Great Bands That Would Be Better If They Had A Better Singer

[Tray73]

Keep meaning to add I love Billy Corgan's voice, it's really unique and suits their music to a tee. His voice is what attracted me to the band in the first place - fantastically raspy and eeirily haunting

 

[Soot and Stars]

That's the thing. You'd like for a band to have a distinct singer.

If any singers need replacing, I'd think it would be guys who sound like everyone else and who you can't tell apart from dozens of other singers. The kind of people who if they are singing for a band, you don't know who the band and singer is without looking it up or being told.

It is convenient for people to say that Billy Corgan, Steve Perry or Lou Gramm suck and should have been kicked out of their bands. However, at least when I hear those guys on an album, I freaking know who they are and recognize their voice without being told, even if it is a brand new song featuring them that I've never heard before.

Being a huge Pumpkin fan it's great to hear someone who's not even into the band "get it"! No one sounds like Billy period. Fans think that's a good thing and haters usual will laugh and say that's a good thing. For me I've never heard a singer that can soften his voice and sound so gentle in one part of a song and then turn the intensity of the song around and scream like a snarling demon. Billy has so many layers and it fits SP perfectly as a group who changed styles, had great builds in songs and overall were the ballsiest group in rock IMO. They needed a vocalist that could and would go in directions that others wouldn't and a vocal that had a unique character to it!

 

[gregjohnson1229]

That's the thing. You'd like for a band to have a distinct singer.

If any singers need replacing, I'd think it would be guys who sound like everyone else and who you can't tell apart from dozens of other singers. The kind of people who if they are singing for a band, you don't know who the band and singer is without looking it up or being told.

It is convenient for people to say that Billy Corgan, Steve Perry or Lou Gramm suck and should have been kicked out of their bands. However, at least when I hear those guys on an album, I freaking know who they are and recognize their voice without being told, even if it is a brand new song featuring them that I've never heard before.

The same logic also applies for guys like Brian Johnson, Vince Neil, Mick Jagger, Tom Petty John Mellencamp, Springsteen, it goes on and on.

not to mention john mellencamp and Tom Petty are great songwriters. BTW have they ever toured together? That would be a great tour

 

[gregjohnson1229]

Keep meaning to add I love Billy Corgan's voice, it's really unique and suits their music to a tee. His voice is what attracted me to the band in the first place - fantastically raspy and eeirily haunting

great way to describe his voice

 

[aeroplane]

not to mention john mellencamp and Tom Petty are great songwriters. BTW have they ever toured together? That would be a great tour

Wouldn't know, but I doubt it, since I'd expect each of them to want to headline over the other. That's how I think they'd handle a proposed tour anyway. With all the hits and good "non-hits" those two have over their respective careers, however, they could literally play from 7 pm until about 2 o'clock in the morning. That would be a great tour.

You do raise a good point about songwriting. It is all well and good to say you wanna replace this singer or that singer from XXXXX band. However, that means you also replace their songwriting contributions.

Granted, some bands have singers who don't write lyrics. For example, Motley Crue's songs (the lyrics) are written by the bass player Nikki Sixx and he never let the singer Vince Neil write anything. It is also well documented that singer Brian Johnson no longer writes lyrics for AC/DC and hasn't since 1988 (because he doesn't particularly like to).

However, a group like Smashing Pumpkins is more or less the creation of one guy (the singer), with all due respect to other band members.

Meanwhile, Lou Gramm and Steve Perry did write a lot of material for their respective bands, Foreigner and Journey.

One can also take a look at how the quality of lyrics by Judas Priest plummetted while Rob Halford was out of the band for about ten years. The quality of their lyrics went downhill when Tim Owens was singing for them and that is because Rob was no longer contributing.

As most fans know, Rob was very instrumental in writing for Priest during their heyday. During the years with Tim Owens, it was Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing doing ALL of the writing on the 2 studio albums without Halford (since Owens was never allowed to write while he was in Judas Priest).

 

[Kink Floyd]

Elvis Costello and the Attractions...

 

[gregjohnson1229]

Wouldn't know, but I doubt it, since I'd expect each of them to want to headline over the other. That's how I think they'd handle a proposed tour anyway. With all the hits and good "non-hits" those two have over their respective careers, however, they could literally play from 7 pm until about 2 o'clock in the morning. That would be a great tour.

You do raise a good point about songwriting. It is all well and good to say you wanna replace this singer or that singer from XXXXX band. However, that means you also replace their songwriting contributions.

Granted, some bands have singers who don't write lyrics. For example, Motley Crue's songs (the lyrics) are written by the bass player Nikki Sixx and he never let the singer Vince Neil write anything. It is also well documented that singer Brian Johnson no longer writes lyrics for AC/DC and hasn't since 1988 (because he doesn't particularly like to).

However, a group like Smashing Pumpkins is more or less the creation of one guy (the singer), with all due respect to other band members.

Meanwhile, Lou Gramm and Steve Perry did write a lot of material for their respective bands, Foreigner and Journey.

One can also take a look at how the quality of lyrics by Judas Priest plummetted while Rob Halford was out of the band for about ten years. The quality of their lyrics went downhill when Tim Owens was singing for them and that is because Rob was no longer contributing.

As most fans know, Rob was very instrumental in writing for Priest during their heyday. During the years with Tim Owens, it was Glenn Tipton and K.K. Downing doing ALL of the writing on the 2 studio albums without Halford (since Owens was never allowed to write while he was in Judas Priest).

IMO when Aerosmith started to bring in outside songwriters is when they started to really go downhill

 

[aeroplane]

IMO when Aerosmith started to bring in outside songwriters is when they started to really go downhill

Being a radio dj for nine years meant I tried to read every press release and interview that I could get ahold of from any "name" band I actually played on a regular basis, just to stay current for my programming.

Somewhere in my clutter I have laying around an interview with Steven Tyler from 2002 in which he discusses that there was too much outside songwriting on Just Push Play. In this interview, Tyler loudly proclaims that "Aerosmith is going back to basics on the next record" and also goes on to say "it is just going to be the five of us this time, there aren't going to be any outside songwriters on the next album. We've been able to do it ourselves in the past and for a long time we really haven't. This time it'll be different."

Absorb that quote for a bit and let it sink in.

Because as we now know, Aerosmith's next album after this interview was an album with 11 cover songs (Honkin' On Bobo). Beautiful!

In a way, though, Tyler was telling the truth about the band not needing outside songwriters (though the one original on the album did have an outside songwriter).

 

[The Beatles]

Led Zeppelin.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Zep, but Robert Plant's a very technically skilled singer with a nice, high voice. I don't like singers with nice voices. I think that a grittier singer would have served the band better. But, as always, who cares what I think?

I know exactly what you mean.

 

[SchindlerHaughton]

Maroon 5 comes to mind. While I don't care much for the music, they are very talented and weighed down by their vocalist.

Creed is just better off without their vocalist. He's not a bad vocalist, but he's not amazing either and could easily be replaced. THis is mainly because Scot Stapp is famous for being a dick and stirred up pretty much all of the trouble in the band. Same goes for Liam Gallagher of Oasis.

As for G 'N' R, Axl isn't bad when he does original songs; it's the covers that are hard to listen to.