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Best Singer of All Time is...


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WOW - this is a loaded question.

 

It depends for me.

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Lisa Gerard and Robert Plant

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14 hours ago, Audiophile Neuroscience said:

What's your vote for the best singer or vocalist of all time, and why? One male, one female.

 

It could be from any time or any genre. Doesn't have to be an audiophile quality recording.

Don't you have to narrow that down to genre?

 

Of course it's subjective, - but surely you have very little criteria in common between Pavarotti & Thom Yorke.

 

Someone like Lisa Gerard didn't really sing opera, but there were some operatic elements in her material, - so.... 

 

One other question, - (and apologies if this thread hijacking), - but another interesting question is what about crossing genri? Sometimes one finds that a rock singer was classically trained or has a great voice for opera....

 

Cheers,

 

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I can think of a few Johnny Hartman - the man had the most amazing voice. Rick Astley has an amazing voice, if you can get divorce it from his music. Women - WOW -  too many to count.

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DAC - TEAC UD-501 DAC 

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Cables - Tara Labs RSC Reference and Blue Jean Cable Balanced Interconnects

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IMO, there is not and cannot be a "best singer of all time" because there are just too many variables - era, genre, style, etc. - to make any single selection meaningful. OTOH, a survey of "favourite singer of all time" would be quite another matter. 

"Relax, it's only hi-fi. There's never been a hi-fi emergency." - Roy Hall

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - William Bruce Cameron

 

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Can't answer that, but will answer "which singers affect you the most?" (sorry).  Women:  Lizz Wright, Ane Brun, Karrin Allyson, Magos Herrera,  (among many, many others).   Men:  Gregory Porter, Johnny Hartman, Milton Nascimento,  (among others).

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3 hours ago, joelha said:

I can't believe I'm going to offer this up as an answer since I don't even like opera, but Luciano Pavarotti.

 

Second place would go to Ray Charles.

 

Joel

 

Hi Joel, you are hitting on what I was loosely getting at in my question and what others have commented on indirectly.

 

Specifically you have pointed out that your vote "for best" doesn't have to coincide with your favourite singer and it raises the question what criteria are used to determine "the best" which in and of itself, at its heart, is still a subjective assessment .

 

I anticipated that people would rightly point out that it may be impossible to declare who was the best singer if implying a consensus between many assessors or even for any one assessor comparing such different singing talents.

 

It's interesting therefore how people might choose "the best" if "forced". It does not necessarily imply ones favourite, popularity, commercial success, genre, voice characteristics, technique, training, emotional engagement or whatever. I probably should have explained myself better in the opening post by making some analogy to singing contests.

 

If all the great singers in the world and throughout history would turn up at a singing contest who would the judges pick, and is you were one of the judges what would be your vote? Impossible as it is, a "winner" is chosen. I actually thought about doing this but then figured why not just try and keep it simple (as some would then start debating the validity of singing contests). Some people have answered "impossible to answer", but then again that's an answer of sorts.:)

Sound Minds Mind Sound

 

 

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20 hours ago, fas42 said:

Frank Sinatra ... for all the obvious reasons - how to do so much, with so little apparent effort.

Johnny Hartman makes Frank Sinatra look like a pretender.

 

For pop vocalist, Whitney Houston had the greatest voice, but horrible taste in music. 

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