Fellas, this was awesome. Etta is one of my absolute favourite vocalists of all time. Janet and Whitney are also faves of mine, and I love most of Sheryl's early work.
Holly Miranda - Her voice has a direct line to my heart, whether singing Etta James and Pink Floyd or her own finely crafted songs.
Aretha Franklin - Queen of Soul? Accurate, but maybe reductive. Just a great singer, pianist, and songwriter. While not a prolific writer, her songs were usually the highlights of her lesser albums
Grace Jones - One of our greatest interpreters, using that uniquely rhythmic singing to bring out new angles in her chosen songs. Came into her own as a songwriter on her last album, Hurricane. One more, Grace?
Betty Davis - Funk-rock never knew what hit it when Davis put together some of the tightest grooves and most unhinged singing ever heard. And those lyrics! No wonder Miles Davis couldn't handle her.
Cassandra Jenkins - A storyteller supreme with a soft but commanding voice. The way she weaves field recordings into her perfect songs is genius!
These are all great picks, particularly Cassandra Jenkins as a recent artist. I loved her last album and the current one is a top ten contender for my AOTY list
It’s impossible to name just 5! And it would probably change according to mood or day…
I pretty quickly came up with way over 5 off the top of my head. I did narrow it down and will stop thinking hahaha
Sinead O’Connor. From the moment I heard her and saw her first video (Troy from The Lion & the Cobra), she’s been on my short top list. I come back to her first two albums routinely.
Daughter. I have been obsessed with them ever since I heard the song Still. The lead singer, Elena Tonra is amazing. She released a solo album called Ex:Re a few years ago that was incredible as well.
Meg Myers. I obsessively listened to her for a few years, and still have days where I need to hear her. She’s pretty fantastic.
Throwing Muses. I will never not be in the mood to listen to them.
Tracy Chapman. I was still listening to her first album regularly when Luke Combs did his cover that caused a resurgence in her popularity.
I was introduced to Throwing Muses with this video on MTV (back when they played music! LOL) https://youtu.be/ZsqNCja-wWE?si=FRIvCgoOAP9Fsmp3 this album (House Tornado) and Hunkpapa are so solidly great!
Some great ones on here Kristin! I haven’t thought of my list yet, but Sinead would definitely be a contender.
That Tracy Chapman debut album was foundational in my musical journey and is one of my favorites.
Meg Myers has been putting out some great music, love her! Not sure if you’ve seen her tiny desk concert but it’s definitely worth a listen. It’s one of my favorites of the tiny desk concerts; she gives three intense performances and is absolutely fabulous: https://youtu.be/vSMt8qbhu0w
I went to see a Mute Records showcase at the ICA in London. This was back in 2000. The main draw, and the reason I was there, was a new band called Goldfrapp: A duo consisting of Will Gregory – a multi-instrumentalist and composer, with whom I was unfamiliar, and Alison Goldfrapp, whose baroque operatics had been a guest presence on a number of records I had liked. To wit, 'Pumpkin' by Tricky and 'Revenge Of The Black Regent' by Add N To (X); the latter is effectively the French Revolution condensed to six minutes of rubbery, balloon skin electronics, with Goldfrapp at first vocally tip-toeing between a militaristic execution drumbeat, before to surrendering to distraught wailing as, behind her, the band goes berserk.
The ICA, at this point in time, was not a great venue for music. On the night, the performance room had been partitioned. I could feel the vibrations coming off the temporary wall. Alison embodied the stroppy temperament of a thoroughbred – a rampant perfectionism that came through in a performance that is burned into my memory. The high point was 'Pilots' – a James Bond theme from an alternate dimension, that was accompanied by a mirror ball scattering parallelogram-panes of white light across the ceiling like autumn leaves. A fortnight before the release of their debut – 'Felt Mountain', where alpine folk meets electronic sci-fi dystopia, and with the Internet not quite geared up to yield a desired piece of music at the touch of a button, I carried those songs around in my head, going over and over the melodies, so I would not forget them. I have never wanted an album more than I wanted that one.
Somehow I heard 'We're All Gonna Fucking Die' by Barbara Morgenstern – a tongue in cheek electronic instrumental that, while absent words, is built around a verse/chorus structure, underscored by the kind of chipped electronic beep that you probably last heard emanating from a game of Pong. The song is best enjoyed accompanied by Morgenstern's cheesy green screen shenanigans in the video, seemingly leaping from smokestack to smokestack, and affecting a side-shuffle crab walk, first one way, then the other, while opening and closing her hands like pincers. The parent album 'Nichts Muss' – one of her best in my opinion – is a thoughtful, existential record - a good Autumn listen. Morgenstern's songs are frequently bilingual entities that switch back and forth between English and German, resulting in changes in tone. On 'The Operator' from her album, 'The Grass Is Always Greener', the self-belittling Teutonic verses, that describe a person lost to their self-destructive impulses, give way to a more open and optimistic chorus in English, where she imagines meeting a creator who will answer her questions and reset her internal mechanism.
Gallhammer were an all-girl crust punk/black metal outfit from Japan. On 'At The Onset Of The Age Of Despair', as the band affects a tempo that is considerably less than a crawl, Vivian Slaughters' vocals sound like they are being dredged from the throat of a recently-exhumed corpse whose oesophagus is still clogged with grave soil.
The direction taken by Slaughter following the dissolution of the band was unexpected and significantly more confrontational: A rebranding as Viviankrist and a deviation into near formless electronic music and found sounds; a kind of wilful perversion of ambient music, tweaked and readjusted to frequencies tailored to unsettle and seed disquiet. For example, recalibrating the ordinarily relaxing babble of a brook to a shrieking cacophony every bit as unpleasant as a knife-scrape on chinaware.
On the face of it audiobooks are an unlikely couple – the veteran producer and engineer David Wrench, with his long white hair, who looks like he might be more at home ushering in one the solstices at Stonehenge, and Evangeline Ling, several years his junior; an off-kilter beauty, visibly eccentric in a way that is hard to pin down in words, and very much a wayward creative force. When it comes to artists, it is easy to pic out the posers. Ling is the real deal. Their music, which is in part performance storytelling, is founded on a bed of electronics. Creatively it's all over the place, but also focused without being neutered. By the end of the sex-obsessed tourettes of 'Blue Tits', Ling, apparently in the midst of some kind of mental breakdown and strident in her own self importance, has invaded the home of a middle class family, stolen their fish tank, and informed the parents that their children are spoiled brats and that their wall art is racist.
There are more poignant moments, such as on ''Farmer' where she contemplates the humble existences of her ancestors and on 'Doll' – an absurdist tale of a fruitless search for a little girl's missing companion which plays out to the mantra “so hard to let go...”
The early albums by iamamiwhoami (government name – Jonna Lee) were multimedia experiences augmented by videos that formed loose narratives – modernist Scandinavian folk tales twisted beyond recognition. My introduction was 'Drops' from her first album – Kin – which opens with a chilly strobing beat like a thunderclap reverberating through plastic pipe, hurried along by an ominous, vaguely-orchestral keyboard riff. Lee is very good at conjuring a sense of unspecified dread. The aforementioned beat is repurposed a few albums later on 'Hunting For Pearls' which finds her being stalked through a snowy forest by ominous silhouettes, kneeling before a lake, with clusters of snowflakes for eyebrows, addressing something beneath the water.
She can be upbeat too. 'Goods' which closes 'Kin' is an exercise in escalating euphoria with a chorus that hints at what the Bee Gees might have sounded like had they scored a sequel to Saturday Night Fever set during the rave era.
Thrilled to see LP included. Her power and style nearly defy description. Her cover of "It's Over" will move you to tears while prompting repeat listens!
This is intimidating; like Mallie Hart, I'd say that this is top-5 at the moment not an all-time.
1. Chrissie Hynde -- Blondie was a better band than the Pretenders but Chrissie Hynde's swagger overpowering.
2. Joni Mitchell -- I'm surprised to not see her mentioned, clearly one of the all-time great singer-songwriters.
3. Sinnead O'Connor. -- I appreciate Kristin DeMarr mentioning her; absolutely great and formative for my musical tastes.
4. Kirsty MacColl -- This one's a more personal pick. She's not as famous as many of the other women mentioned but adaptable and her performances are always attentive to the meaning of the song. The best known performance is "Fairytale of New York" but she was also a great songwriter. For example "Soho Square" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkFC6dcex98
5. Roberta Flack -- another personal pick since Aretha has been mentioned already. I think her cover of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is my favorite version which makes it, arguably, the best Simon and Garfunkel cover -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM4nNC4qyGg
Honorable mentions: Tori Amos, Chaka Khan, Emmylou Harris
This is such a tough one! There’s been a ton of great female singers both in the article and the comments. My list is a very much “of the moment” list, not intended to be a greatest female vocalist of all time by any stretch. These are not in any specific order:
TORRES: I’ve been a fan of TORRES since her 2015 album Sprinter which was a top ten album for me that year. Two of her last three studio albums have made my AOTY list and her current album is a contender for this year’s list.
Agnes Obel: Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel has an absolutely gorgeous voice and her haunting and ethereal music is compelling and always leaves me transfixed.
Marissa Nadler: Marissa Nadler has been consistently releasing excellent music for a couple decades now. I’ve only really been into her for the last decade or so but during that time she’s regularly made it on my annual AOTY list.
Beth Gibbons: Her work with Portishead speaks for itself and was foundational in my burgeoning love of trip hop in the early 90s. I’m loving her solo album and it’s definitely a contender for an AOTY appearance.
Emily Haines: Metric has made my AOTY list in three of the last five years with top ten albums in 2022 and 2023 and Emily Haines has a lot to do with that. The music is great but her singing, particularly her phrasing, really hits my musical sweet spot.
Whenever I compile these lists, I have to reiterate that the selections are my "current" favorites. It's open to change at any time.
With that in mind, my current Top 5 female voices are:
1. Dolly Parton
2. Kate Rusby
3. Ann Wilson
4. Cyndi Lauper
5. Cindy Wilson
Honorable mentions to Neko Case, Alicia Bognanno, LP, and too many others to name here!
Oooh Cyndi Lauper should have been in my top 5!
The live version of "Money Changes Everything" still gets me EVERY TIME!
YAASSSSS!!!! ❤️❤️❤️
Just listening to Rabbit Fur Coat. What a great album - thanks for the heads up!
My top 5 would be:
Izzy Bee Phillips (of Black Honey)
Kate Bush
Ella Fitzgerald
Dolly Parton
Christine McVie
You beat me to it, but Dolly's in Top 5, too. I'm not shocked!
Fellas, this was awesome. Etta is one of my absolute favourite vocalists of all time. Janet and Whitney are also faves of mine, and I love most of Sheryl's early work.
First thought, best thought:
Holly Miranda - Her voice has a direct line to my heart, whether singing Etta James and Pink Floyd or her own finely crafted songs.
Aretha Franklin - Queen of Soul? Accurate, but maybe reductive. Just a great singer, pianist, and songwriter. While not a prolific writer, her songs were usually the highlights of her lesser albums
Grace Jones - One of our greatest interpreters, using that uniquely rhythmic singing to bring out new angles in her chosen songs. Came into her own as a songwriter on her last album, Hurricane. One more, Grace?
Betty Davis - Funk-rock never knew what hit it when Davis put together some of the tightest grooves and most unhinged singing ever heard. And those lyrics! No wonder Miles Davis couldn't handle her.
Cassandra Jenkins - A storyteller supreme with a soft but commanding voice. The way she weaves field recordings into her perfect songs is genius!
These are all great picks, particularly Cassandra Jenkins as a recent artist. I loved her last album and the current one is a top ten contender for my AOTY list
One of mine was already there - I thought of Sheryl Crow as soon as I saw the title.
I would go:
Sheryl Crow
Stevie Nicks
PJ Harvey
Alanis Morrisette
Louise Wener from Sleeper
Louise Wener is a great shout!
It’s impossible to name just 5! And it would probably change according to mood or day…
I pretty quickly came up with way over 5 off the top of my head. I did narrow it down and will stop thinking hahaha
Sinead O’Connor. From the moment I heard her and saw her first video (Troy from The Lion & the Cobra), she’s been on my short top list. I come back to her first two albums routinely.
Daughter. I have been obsessed with them ever since I heard the song Still. The lead singer, Elena Tonra is amazing. She released a solo album called Ex:Re a few years ago that was incredible as well.
Meg Myers. I obsessively listened to her for a few years, and still have days where I need to hear her. She’s pretty fantastic.
Throwing Muses. I will never not be in the mood to listen to them.
Tracy Chapman. I was still listening to her first album regularly when Luke Combs did his cover that caused a resurgence in her popularity.
I agonized over Sinead and Enya. Ultimately though, you can only pick 5. I'll have to check out Daughter, Meg Myers and Throwing Muses.
Daughter’s Tiny Desk concert is so fantastic: https://youtu.be/s-OoG1aGYO0?si=xmEgEXwGDkG0liP6
I was introduced to Throwing Muses with this video on MTV (back when they played music! LOL) https://youtu.be/ZsqNCja-wWE?si=FRIvCgoOAP9Fsmp3 this album (House Tornado) and Hunkpapa are so solidly great!
Sorry is a good starting point for Meg Myers. Her voice is so amazing. https://youtu.be/Ym1J5IAk2P4?si=QDLgsDdgUsrBIKgA this one really showcases her vocal range: https://youtu.be/u4l3D7xmJEs?si=P7U0uhKiaLIQJaXf
Tracy Chapman is a great choice!
And I have to say, Mazzy Star is an excellent choice, and the only reason I didn’t list them in my top 5 was because they were in your top 5! LOL
Some great ones on here Kristin! I haven’t thought of my list yet, but Sinead would definitely be a contender.
That Tracy Chapman debut album was foundational in my musical journey and is one of my favorites.
Meg Myers has been putting out some great music, love her! Not sure if you’ve seen her tiny desk concert but it’s definitely worth a listen. It’s one of my favorites of the tiny desk concerts; she gives three intense performances and is absolutely fabulous: https://youtu.be/vSMt8qbhu0w
Thank you so much for the link!! I had NOT seen her tiny desk concert! That was fantastic!!!
I went to see a Mute Records showcase at the ICA in London. This was back in 2000. The main draw, and the reason I was there, was a new band called Goldfrapp: A duo consisting of Will Gregory – a multi-instrumentalist and composer, with whom I was unfamiliar, and Alison Goldfrapp, whose baroque operatics had been a guest presence on a number of records I had liked. To wit, 'Pumpkin' by Tricky and 'Revenge Of The Black Regent' by Add N To (X); the latter is effectively the French Revolution condensed to six minutes of rubbery, balloon skin electronics, with Goldfrapp at first vocally tip-toeing between a militaristic execution drumbeat, before to surrendering to distraught wailing as, behind her, the band goes berserk.
The ICA, at this point in time, was not a great venue for music. On the night, the performance room had been partitioned. I could feel the vibrations coming off the temporary wall. Alison embodied the stroppy temperament of a thoroughbred – a rampant perfectionism that came through in a performance that is burned into my memory. The high point was 'Pilots' – a James Bond theme from an alternate dimension, that was accompanied by a mirror ball scattering parallelogram-panes of white light across the ceiling like autumn leaves. A fortnight before the release of their debut – 'Felt Mountain', where alpine folk meets electronic sci-fi dystopia, and with the Internet not quite geared up to yield a desired piece of music at the touch of a button, I carried those songs around in my head, going over and over the melodies, so I would not forget them. I have never wanted an album more than I wanted that one.
Somehow I heard 'We're All Gonna Fucking Die' by Barbara Morgenstern – a tongue in cheek electronic instrumental that, while absent words, is built around a verse/chorus structure, underscored by the kind of chipped electronic beep that you probably last heard emanating from a game of Pong. The song is best enjoyed accompanied by Morgenstern's cheesy green screen shenanigans in the video, seemingly leaping from smokestack to smokestack, and affecting a side-shuffle crab walk, first one way, then the other, while opening and closing her hands like pincers. The parent album 'Nichts Muss' – one of her best in my opinion – is a thoughtful, existential record - a good Autumn listen. Morgenstern's songs are frequently bilingual entities that switch back and forth between English and German, resulting in changes in tone. On 'The Operator' from her album, 'The Grass Is Always Greener', the self-belittling Teutonic verses, that describe a person lost to their self-destructive impulses, give way to a more open and optimistic chorus in English, where she imagines meeting a creator who will answer her questions and reset her internal mechanism.
Gallhammer were an all-girl crust punk/black metal outfit from Japan. On 'At The Onset Of The Age Of Despair', as the band affects a tempo that is considerably less than a crawl, Vivian Slaughters' vocals sound like they are being dredged from the throat of a recently-exhumed corpse whose oesophagus is still clogged with grave soil.
The direction taken by Slaughter following the dissolution of the band was unexpected and significantly more confrontational: A rebranding as Viviankrist and a deviation into near formless electronic music and found sounds; a kind of wilful perversion of ambient music, tweaked and readjusted to frequencies tailored to unsettle and seed disquiet. For example, recalibrating the ordinarily relaxing babble of a brook to a shrieking cacophony every bit as unpleasant as a knife-scrape on chinaware.
On the face of it audiobooks are an unlikely couple – the veteran producer and engineer David Wrench, with his long white hair, who looks like he might be more at home ushering in one the solstices at Stonehenge, and Evangeline Ling, several years his junior; an off-kilter beauty, visibly eccentric in a way that is hard to pin down in words, and very much a wayward creative force. When it comes to artists, it is easy to pic out the posers. Ling is the real deal. Their music, which is in part performance storytelling, is founded on a bed of electronics. Creatively it's all over the place, but also focused without being neutered. By the end of the sex-obsessed tourettes of 'Blue Tits', Ling, apparently in the midst of some kind of mental breakdown and strident in her own self importance, has invaded the home of a middle class family, stolen their fish tank, and informed the parents that their children are spoiled brats and that their wall art is racist.
There are more poignant moments, such as on ''Farmer' where she contemplates the humble existences of her ancestors and on 'Doll' – an absurdist tale of a fruitless search for a little girl's missing companion which plays out to the mantra “so hard to let go...”
The early albums by iamamiwhoami (government name – Jonna Lee) were multimedia experiences augmented by videos that formed loose narratives – modernist Scandinavian folk tales twisted beyond recognition. My introduction was 'Drops' from her first album – Kin – which opens with a chilly strobing beat like a thunderclap reverberating through plastic pipe, hurried along by an ominous, vaguely-orchestral keyboard riff. Lee is very good at conjuring a sense of unspecified dread. The aforementioned beat is repurposed a few albums later on 'Hunting For Pearls' which finds her being stalked through a snowy forest by ominous silhouettes, kneeling before a lake, with clusters of snowflakes for eyebrows, addressing something beneath the water.
She can be upbeat too. 'Goods' which closes 'Kin' is an exercise in escalating euphoria with a chorus that hints at what the Bee Gees might have sounded like had they scored a sequel to Saturday Night Fever set during the rave era.
Solid lists, both of you. My top 5.
Aretha Franklin - cliche pick but she is the GOAT.
The Supremes - I know, it's a group not an artist
Stevie Nicks - She should have been an official Heartbreaker
Kasey Musgraves - genre bending country and seems like a very fun person.
Taylor Swift - I genuinely enjoy everything from Red onwards. Fight me.
Also I really liked that Jenny Lewis "Handle with Care" cover.
Thrilled to see LP included. Her power and style nearly defy description. Her cover of "It's Over" will move you to tears while prompting repeat listens!
I'll definitely check out "It's Over".
So good. It’s on the deluxe version of Forever For Now.
Carly Simon
Cher
Melissa Manchester
Tori Amos
Stevie Nicks
Tori Amos would be in my top 10 for sure!
This is intimidating; like Mallie Hart, I'd say that this is top-5 at the moment not an all-time.
1. Chrissie Hynde -- Blondie was a better band than the Pretenders but Chrissie Hynde's swagger overpowering.
2. Joni Mitchell -- I'm surprised to not see her mentioned, clearly one of the all-time great singer-songwriters.
3. Sinnead O'Connor. -- I appreciate Kristin DeMarr mentioning her; absolutely great and formative for my musical tastes.
4. Kirsty MacColl -- This one's a more personal pick. She's not as famous as many of the other women mentioned but adaptable and her performances are always attentive to the meaning of the song. The best known performance is "Fairytale of New York" but she was also a great songwriter. For example "Soho Square" -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkFC6dcex98
5. Roberta Flack -- another personal pick since Aretha has been mentioned already. I think her cover of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" is my favorite version which makes it, arguably, the best Simon and Garfunkel cover -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VM4nNC4qyGg
Honorable mentions: Tori Amos, Chaka Khan, Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris probably should have made my list--maybe a tie with Jenny Lewis. Personally speaking.
Yeah -- compared to some of the women mentioned fewer immediately well-known songs, but just a huge body of really high quality work.
I also considered Kirsty MacColl. Such a beautiful voice.
Posting a link to this lovely tribute to Kirsty MacColl here as well: https://walkonthewildside.substack.com/p/no-empty-bench-in-soho-square
PJ Harvey deserves more attention. She, like all great artist, keeps reinventing her sound. She just gets more and more interesting and powerful.
This is such a tough one! There’s been a ton of great female singers both in the article and the comments. My list is a very much “of the moment” list, not intended to be a greatest female vocalist of all time by any stretch. These are not in any specific order:
TORRES: I’ve been a fan of TORRES since her 2015 album Sprinter which was a top ten album for me that year. Two of her last three studio albums have made my AOTY list and her current album is a contender for this year’s list.
Agnes Obel: Danish singer-songwriter Agnes Obel has an absolutely gorgeous voice and her haunting and ethereal music is compelling and always leaves me transfixed.
Marissa Nadler: Marissa Nadler has been consistently releasing excellent music for a couple decades now. I’ve only really been into her for the last decade or so but during that time she’s regularly made it on my annual AOTY list.
Beth Gibbons: Her work with Portishead speaks for itself and was foundational in my burgeoning love of trip hop in the early 90s. I’m loving her solo album and it’s definitely a contender for an AOTY appearance.
Emily Haines: Metric has made my AOTY list in three of the last five years with top ten albums in 2022 and 2023 and Emily Haines has a lot to do with that. The music is great but her singing, particularly her phrasing, really hits my musical sweet spot.