TonyVanDam said:

There ain't nothing Chuck Berry could teach Elvis about singing. Elvis was leaps and bounds ahead of Berry in that department. Even Jackie Wilson copied his vocal stylings ("Reet Petit").

This thread is officially ree-damn-diculous.


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[Edited 3/12/05 21:20pm]

WildStyle said:

Elvis has made millions from copying/beatbiting black artist in a lot of things (singing, dancing, etc.).

TonyVanDam said:

You sure are correct that the younger generation can't see past Pac, but sadly, it seems they don't want to know music history... Have you ever tried to explain to someone younger than you where this singer took that, or what sample some rapper got from a 20 year old song? They just roll their eyes and won't even listen to the originators!!! Sad!

I think Whitney changed the ballad game up with "Greatest Love Of All"

As for who invented "wailing"... Maria? Whitney? Patti?

I think you'll find it goes back to southern gospel music. And if you want to take it even further... slaves.

dancerella said:

it was the hair metal voice,then grunge voice,pop punk voice,and now the emo voice...really sounds like the pop punk voice to me anyways.

honorable mention the creep silly nu metal raspy, whisper, to a scream voice haha

Do you mean singers that kind of have a voice of their own that is easily recognizeable? There are so many from back in the day that I can recognize as soon as they start singing.

Prince
Philip Bailey from Earth, Wind, & Fire
Michael Cooper from Con-Funk-Shun
Ronald Isley from the Isley Brothers
Rick James
Teena Marie
Tina Turner
Rod Stewart
Mick Jagger
Aretha Franklin
Patti LaBelle
Teddy Pendergrass
Stephanie Mills
Peabo Bryson
Larry Graham

Seems like just about everyone back then had a distinguishable voice.
[Edited 3/13/05 5:02am]

Anxiety said:

great thing about Bowie is that not only he changes his music style he has changed allot in his Vocal abilitys too, i swear his singing sounds better with age. not really common with artists..

Supernova said:

"Hee-Heee!"

BlaqueKnight said:

that was the 1st name i thought of when i read the topic, was going to put it in but Harlepolis already mentioned Stevie, see nobody gets left out here,

Chico1 said:

I think Kanye West was influenced by the Chipmunks. The way he speeds up old songs to make it sound like them but he'll never give them props or admit to it. He wants to act like that sound is original.

Think about this:

Lou Reed started that whole weird, detached, anti-Blues way of singing that influnced these artists:

Bryan Ferry
Tom Verlaine
Mark Mothersbaugh (Devo)
Ric Ocasek
Johnathan Richman
David Byrne
Gordon Gano (Violent Femmes)
John Linnel (They Might Be Giants)
John McCrea (Cake)

...and so forth.

dancerella said:

Chico319 said:

See, you know i'm right!

Anxiety said:

Let me first qualify this by saying I'm a huge Bowie fan--of all of his changs & eras--and he is a wonderful, wonderful singer. But his later voice was definitely a pastiche of Bryan Ferry and (especially) Scott Walker.

Bowie has always been a borrower. The cool thing about him is that he always had the balls to admit it.

if this topic ain't played out, I'd like to add a few more names:

Little Richard
Aaron Neville
Johnny Cash
Mama Cass Elliott
Chrissie Hynde

& though a friend pointed out he sometimes sounded like Cookie Monster, Tom Waits has produced some interesting 'stylings'
[Edited 3/14/05 11:13am]

trashoblanco said:

oh, certainly. but he's been able to recycle what he's borrowed into something that can be described as a signature style/sound.

trashoblanco said:

Don't forget Eno; I hear a lot of Bowie's late-70's vocal stylings on the earlier Eno stuff.

I Bowie's voice, though. The man can sing his ass off, and doesn't get the recognition he deserves for that, IMO.

Axchi696 said:

yeah, bowie took a lot from eno...i think david byrne did, too. if you put "fear of music" and "lodger" together, some of the vocals sound downright interchangeable. i love that, though.

Dewrede said:

Vedder sounds like Darius Rucker to me.

TheOrgerFormerlyKnownAs said:

didn't pearl jam show up on the scene before hootie?

i hated that bullfrog sounding vocal trend when i first heard it, and it still makes my ears bleed today. i can only just barely tolerate hearing vedder do it, because occasionally he's singing something semi-intelligent.

Anxiety said:

I don't know. I was listening to Hootie before I was listening to Vedder who Scott Stapp sounds like, who Weiland sounds like, who that Nickelback guy sounds like, etc.....

TheOrgerFormerlyKnownAs said:

Weiland and Stapp and Nickelskank all ripped off Vedder...out of all those guys with that bullfrog vocal sound, the only one i might possibly give a pass is (even though i loathe him) darius rucker - and that's just because their whole style as a band was so much different than all that grungey intense stuff.

Marrk said:

MJ does/did have a beautiful vocal styling, one-of-a-kind, actually. But then he started doing that "dah" and "shome on" thing around the Bad era which drove me crazy. His best songs after Bad, imho, are "Remember The Time" and "Butterflies," where he elocutes and actually sings rather than moans and grunts incoherently.

trashoblanco said:

You know, there really is a whole Jim Henson brigade going on here.

Waits is Cookie Monster, Anastasia's voice reminds me of Grover, and Eminem is of course Bert.

Anxiety said:

I disagree with Scott Weiland ripping off Eddie Vedder. Stone Temple Pilots were around before Pearl Jam hit it big with Ten. STP weren't huge, but they were around, and Scott Weiland has always sounded like that. And, as much as I do love Pearl Jam and think Eddie Vedder is great, Scott Weiland's voice is way better and he does a lot more with it, not just that deep, low way of singing.

Anyway, I don't think you can say Vedder was the pioneer of that way of singing...

Jim Morrison was. I think both Vedder and Weiland owe a lot to him.

theVelvetRoper said:

.....and how about Alice In Chains? Where do they fit in? I always thought Weiland sounded like a combination of Vedder and Layne Stayley.