin's voice (to me) is like chewing tinfoil. She sounds like a scalded cat. When she does that screechy, fishwife "Whaaaaaaaaaaa", my fillings vibrate and threaten to fall from their moorings. Some of Neil Young's material (particularly "After The Goldrush") is annoying. I've never understood what Dylan's fans, liked about that nasally twang. And Billy Ray Cyrus could have chosen plumbing as a career, and that'd have been fine.

But... do you like these artists?

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Thank goodness my beloved Willie is on this list. If he had a traditionally beautiful voice, he might have been swallowed up by the music industry rather than rising above it. Same could be said of anyone else mentioned here :)

A couple more folks to add:

Neil Young

Lou Reed (did someone say him already?)

lots of blues men can't really sing, but they're voices are beautiful anyway ;)

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