The Top 25 Overrated Singers Of All Time

I love Dylan and Morrison. Dylan's best imo was Blonde on Blonde. I like Reed too (only when he was with the Velvet Underground). Reed definitely was definitely trying really hard to sound like Dylan. Love John Kay too! My favorite work of his was when he was with The Sparrow.
 
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Not to mention he road the coat tails of a man named Waylon Jennings.
I am a huge Waylon fan. There are many amazing Waylon vidoes on the internet from his early years. Lots of good fun ones to watch with Waylon and Johnny Cash cutting up and playing and singing together. Johnny Cash like to tell the story of the time he was headed out for the very first shows of a new tour. His main guitarist turned ill and dropped out the night before they were to leave. He called Waylon and told him his problem and asked Waylon to quickly find him a touring lead guitarist. Wylon informed Johnny the next morning he could only find one person YET that was a good thing. He could get the guy for very minimum pay. Pretty much just travel expenses. Johnny could not imagine who it was and how so little asked in pay until he found out who his lead guitarist would be. It turned out it was Waylon himself who was free at the time and wanted to go with Johnny to help him out. They were great friends long before the Highwaymen band was formed. Never got to see Waylon on stage but I have seen his son Shooter LIVE in a tiny House Of Blues venue years ago. Shooter's show was awesome. He played just about every instrument that night except the drums. He sang most of his bands songs too.
Waylon On Johnny Cash show:

Shooter Video Steady at the Wheel:

Waylon & Johnny: No good chain gang
 
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I never could stand the sound of Micheal Jacksons voice

Billie Jean and Thriller ranks right up there in terms of some of the best pop songs ever written.

(start at the 4:14 mark)

The Thriller video is STILL PERFORMED across the country around Halloween. Some who like the song and act were not even born when it was originally a hit.
 
I would never have thought any on that list were "great" singers, most are untrained and their voices go down hill fast with age. I would disagree about Bono though. He says he hates his own voice but he has steadily improved as a singer since The Joshua Tree and managed to acquire a proper falsetto technique during the Zoo TV era. He also apparently drinks his face off as many Irishmen do and still can sound pretty good in his 60's, this according to Noel Gallagher, who is one of his friends but says he has to escape him and go into rehab after spending any time around the Bono...
 
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1) Janis Joplin
2) Yoko Ono
3) Bob Dylan
4) Rod Stewart
5) Axl Rose
Axl Rose? Overrated singer? I mean, I can’t stand the guy, seen him live once (total A-HOLE), but he’s one of only a handful of voices capable of hitting a range of notes that he can. And I don’t like the sound of his voice either, but it is/was pretty unique/special.

Well, now I’ve talked myself out of my own argument. 🤣🤣 Maybe he is overrated.
 
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I‘ve seen two of my favorite voices/singers live, Steve Perry (with Journey) and Stevie Nicks (solo).

Two TOTALLY different experiences for me.

Steve Perry — Gave you everything, amazing voice, amazing performer. Voice was so powerful it could blow the roof off the stadium, and quickly drop it down to nothing with his next breath. Amazing.

Stevie Nicks — Total zipper head. Great voice, still a lot of range and power. She is a total NUT CASE and half the audience walked out 30 minutes in. I left with probably 20 minutes left in the show (And if I were smart I wouldn’t have waited that long, feel like a fool now for staying).

She does whatever she wants, whether that is telling irrelevant 10 minute stories between songs (you are listening to a total ditz reminisce about the “good times” while people are screaming for her to shut up and walking out). To her playing songs no one has ever heard before, while eliminating 90% of her hits because “she can do what she wants and they told me I shouldn’t play these songs so I am”. In front of 15,000 paying customers. I’ve never witnessed anything like this^^^in my entire life.

On the flip side - one excellent older female performer (in my opinion) is Pat Benatar. Wow can she still sing.
 
I would never have thought any on that list were "great" singers, most are untrained and their voices go down hill fast with age. I would disagree about Bono though. He says he hates his own voice but he has steadily improved as a singer since The Joshua Tree and managed to acquire a proper falsetto technique during the Zoo TV era. He also apparently drinks his face off as many Irishmen do and still can sound pretty good in his 60's, this according to Noel Gallagher, who is one of his friends but says he has to escape him and go into rehab after spending any time around the Bono...
I’ve seen him live once, it wasn’t the Zoo TV tour, but the one after. They were amazing, he was amazing. Back then they were able to sell out two Foxboro Stadium shows in a matter of minutes (that was a 60,000 seat arena). And I might be wrong, it may have been four shows. And he was quite the performer. Didn’t realize he was a serious drinker...
 
First time I heard a Madonna song on radio I actually thought it was a comedy parody of intentional "bad singing."


I heard part of a radio interview she did back in the 80s..... She didn't realize the mikes were on, so she was talking normally. Suddenly she realized she was on the air and switched to her "in character" voice. You know, the "Girls just wanna have fun" voice. It was like a night and day difference!
 
I‘ve seen two of my favorite voices/singers live, Steve Perry (with Journey) and Stevie Nicks (solo).

Two TOTALLY different experiences for me.

Steve Perry — Gave you everything, amazing voice, amazing performer. Voice was so powerful it could blow the roof off the stadium, and quickly drop it down to nothing with his next breath. Amazing.

Stevie Nicks — Total zipper head. Great voice, still a lot of range and power. She is a total NUT CASE and half the audience walked out 30 minutes in. I left with probably 20 minutes left in the show (And if I were smart I wouldn’t have waited that long, feel like a fool now for staying).

She does whatever she wants, whether that is telling irrelevant 10 minute stories between songs (you are listening to a total ditz reminisce about the “good times” while people are screaming for her to shut up and walking out). To her playing songs no one has ever heard before, while eliminating 90% of her hits because “she can do what she wants and they told me I shouldn’t play these songs so I am”. In front of 15,000 paying customers. I’ve never witnessed anything like this^^^in my entire life.

On the flip side - one excellent older female performer (in my opinion) is Pat Benatar. Wow can she still sing.
 
Axl Rose? Overrated singer? I mean, I can’t stand the guy, seen him live once (total A-HOLE), but he’s one of only a handful of voices capable of hitting a range of notes that he can. And I don’t like the sound of his voice either, but it is/was pretty unique/special.

Well, now I’ve talked myself out of my own argument. 🤣🤣 Maybe he is overrated.
My complaint about Axl Rose is that his band is STILL in heavy rotation on classic rock radio in Chicago..... Almost exclusively from the Appetite for Destruction album which was released 35 years ago! An album that marked the peak of their success which has been steeply downhill ever since.
 
If a few attributes of each singer on lists such as these were provided, I could 'read and compare' and possibly draw comparisons among the 25.

PERSONAL NOTE: All my life and likely through its end, the music industry as well as sports involves tremendous memorization at the retail level.
Also, I was always amazed how my peers had such strong opinions re music and sports without either immense record collections or access to every game played the world over.
 
There are a couple on that list I actually like:
Dave Mathews (Creed). I don't like Heavy Metal bands but I'm attracted to his voice and passion. He's one of mine, and my musician daughter's, favorites. She introduced Creed to me.
Bob Dylan. Yea not a great voice but his song writing and the passion in his singing attracted me in the 60's and 70's.
Taylor Swift. Great voice and HOT. Although her music is heavily computer processed.
Jim Morrison (The Doors). Full range voice and powerful. He left us too soon.
 
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