Best female voice

[jaguars_fan]

jzac asked a great question with the male voices! What about the women? Much larger pool to choose from...

Possible choices;

Chalotte Church (overall)

Roberta Flack (R&B)

Stevie Nicks or Nancy Wilson (rock)

 

[zumbo]

Elton John!

Norah Jones.

 

[howie85]

Michael Jackson

 

[flyv65]

Although I think that Sarah MacLachlan is adorable and some of the songs she sings make me moist, it's hard to top Janis Joplin for the title.

Bryan...who'd everybody else pick?...

 

[Rob Babcock]

Alison Krauss - Aside from her instrumental virtuousity, she has a great voice.
Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh - Lead singer of Altan.
kd lang - I'm not a huge fan of her songs, but her voice is incredible.
Candace Night - Beautiful voice, great songs.
Linda Ronstadt - Again, not a big fan of her music but an impressive singer.

I'll have to amend my list, though, if we're going just by hottie factor.

 

[howie85]

dont forget Mariah Carey for the Hottie list
oh yea and she sings too..LOL

 

[sjdgpt]

Karen Carpenter










enough said

 

[Az B]

Kate Bush, hands down. She has an 8 octave range with awesome control, and her songwriting is so out there it sends shivers down my back even after years of listening.

 

[Hawkeye]

Az B,
I would have to agree, Kate Bush has an amazing voice. Even though I'm not an uber-fan of hers, I am in awe of that voice.

In case you hadn't heard, she's breaking a 10 year absence and releasing a new cd sometime in 2005.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2004/12/23/bmkate23.xml&sSheet=/arts/2004/12/23/ixartleft.html

 

[Lithp]

Ella Fitzgerald
Joni Mitchell

 

[rgriffin25]

Kate Bush, hands down. She has an 8 octave range with awesome control, and her songwriting is so out there it sends shivers down my back even after years of listening.

8 octave range?????? Is that even humanly possible? I thought 3 was pushing it.

 

[Leprkon]

Linda Rondstadt and Alison Krauss have the "purest" voices, to me.

Enya has incredible talent as well.

Pat Benetar and Martina McBride have the widest range of song capability.

 

[Zarg]

And My Nominations Are...

- Ella for scat and swing jazz
- Cleo Laine for Broadway and mellow jazz
- Sarah McLachlan for soft rock
- Janis Joplin for the blues

... Not getting a hard rock nominee right now ... can't be Steve Nicks, and Pat Benatar doesn't do it for me. I'll sleep on it and come back to the thread later.

See ya!

 

[Az B]

8 octave range?????? Is that even humanly possible? I thought 3 was pushing it.

Sorry, I typed the wrong number. I had been thinking about 88 key pianos all day and had 8 octaves on the brain.

It is indeed only 4 octaves. But as you mentioned, this is nearly inhuman.

Hawkeye,

I just read that about 2 days ago. I'm sure it will be interesting.

 

[Krafty1]

Whitney Houston......the obvious choice
Alison Krauss....Wow
Mary J Blige....I don't think she would win the "best" award but she is a personal R&B fave
Sarah McLaughlin

Krafty1

 

[annunaki]

4 octaves is quite impressive. That is like 100hz-1600hz range. For a human's vocal chords that is rather unique. I would be lucky to hit two octaves.

I think Madonna has a good voice, or used to. Enya and Jennifer Warnes are quite good as well.

 

[zumbo]

I liked it when Stevie Nicks was a special guest on South Park! baaaaaaa.

 

[Az B]

Whitney Houston......the obvious choice

Some pop divas around these days aren't exactly what they seem. I've used the same engineer as Whitney Houston and he showed me what her secret is... a pitch modulator. Apparently smoking crack and getting whacked around has taken quite a toll on her ability to stay in pitch.

 

[Rob Babcock]

An awful lot of divas use pitch modulators to stay in key. I guess good pitch isn't even a requirement anymore. It used to be you'd get busted if you did a lot of tinkering in the studio because you couldn't reproduce it live, but between machines & prerecorded vocals (lip synching) that's not a barrier, either. Lots of marginal talents become big stars as long as they have a good look (eg Britney, Avril Lasagne, Alicia Keys, etc).

BTW, I'd probably have to list Gwen Steffani as a singer I like a lot. Very unusual voice, you could even say gimmicky. I wouldn't blame anyone who said they didn't like her, but I think she sounds good. I particularly loved her duet with Brian Setzer, "You're The Boss."

I sorta like Sarah Brightmans voice, but her music's a bit uneven.

 

[zumbo]

I like Gwen as well. Not crazy about the direction in which her music is going.