My choice for best: hands down, Asia's John Payne.

But my vote for the all-time worst vocalist in rock history probably goes to Pavlov's Dog singer David Surkamp. The first time I heard a Pavlov's Dog record, I swear I thought my turntable was set to the wrong speed. His voice completely ruins some otherwise pretty good albums.

I have several candidates for best and worst. Starting with the best in no particular order:

1. Bono - Sure, he's bombastic at times, but the man is a very passionate vocalist, with a pretty good range.

2. Ella Fitzgerald - She can shatter glass with her voice. Miss Ella was one of the greats, excellent range and great taste in material.

3. Billie Holliday - She could rip your guts out with voice and at the same time fill you with great joy. Lady Day was priceless.

4. Bessie Smith - She was the blues and it was nobody's business but her own. Sultry, enticing, she knew heartache and you felt it. But you could also tell in her voice that she was undefeated.

5. Roy Orbison - Easily one of rock n roll's best vocalists. He had a great range and a voice that knew how lonely you could feel, because it had already been there.

6. Roger Daltrey - Maybe not on technical terms. But my god, he is easily one of the best rock vocalists of all times. At his best, he could scream. He could soothe. He could be confused. He could be assertive. His voice easily kept up with Keith Moon's madman drumming and Towser's windmill guitar slashes. At times - "Won't Get Fooled Again" - he fought the drums and guitars and won.

7. Marvin Gaye and
8. Otis Redding - Soulful and spiritual and bluesy. These men exemplified the best of gospel twinged R&B. They were lonely, romantic, and passionate either way. Their voices could make love to you - whether you were a man or a woman. My god, they had a nice vocal range, too. Sorely missed by music fans everywhere.

The worst, again in particular order:

1. Brian Wilson - How the hell could this guy write and produce songs for one of pop's best examples of vocal harmonies (the Beach Boys) and sing so badly? His vocals are flat and dead. I sing better than this!

2. "Wild Man" Bill Fischer - A Dr. Demento favorite. Which is really demented. Get the razor blades out of your throat first, Bill, before you sing. "I'm the Blue Meanie". His singing proves it.

3. Johnny Rotten (Lydon) - You mean he doesn't sing that bad on purpose? Ouch! I'll admit his vocals were perfect for both the Sex Pistols and Punk Rock, but in all honesty, he's horrible. No wonder the Pistols and P.I.L. never caught on with the public.

4. Bob Dylan - Great songwriter, but I think he's drank too much whiskey and smoked to much. (You name it, he probably smoked it.) He's worse nowadays than even in the days when he really mattered three decades ago. With a voice this bad and adenoidal, it's no wonder this important artist never had a Number One Hit - aside from with the Traveling Wilburys. And that had more to do with the superior voices of Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison.

5. Tom Waits - A cult favorite artist I find very annoying vocally. Leon Redbone is preferable to Waits. And they sound alike.

np - Dream Police - Cheap Trick

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

Um, Derf, ol' buddy, ol' pal, ol' Moderator, could you do me a favor and change the username in the previous post to "Benn"? It seems my computer remembers what I've posted under here and elsewhere. And idiot that I am, I clicked on the wrong username. Ain't I a genius? (Is it possible to clear those other ids, btw?)

np - Randy Newman - Randy Newman

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

How could you leave out Barry White from the "Best" list?????

I thought that that post was you Benn! It seemed to bear your unmistakable writing style.

Yeah, well, surely the signature ("It's all one song.") would have given it away. The sock puppet was a mistake. An embarrassing one at that.

As for how could I leave Barry White out? Uh, wouldja believe I'm not that familiar with his work? No seriously. Eventually, I plan to get a Greatest Hits disc by him. Just haven't yet.

One I did leave off, though it may be debatable, as he does not have much of a range: Johnny Cash. For the songs he does, his voice is perfect. There is a depth in that voice that very, very few in Rock, Pop or Country can ever hope to match.

np - Sister - Sonic Youth

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

Hey, Benn, did you ever hear any of the Pavlov's Dog albums? There's a strong BOC-Pavlov's Dog connection. They were stablemates on the record label for awhile, and Murray Krugman and Sandy Pearlman produced Dog's second album. I think also Richard Meltzer wrote one or two songs for them. If you have heard Pavlov's Dog, I can't see how you failed to concur with me in choosing David Surkamp on your worst vocalist list. If you have never heard Surkamp sing, consider yourself lucky. Think Alvin and the Chipmunks speeded up slightly.

"Speeded up slightly"? Oh god, what did they do, corner the helium market?

I've heard of, but have never heard Pavlov's Dog. I may have to see if anything of theirs is available for d/l, just to sample the wares, so to speak.

np - Led Zeppelin/Led Zeppelin IV/Zoso - Led Zeppelin (Whatever you wanna call the album.)

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

The Urban Legends folks at snopes.com explain why an an outfit called Grand Funk Railroad should be the featured band in the old 'heckler of truly lousy band gets called up onstage, and hello! It's Eric Clapton' UL:

The short answer to "Why Grand Funk?" might be that they had one of the lowest talent/popularity ratios of any rock band ever. They acquired a tremendous following after their appearance at the 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival, and they were enormously popular in the first half of the 1970s despite being mercilessly pummeled by the critics. As former Rolling Stone editor Dave Marsh once described them, they epitomized just about the worst of everything in rock:

[Grand Funk] were archetypal Midwestern rock & rollers, long-haired, impolite and sweaty . . . Wretched was the word to describe Grand Funk's music. Although the group occasionally achieved an interesting song, the playing was never much more than energetic, always dull in its meter, and the singing was completely hopeless.

And Grand Funk wasn't an act of the cute, well-groomed, sugary variety (like their contemporaries the Osmonds or the Bay City Rollers, or later entries such as the Spice Girls or the Backstreet Boys) who garnered huge followings by appealing to prepubescent girls or drooling adolescent males -- their records were bought by, and their concerts attended by, "real" rock fans. Even worse (in the words of Marsh), they "parlayed that popularity into national notoreity by exploiting the extraordinarily abrasive critical attacks" upon them. Grand Funk was excruciatingly bad yet unstoppably successful, a fact utterly mystifying to those who weren't around at the time. Their records "are simply unlistenable without the cult fervor that once surrounded the band."

I don't know what the Urban Legends folks are trying to prove. Most of the comments above are the verbatim opinion of one man, the aforementioned hateful and pseudo-intellectual Dave Marsh. Marsh is an astoundingly ignorant writer, and a commercial whore to boot. Despite his self-proclaimed status as a music expert, he knows as much about rock music as a fly walking across a Rembrandt knows about art, and his opinions should not be taken as any bastion of popular taste or objective and intelligent criticism. Most intelligent classic rock fans recognize the talent and influence of Grand Funk even if they don't particularly care for the band's music, Marsh's own admission above proves that.

I dunno. I thought Marsh's book, ...Before I Get Old was an excellent bio of the Who. Marsh, to me, is no different than other critics. He's only expressing his opinions. He's not as bad as the critics for The Dallas Morning News. Talk about clueless.

np - 7 Wishes - Nightranger

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

Another great:

Freddie Mercury of Queen - "Bohemian Rhapsody". 'Nuff said.

np - Mechanical Animals - Merilyn Manson

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

Okay, Todd, I just downloaded Pavlov's Dog's "Fast Gun". Would somebody please take away David Surkamp's Rush collection? Geddy Lee should sue for defamation of his voice. Or something. That was horrible!

Now to delete that file.

np - "Turning Japanese" - the Vapors (Because I need something to cleanse the palate!)

"It's all one song." - Neil Young (Though I think for Pavlov's Dog, I'd be willing to make an exception.)

Benn, compared with Surkamp, Geddy Lee's voice sounds positively gravelly.

LOL Yeah, I agree, Todd. Still, who said imitation was the sincerest form of flattery? Geddy really should be insulted.

np - "November Sun" - Dan Moretti/Once Through

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

np - "Carnival of Animals" ... Saint Saens (just to show that Benn isn't the ONLY one listening to music while posting!)

lol, Derf. Y'know, I'm pretty sure I got that idea from Blitz.

By the way, I think that on my way home from school today, I heard a new song by Jane's Addiction. Now, don't get me wrong. I like Jane's Addiction, but Perry Farrell is not exactly a vocalist who's going to give Pavarotti a run for his money, you know what I mean? That song reminded me of how annoying Farrell's voice can be.

Which doesn't explain why I like Jane's Addiction... Chalk it up as one of Life's great mysteries.

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

Seeing Radiohead's impressive set at Glastonbury (on television, naturally ) confirmed my suspicions about lead singer Thom Yorke's voice: it's one of those you either love with a passion or hate with a vengeance. Depending on the material he can sound either like an angel in its death throes or like a dog's breakfast on heat.

Y'know, back in '95, I saw Radiohead in concert. They opened for R.E.M. It wasn't too bad. Even if they didn't perform their biggest hit (at the time): "Oy'm a crip/Oy'm a weirdo." "Creep" is still one of my favorite songs. I think I relate to it a little too much. I don't, however, remember too much how Thom Yorke's (that is Radiohead's lead vocalist's name, isn't it?) voice sounded on songs other than "Crip". So I can't really judge it.

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

One for the worst pile: Philip Elzerman of '60s Dutch band The Zipps. Their song "Kicks & Chicks" is on Nuggets II and his vocals crack me up every time. It's not so much the tone of his voice, but the mix of his strong accent and the fact that he can't hold a note for more than half a second to save his life.

Benn - I'm of the increasingly popular belief that Radiohead's best work was during their "Bends" and "OK Computer" days, and this reflected very well in Thom Yorke's vocals. From "Kid A" onwards things have been, let's just say, strange on both fronts - Radiohead essentialy trying to be Pink Floyd for the PlayStation Generation.

LOL, Sven. Yeah, the reviews I've read of the more recent Radiohead albums seem to reflect that line of thought. While I love "Creep", the songs when I saw them opening for R.E.M. didn't impress me that much. And I haven't really heard anything by the band since, so I really can't judge their output too much. But I gotta admit that "Pink Floyd for the PlayStation Generation" line is hilarious!

np - Kiss of Life - Gene Loves Jezebel

"It's all one song." - Neil Young

The local college station played all of their newest album around last month. Personally, I wasn't very impressed. I thought it sounded like background music for a moody made-for-TV movie.

np - Strung Out On Heaven - The Brian Jonestown Massacre

Some Best Singer Nominees:

Paul Rodgers
Emmylou Harris
Maura O'Connell

I'm with everyone else so far.

BEST:

Till, Rammstein
Alexx, Megaherz
Roger Waters, Pink Floyd

WORST:

John Mayer. I'm sorry, but I hate him

Best singers:
Samantha Foxx
Madonna
Bob Dylan


Worst singers:
Whitney Houston
Christina Aguilara
Celine Dion

BEST SINGERS: Male

Sting
Stevie Wonder
Jon Anderson
Gordon Lightfoot
Bryan Adams

BEST SINGERS: Female

Annie Lennox
Cyndi Lauper
Laura Branigan
Madonna
Deborrah Harry

Best singers:
Bob Dylan

No. Seriously?

np - Bloodletting - Concrete Blonde

"Music is a world within itself/And a language we all understand." - Stevie Wonder

Mr. Lang, I'm glad you remembered Laura Branigan. I thought she was terrific. Her powerful voice was underappreciated.

Not to mention HOT

Best: Peter Gabriel, Sting, Seal, Robert Palmer, Steve Winwood, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Paul Carrack, and Bryan Adams. (Just a few!)

Worst: Jas Mann, singer/creator of the short-lived Babylon Zoo. He was known for "Spaceman" back in 1996.

And you know what? When I first heard it, I thought it was Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins, as his voice isn't that great, either!