Most Annoying Singers List

Totally disagree with Billy Corgan and Scott Stapp......Billy is awesome......Scott was a (butt..hehe).....but, he could really sing.....powerful voice...

I would really like to point out the "Spears".....noise......

I agree with all of them with the exception of Billy Corgan.

Deb W.

I agree with Stapp, Dion, and Blunt.  Dion is way over the top, Blunt annoyed me from day 1, and listening to Stapp makes me feel like I'm constipated. 

 I'm old enough to not be familiar with most of them, but if anyone remembers Tiny Tim, he goes in as number 1!

I agree that James Blunt is annoying. I hate that whiney voice.

I think Stapp's voice is just fine. Problem is, when "Higher" came out, I thought it was a new song by Pearl Jam. He sounds so much like Eddie Vedder and I know he hates that being brought up.

I like Corgan's stuff. But I wasn't impressed with his cover of "Long Way to the Top."

I don't listen to a lot of Dion but I was impressed when she was on some show doing a cover of "Shook Me." She didn't not Dion-ify it. She simply sang it cleaner than Bon Scott.

Although I wouldn't say the singers are bad, many of them are not my style. My favorite singers are the ones that could sing opera, if they so chose. Rob Halford (Judas Priest), Ronnie James Dio (Elfen, Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Dio), Geoffrey Tate (Queensryche), Steve Walsh (Kansas), Klaus Meine (Scorpions). And even though Bon Scott (AC/DC) didn't have a pretty voice, he had a unique sound and sense of humor that worked so well.

I absolutely agree with Celine Dion. The others, I am really pretty unfamiliar with, or don't care about.  

Gotta agree with all of these -- and Liesje -- you DO put it sooo well!! LOL

marty_ga

 I'm old enough to not be familiar with most of them, but if anyone remembers Tiny Tim, he goes in as number 1!

*raises hand* I remember him and I agree!  I got to the point where if I heard "Tip Toe Through the Tulips" one more time I was going to stick my head in the oven.

Joyce

...well i like john mayer. He is incredible at guitar and sounds a lot like stevie ray vaughn. I also like billy corgan.

I like John Mayer too.  Most of the others I either haven't heard of or completely agree with!  But, yes they are missing some very important ones.

From what I can see, the blogger listed the singers of styles that he doesn't particular care for and decided they were annoying, whether they are universally annoying, or not. Judging by record sales and name recognition, they are not universally annoying. One of the most annoying voices I have ever heard is Bob Dylan. But he is an incredible songwriter and a few people have taken his songs and made them huge hits.

I felt somewhat the same about Springsteen's voice but he has this gift of storytelling. But many might disagree with me.

But, for example, if I don't listen to a lot of modern rap, that doesn't mean I should create a list of the modern rappers and decide they are annoying. BTW, my favorite rapper was Tone Loc. And he wasn't even a trained singer. He was actually a gangster that decided to record a few albums. But he had a truth in his voice.

Ron you might be right ... but I know for me I giggled the whole way thru the list because things I've been griping about under my breath (like Blunt and how much I hate *that* song) and the way Celine Dion and Whitney Houston 'changed' music with all the vocal acrobatics -- I was just cracking up to think I wasn't as 'alone' in my assessment as I thot. 

And my mother found Frankie Valli "annoying" 50 years ago LOL (and I think she was *afraid* of Tiny Tim LOL)

Not to digress, but this thread makes me think of the influence music generally has -- one type of music/generation/style on another. 

It's funny -- I listen a lot to oldies, and all kinds of rock and classical music -- butn then I listen a lot to all kinds of different music (from Greek/Middleeastern to Celtic, to Broadway and Zydeco and beyond) -- but I always think it's interesting how music goes in waves, and yet how some types of music affect others. 

Go way way back and listen to some of the "traditional" music and then skip over and you can see how the music of Scotland, Ireland, France, Italy, and thru the Mid East and Africa (only to mention a few) influenced OUR music as a country and continues to influence it today. 

But then all the different types of popular music also have their roots in other music. 

It can be tough to separate out the singer from the music ... and some, like Dylan, as a super good example, may have an incredibly annoying voice but he's affected musical culture in a huge way.

David and I went to hear Smokey Robinson a few weeks ago (and surprisingly his voice is still incredibly clear and he hits all the high notes at an age when I only hope *I*  will still be singing on key)  -- and because he has such a high tenor voice many would think he was annoying.   But I had to realize as we were listening to him ... he was getting such a kick out of hearing the AUDIENCE (from little bitty kids to major senior citizens -- and every ethnic diversity going) ALL singing in unison ***songs he wrote***.

Think about that -- having that kind of impact on the world you live in.  That a song you wrote 30-50 years ago now being sung by a crowd of people of all ages and all backgrounds IN UNISON with no prompting -- everyone just knew all the words.  Wouldn't that be a total kick?  (and yeah, we'd all paid to SEE him too LOL).  But man, I'd be delighted just to think that in 30 -50 years someone *remembered* me.   [edited because I can't spell]

calliecritturs

I listen a lot to oldies, and all kinds of rock and classical music -- butn then I listen a lot to all kinds of different music (from Greek/Middleeastern to Celtic, to Broadway and Zydeco and beyond

One group we like is Afro-celt Sound System. Some might be surprised to see how well celtic and african music fit together.

calliecritturs

David and I went to hear Smokey Robinson a few weeks ago (and surprisingly his voice is still incredibly clear and he hits all the high notes at an age when I only hope *I*  will still be singing on key)

I like most tenors but I think timbre has a place of importance, too. For example, I never much liked Vince Gill's voice, early on. But he has learned to lower pitch a little bit and go for better tone. Or Christopher Cross. I guess I like singers with range and character. Some started out at the higher end. Rob Halford use to sing in high register all the time, floating around high C. By the time "British Steel" came around, he had learned to vary the melody and save high parts for accent. And it worked out so much better. Tom Petty couldn't hit a high C if his life depended on it but he has a unique sound with which people can identify.

What he knew that other singers eventually learned is that singing is story telling and you have to build tension and release it. Barry Manilow is a master at it. He has a stock formula for writing songs and it has never failed him. But essentially, a song starts out low and easy and builds to the refrain and then, after the bidge, you pull out the stops and hit the accents, and then wind up the cadence back where you started. Nearly every successful song follows this formula. All that differs are the timbres of the instruments and voices. Like what I did with "Land Down Under." My arrangement for one acoustic guitar is as close to the original arrangement as I can get.

As for voice, it is a matter of genetics and training. Robert Plant can't hit the high note anymore in "Stairway to Heaven" but the singer from Aha can still hit that note in "Take On Me" after 20-something years. Geoffrey Tate of Queensryche still has a 5 octave range, from baritone to just about castrati. Physical structure has an effect, too. I still have my tonsils and adnoids. Singing is like playing a guitar. It's a combination of string or vocal chord length and resonance.