Greatest Singers of All Time
I’m mildly obsessed with Rolling Stones lists. I know, I know, the whole list thing is ruining everything, but still.
Anyway, they did the 100 greatest singers of all time recently, and I would just like to add:
#1. Sam Cooke (4)
#2. Dolly Parton (73)
And numbers 3 and 4 and 5, Ralph Stanley and Frank Sinatra and Leonard Cohen, are not included anywhere. For which the list-makers shall burn in eternal hell.
However, Tom Waits and Johnny Cash are acceptable substitutes for the #5 spot. And good to see Freddy Mercury up there.
Bob Dylan, legitimately the top songwriter of the rock era, is listed at number 7. Bob Dylan is not one of the best thousand singers of the rock era.
The chief attribute of Dylan’s singing is that it is distinctive. The reason that it is distinctive is that it is so damned bad by any objective standard. Nobody can believe that he actually has the cojones to open his mouth and let those godawful sounds emerge, so he is eternally getting special olympics medals from critics. Bob Dylan has almost exactly the same talent level as a singer as William Shatner does. I am not joking.
And “all time” is a really wack designation for Rolling Stone to apply to a list that dates back to about 1955.
But it’s Rolling Stone. I wouldn’t expect anything different.
Comment by Rojas — 12/3/2008 @ 3:29 pm
The fact that Sinatra is missing is particularly egregious considering that who made teenage girls scream long before Elvis or those four guys from Liverpool.
But, this is Rolling Stone so I’m not surprised
Comment by Doug Mataconis — 12/3/2008 @ 3:32 pm
I guess I can vaguely understand the exclusion of Sinatra in the sense that if they’d included him, they’d have had to include Robert Johnson, Jenny Lind, Enrico Caruso, Perry Como, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, and all sorts of other people who aren’t marketable to their subscriber base.
But if you’re going to do that, ffs take “all time” off of the name of the list.
You do realize that they do this just to anger us, right?
Comment by Rojas — 12/3/2008 @ 3:38 pm
Also omitted: Chuggo.
Comment by Rojas — 12/3/2008 @ 3:39 pm
I’ll make a case for one person who should be on their list by their own criteria, but who isn’t: Daryll Hall. His voice, which is objectively excellent on its own merits, was the irreplaceable element in one of the three biggest pop groups of the 1980s. Hall had emotional and situational range way, way beyond more or less everyone else on the charts at that time (Michael Jackson excepted) and made soul music viable in an era of synth-pop. Top 50 inarguably, and I think I could make a case for top 20 based on the cases being made for some of the other people on the list.
Comment by Rojas — 12/3/2008 @ 3:47 pm
Not bad. But no way does Rolling Stone have the balls to include Daryll Hall.
Comment by Brad — 12/3/2008 @ 4:24 pm
Rojas,
American vocal music didn’t begin with Elvis Presley.
The guys at Rolling Stone don’t seem to realize that.
Comment by Doug Mataconis — 12/3/2008 @ 4:43 pm
This is a dangerous list they have put together. Granted, they are marketing to a certain crowd but I agree that “all time” makes it a bad list to do. A few people I see missing that should probably make the top 100:
Neil Diamond – The man still sells out arenas.
Barbara Streisand – You may not like her, but she can sing.
Honorable mentions: All of the “crooners.”
The list is also out of order. Steven Tyler at 99 with Axl Rose at 64? I don’t think so.
Comment by Cruise — 12/3/2008 @ 8:35 pm
And if we’ve GOT to have an 80s schlock-pop entry, why Steve Perry instead of Dennis DeYoung? Steve Perry ahead of Daryl Hall is just inexcusable; Perry’s single emotion as a singer was Yearning. He sounded like a man constantly straining over a toilet.
Diamond and Streisand both belong. Diamond might be one of those like Paul Simon, who are primarily songWRITERS and were omitted for that reason (but if so, how do you excuse Dylan?)
Comment by Rojas — 12/3/2008 @ 8:38 pm
Sam #1? I speak for a lot of “Cookies” that wouldn’t disagree!
Erik Greene
Author, “Our Uncle Sam: The Sam Cooke Story From His Family’s Perspective”
http://www.OurUncleSam.com
Comment by Sams Neph — 12/3/2008 @ 11:43 pm
How the hell did Eddie Murphy not make the list? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAcWl9qu3h8
Comment by Dingle — 12/4/2008 @ 2:51 pm
Sam Cooke is the most natural singing talent the modern era’s ever seen. A lot of singers make their names singing the shit out of things—Sam could do that too, but he never overplayed a single note. He let songs breathe, like his part in it was just to exhale. Every song he sung he sung perfect, the way the song needed to be sung. There is nobody better.
Comment by Brad — 12/4/2008 @ 3:09 pm