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Rolling Stone 200 All Time Best Singers list

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Blue 1

Blue 1

Player Valuation: £70m
Rolling Stone is pure cringe so not surprising their recent "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" list has caused some controversy. Probably on purpose.

So many glaring omissions, and including Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain while leaving out Layne Staley and Mark Lanegan is truly weird.

It's an absolute mess. Have a look, if you're arsed. It's almost as bad as the hip hop one they did last year.

www.rollingstone.com

The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time

Best Singers. Beyonce, Prince, Adele, Bob Dylan, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey
www.rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com
 
Before you start scrolling (and commenting), keep in mind that this is the Greatest Singers list, not the Greatest Voices List. Talent is impressive; genius is transcendent. Sure, many of the people here were born with massive pipes, perfect pitch, and boundless range. Others have rougher, stranger, or more delicate instruments. As our write-up for the man who ended up at Number 112 notes, “Ozzy Osbourne doesn’t have what most people would call a good voice, but boy does he have a great one.” That could apply to more than a few people here.

In all cases, what mattered most to us was originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalog, and the breadth of their musical legacy. A voice can be gorgeous like Mariah Carey’s, rugged like Toots Hibbert’s, understated like Willie Nelson’s, slippery and sumptuous like D’Angelo’s, or bracing like Bob Dylan’s. But in the end, the singers behind it are here for one reason: They can remake the world just by opening their mouths.
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I wouldn't get so wound up over someone else's opinion.

It's their list, no doubt a lot of effort went into compiling it. You clearly disagree, maybe you should make your own list.......
 
Dylan said:
I wouldn't get so wound up over someone else's opinion.

It's their list, no doubt a lot of effort went into compiling it. You clearly disagree, maybe you should make your own list.......
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Wouldn't say I'm wound up.

These things can just be fun to discuss, because music taste is entirely personal, after all.
 
Blue 1 said:
Wouldn't say I'm wound up.

These things can just be fun to discuss, because music taste is entirely personal, after all.
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Well, I know it is super hard to convey tone of voice over the medium of words on a computer screen, but i read it and it really seemed like you were properly peeved with the list.

Sure, the list has a bunch of people I have never heard of.....its got people that I think should be higher/lower/not on the list.

But at the end of the day......meh. If anything, I will probably look up some of the higher ranked people I don't know and who knows, I might discover something new to listen to.

BTW, I had to google the two people in your OP. While I know who Alice and Chains and Queens of the Stone Age (not his other bands though) I have no idea the names of the singers. Both great bands that I will listen to if they play on the radio, but neither of them make me want to go out of my way to specifically listen to them.
 
Interesting list, not as controversial as some of their others.

The thing that stood out to me, as someone who isn’t even a big fan of his music, is how low Roy Orbison is. That dude definitely has a top 20 voice of all time. Think Freddie Mercury deserved a top ten spot as well.

The top ten isn’t bad though, and as it’s about the voice rather than quality of music I don’t have an issue with the likes of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston being 5 and 2 respectively. Them ladies got some serious pipes. Beyoncé at 8 is a bit meh, but it’s 2023 and it’s rolling stone magazine and Beyoncé, she wasn’t going to get a place much lower.
 

Blue 1 said:
Rolling Stone is pure cringe so not surprising their recent "200 Greatest Singers of All Time" list has caused some controversy. Probably on purpose.

So many glaring omissions, and including Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain while leaving out Layne Staley and Mark Lanegan is truly weird.

It's an absolute mess. Have a look, if you're arsed. It's almost as bad as the hip hop one they did last year.

www.rollingstone.com

The 200 Greatest Singers of All Time

Best Singers. Beyonce, Prince, Adele, Bob Dylan, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey
www.rollingstone.com www.rollingstone.com
Click to expand...
I don't think they'd make many peoples top 200 singers of all time. Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain you can make a much easier case for because of profile, recognition and charisma.
 
Jebus_lives said:
I don't think they'd make many peoples top 200 singers of all time. Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain you can make a much easier case for because of profile, recognition and charisma.
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Possibly my age but I've always seen Layne Staley as having had as high a profile as Eddie Vedder and AIC as a far more influential band than Pearl Jam, despite selling fewer records. He was more charismatic as well, I'd argue, and he'd make plenty of people's top lists.

He was absolutely light years ahead of any other rock singer from that era except Chris Cornell and the aforementioned Mark Lanegan.

Lanegan was a wonderful singer with a vast and varied catalogue, but I can see the argument against, if profile, recognition and charisma are the criteria.

I loved Kurt Cobain's voice, but Eddie Vedder pretty much yodels.
 
Dylan said:
Well, I know it is super hard to convey tone of voice over the medium of words on a computer screen, but i read it and it really seemed like you were properly peeved with the list.

Sure, the list has a bunch of people I have never heard of.....its got people that I think should be higher/lower/not on the list.

But at the end of the day......meh. If anything, I will probably look up some of the higher ranked people I don't know and who knows, I might discover something new to listen to.

BTW, I had to google the two people in your OP. While I know who Alice and Chains and Queens of the Stone Age (not his other bands though) I have no idea the names of the singers. Both great bands that I will listen to if they play on the radio, but neither of them make me want to go out of my way to specifically listen to them.
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Nah, I just like chatting about music, bud. Getting properly peeved by something like a list in a magazine would be mental.

You should check Lanegan's solo catalogue if you like the dude's voice. I like it much better than any of the bands he was in.
 

Blue 1 said:
Possibly my age but I've always seen Layne Staley as having had as high a profile as Eddie Vedder and AIC as a far more influential band than Pearl Jam, despite selling fewer records. He was more charismatic as well, I'd argue, and he'd make plenty of people's top lists.

He was absolutely light years ahead of any other rock singer from that era except Chris Cornell and the aforementioned Mark Lanegan.

Lanegan was a wonderful singer with a vast and varied catalogue, but I can see the argument against, if profile, recognition and charisma are the criteria.

I loved Kurt Cobain's voice, but Eddie Vedder pretty much yodels.
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AIC and Staley do not have anywhere near the profile that Pearl Jam & Vedder do.
 
Love to see Whitney at number 2.

Also it's all relative innit, depends what you want from your vocalist. I prefer an emotional attachment or a believability to my singers, technicality is completely irrelevant.

For example, I'd have Robert Smith over Freddie Mercury and it ain't even close.
 

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