Falsetto me, please

Tim Buckley. Although most of the time it sounds like he's hitting these amazing notes in his natural range, so it's hard to tell. Harry Nilsson has a good one, too, and I really like Elliott Smith's as well. These guys sound at least less-than-ridiculous, ie. unlike Barry Gibb or Frankie Valley.

Al Green, Sly Stone and Prince are favourites of mine. I'm a sucker for melismatic soul histrionics.

Kurt Wagner [Dave Q.'s second-favorite vocalist ;) ]

Martin Tielli. Again. (Wow, I never thought I'd get to mention him twice in a day on the board...cool, man!) The way he can swoop in and out of falsetto is ace.

Stephen Merrit has a pretty impressive vocal range.

Ooh, ooh, and Cedric Myton from the Congos.

Prince is a strange case, his falsetto ("Dirty Mind", "Do Me Baby", "Controversy" etc) is great and multidimensional, while his real voice sounds fake and plasticky.

michael stipe, bob dylan.

STUART MURDOCH

Curtis Mayfield, particularly in The Impressions, Al Green, loads of Doo Wop and early soul, all of which were big influences on reggae: Ken Parker, Slim Smith and the Uniques, The Congos, Junior Murvin, Lloyd Charmers... the sweet, high male voices of soul and reggae are probably my favourite sounds in the world

If it's not Al Green for you, then maybe you're a Jeff Buckley fan. Thos seem to be the masters of their respective syles.

BTW - Michael Stipe, gimme a break. Whining is not falsetto.

Marvin Gaye.

Morrissey used to be capable of a pretty decent falsetto.

eddie kendricks = the king (temptations), followed by russell thompkins jr. (stylistics), prince, smokey robinson, curtis mayfield, marvin gaye, tim buckley, shane gaston (maurice williams & the zodiacs), lou christie, jay siegel (the tokens).

i love it, some guy gets angsty cos i nominate michael stipe, but no probs with dylan - beautiful.

Plenty of problems with Dylan - I just didn't take that nomination seriously.

.. And I like Michael Stipe - but I don't think he sings anymore.

Russell Mael from Sparks, Gruff Rhys from Super Furry Animals.

Hey, now we're talking. And I'm seeing Sparks tonight and Saturday -- Arthur, you going to be at either of the shows?

No, sorry Ned, I'm still at my parents' house in Connecticut for another week and a half. But someday soon we'll have our Southern California meet up, I hope. The weekend Amoeba opens, perhaps?

Is that still the now-cancelled ATP weekend, the 19th or so? We're all up for it down here in OC land.

Someone mentioned his father, but Jeff Buckley's falsetto voice is _tops_. I'd also nominate Jon Anderson (of Yes), Chris Cornell, Freddy Mercury, Thom Yorke, the lead guy from Jellyfish, Paul McCartney's is pretty good. Special mention of badness goes to David Garza, particularly his track "Sometimes I Love You Too Much." Yeah, the song is about as bad as you would guess from the title, and so is his falsetto singing. But it's not just typically bad -- if it was I'd simply dismiss it like most crappy falsettos. But it's like Garza's falsetto is almost there, but just falls short of the mark by a hair, sending the performance into the realm of utter badness.

Also, who else thinks that Beck's Prince-inspired falsetto is actually pretty impressive, jokey as it is? Particularly on "Debra." Another falsetto voice I really hate is Neil Young's.

Cripes! No-one's mentioned Brian Wilson! So I'd better. Also Lou Christie, Del Shannon, Art Garfunkel, Russell Thompkins, Barry Gibb (oh yes) and Alasdair Maclean.

Aside from the already mentioned (would agree w. Beck nomination by the way) I'll add those boys from Weezer - not 'good' per se, but therein lies the charm, in the same boat is Spookey Ruben, Tim Finn, and that guy from Lambchop.

Another vote for Prince; but Russel Mael... Arthur, Ned, you guys are freaks!! Ok, I love him too. They're playing? I wonder if they're doing a Bay Area show. Arthur, I grew up in CT as well; what town?

Hi Sean, I was born in New London and raised one town away in the town of Groton. Just across the Thames-pronounced "Thames"-River. Sorry, I meant to respond to your e-mail hello from last week but circumstances around here have been distracting. I was looking through the records I stored in my parents' attic and my copy of Weren't Born a Man is missing! I'm freaking out! How can I go on?

Anyway, back to falsettos. Did anyone mention Grant Lee Phillips? I'd like to add him to the favorite modern singers thread, too.

Arthur, for the (CT) record, I lived in Stamford, went to high school in Darien, and then lived in Westport for several more years before moving to San Francisco.

I almost wanna talk about Sparks some more... not so many people like them, and for good reason; they are peculiar as hell. Who were their fans in their supposed mid-70's heyday, besides teenage English girls? Do you think Russel is gay? Who's weirder, Ron or Russel? Have you heard their Giorgio Moroder-produced disco album? It's great, btw.

Yeah, Sparks were great, weren't they? I was certainly a fan of theirs as a (pre-)teen, and were one of the few bands I went back to once punk rock had killed off all the dead weight. I was too frightened to watch their TOTP appearances tho'; Ron always gave me the creeps (most creepy performance being that for 'No 1 Song In Heaven'). Ron would just fix his beady eyes on the camera & NEVER LET GO!!!!

Did they have hits in the US? I always assume their 'take on things' is very un-American.

While I'm obviously going to agree with the people mentioning Prince, I am shocked and amazed that no one has mentioned PHILLIP BAILEY. Haven't any of you heard Earth, Wind, and Fire, for crissakes? Also, the high tenor in Take 6 has a breathtaking falsetto.

Sparks never made much of an impact over here till they went goodtime New Wave in the early 80s. I don't think I really would have been aware of them if I hadn't been an angophile glam-loving teen weirdo. And I think that's pretty much their American audience in the mid- Seventies. You'd occasionally see pictures of them in Rock Scene, Creem and Circus, and I remember seeing them on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, but I never heard them on the radio. They were just too freaky. My friend Steve-also American and about my age-said he got into a fight once at school over Sparks. Most people who had heard/heard of them *hated* them. More than Bowie, more than punk rock. I don't think there's ever been such a non-butch band. And they were smart! And snotty! No wonder people despised them. I used to love playing them to piss people off when I DJed at Coney Island High in New York. Sparks and Klaus Nomi, they drove the dipshit punkers wild!

I don't think either brother is gay. Russell's definitely not. I think Ron's the weirder of the two. Russell's actually very bubbly and friendly, I'm told. I believe Ned runs a Sparks mailing list, maybe he has more dirt. And how was the show, Ned?

I lllllooooooooovvvvveeee No. 1 in Heaven. See Lyra/Maria's Music to Play at Your Funeral thread. I wonder who got to Giorgio first, Sparks or Blondie?

Sean-I'm way over on the other side of the state, in the land of Submarines and Casinos and I Know This Much Is True. 15 miles from the Rhode Island border. Did you ever live in NY?

No, but my good pal Doug (whose party I'm talking about in my new thread on ILE) DJ'd Coney Island High a few times (as well as Squeezebox and Beige)... I think it was Green Door, but it's been a few years.

dan: D'OH! good call!

Well, since I've been asked -- yes, I run the Sparks discussion list (ask me for joining details, you'll have a great time!), and the shows were wonderful. No new songs, for which Russell apologized, but the new album is still being finished up and should be out soon. Ron still has THE FIXED STARE and Russell can still hit the high harmonies.

Russell is indeed quite hetero -- blondes are his weak spot -- while I think Ron just lives in his own world and vaguely acknowledges the rest of us from time to time. ;-)

To Jack R. -- mentioning of Jeff Buckley is grounds for execution. Free yourself from such a tawdry love.

To Jack R. -- mentioning of Jeff Buckley is grounds for execution. Free yourself from such a tawdry love.

Jeff Buckley had a GREAT voice.

Jeff Buckley is dead. Which is a tragedy, but not as tragic as the slop he recorded. EW!

I wouldn't talk, knowing some of the slop you listen to.

Morrissey used to be capable of a pretty decent falsetto.

I see that someone has never heard "Miserable Lie." Har!

Yeah, but I don't mind if it's called slop, see. ;-)

Hey, I like Miserable Lie! The fact that the falsetto is, er, flawed is part of the charm. Morrissey's voice became less interesting as it got better technically.

Sorry, Ned, you're way out to lunch. Jeff Buckley was a consummate artist -- whatever the HELL that means, but the critics say it so it must be good. Anyway, he was fab, "Grace" is impeccable.

You are entitled to your opinion -- but no more. ;-) I will give him this much -- allegedly he was the inspiration for "Fake Plastic Trees," a fine thing. But I read it more as a superior act taking something from somewhere else and making it much better.

I also hear Jeff Buckley's influence in OK Computer, particularly in Yorke's "soaring" singing style.

Jeff Buckley was definitely good. Really really good.

Nobody's mentioned Green from Scritti Politti--beautiful. The guy from Shudder to Think has a nice falsetto too.

the jeff buckley thing was bound to come to a head sometime. ;) jeff had a great voice, so it's a pity he didn't know what to do with it. he said he never listened to his father's records, which is a shame because then maybe he would've learned how to put the voice to good use. (and, of course, all jeff buckley fans -- and must that i've met/known haven't done this -- owe it to themselves to track down tim's records. it's particularly easy now that rhino released the excellent morning glory anthology. hop to it.)

Fred, we come from very different worlds. I'm familiar with "Morning Glory" ; and honestly, I don't see what the big fuss is about Tim Buckley; Sure, his voice was really good, though not so much as his sons. But I think the songs are hit and miss. I'm not saying he wasn't good, he was; but to me his son came along and built upon that legacy in a major way. Who knows how far Jeff Buckley's songwriting could have developed, but when he died, I think he was already equal or better than Tim.

The first part of disc 1 (most of it) isn't very promising. "Grace" and "The Last Goodbye," for example, totally kick any of the Byrds-like rockers or tedious easy listening epics here. The string arrangements are nice, but they're just ineffectually piled on top of boring progressions and melodies. Things take a turn for the better with "Sing A Song For You" and "Phantasmagoria," a return to cheesiness with "I've Been Out Walking," and then the first (IMHO) true classic, "Troubadour." This is an excellent song, with a haunting arpegiatted progression that shares something in spirit with "Grace."

The second disc is by far the better, and some of the songs have a haunting sound that is very reminiscent in spirit to an unplugged Jeff Buckley. For example, "Blue Melody" seems to be a spiritual ancestor of "Opened Once." Most of the songs on disc 2 are pretty good, though the tra-la-la of "Moulin Rouge" is a bit hard to take.

"Monterey" (thankfully not a cover, it sounds like it was supposed to be some weird jazz variant, but ends up sounding like some kind ofproto-proto-unplugged metal) starts a stretch of great songs that lasts until the end of the disc (though I have reservations about "Make It Right"), ending with a bang with the sublime "Siren Song." I can definitely see fleshed out, electrified versions of these songs sounding very much like Jeff Buckley. Ultimately this collection is worth $, but there's no getting around the fact that there are some really cheesy snoozers here, especially in the first disc.

I am not familiar with all of the mentioned singers but does is anyone here familiar with maxwell. He only has 4 albums one being a live remake of his debut which I feel is magical. Album name is Urban hang Suite. Also listen to Maxwell unplugged. Some mighty fine falsetto.

I fucking HATE falsettos. The worst one I know of is this singer from Sigur Ros. Forgot his name. He sings like a castrated whale.
On the other hand Captain Beefheart did some ok falsettos. Kurt Wagner is ok in small doses. Thom Yorke has lost a little bit of his falsetto on "Amnesiac". That is one reason why that album is by far their best.
My favourite high-pitch voice is by the actor David Bennent (he was still a child back then) in the film "Tin Drum" (after Guenter Grass famous novel) when he screams so piercingly that the glasses break.

Maxwell.... Hmmm - Barry Gordy's son? Didn't he sing "I Always Feel Like Sombody's Watching Me?"

Klaus Nomi!

freddy mercury on 'cool cat', that guy from dandy warhols on the new record.

courtney courtney taylor taylor taylor's falsetto makes me feel homicidal. towards him.