Bands where the other guy has a better voice than the lead singer...

corin tucker's voice is distinct from everyone's, including carrie brownstein's

hearing Karl Bartos sing "The Telephone Call" was pretty surprising - he's no great singer of course, but the fact that a guy in that group could sing at all...

utterly distinct: colin newman and graham lewis of wire.

David Lovering in Pixies

for distinct I'd say Devo, no one on the planet sounds like Mark Mothersbaugh

And not only did Noel wrote ther biggest hits, his voice is better (I find Liam’s croaky voice annoying as hell after a couple songs) and he proved to be far more professional and commited to his fans.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, February 9, 2018 7:41 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in the live forever documentary they show clips of noel singing wonderwall, he originally intended to do the lead vocals on the track. then it cuts to liam doing it. it's night in day in terms of quality, liam was just a far better vocalist (yes his voice has an annoying and abrasive quality)

I'm very surprised that people can't tell Yule's and Reed's voices apart.

agree about Corin Tucker

Agree about Stipe/Mills as distinct (NOT that Mills was the better singer). What about Mike Love/Brian Wilson?

Him with the gravel voice off Gomez - where 'better' is a relative category. And they sound completely distinct.

I'm trying to think of a rock band with more than one singer of the same sex who sound utterly distinct from each other and I'm having trouble.

Husker Du

Lee & Thurston in SY

that's not as extreme as Husker Du though, Mould & Hart are a world apart

Him with the gravel voice off Gomez - where 'better' is a relative category. And they sound completely distinct.

― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Friday, February 9, 2018 6:55 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ian Ball > Ben Ottwell (the gravelly one) > Tom Gray

Animal Collective ?

― AlXTC from Paris, Friday, February 9, 2018 3:42 PM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Nah, they all sound whiny, American and shit.

I'm trying to think of a rock band with more than one singer of the same sex who sound utterly distinct from each other and I'm having trouble.

the grateful dead
the band
the byrds
the beatles
the wailers

ah i see the band was already mentioned

that's not as extreme as Husker Du though, Mould & Hart are a world apart

― flappy bird, Friday, February 9, 2018 1:59 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the production on even the cleanest Du records is so muddy that it can be hard to tell them apart, even though I agree that their voices are different.

nobody would call Ronnie Lane the lead singer of the Faces, but you can always tell when he's singing instead of Rod lol

extreme metal bands, black especially i think, will often have e.g. one growly and one shrieky vocalist : )

I'm trying to think of a rock band with more than one singer of the same sex who sound utterly distinct from each other and I'm having trouble.

fleetwood mac
crosby stills nash & young

I feel I've posted just enough to go out on a limb and suggest you're not entirely rational when it comes to the productions of Animal Collective, Turrican.

Billy and James in the Pumpkins sound utterly distinct but that feels unfair because there are literally only 8 of out 150+ songs where James sings lead in all of the Pumpkins' discography (original run obv)

that's not as extreme as Husker Du though, Mould & Hart are a world apart

― flappy bird, Friday, February 9, 2018 1:59 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the production on even the cleanest Du records is so muddy that it can be hard to tell them apart, even though I agree that their voices are different.

― hoooyaaargh it's me satan (voodoo chili), Friday, February 9, 2018 2:04 PM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i don't agree at all, and it's not even delivery. i was actually listening to flip your wig last night and lamenting how fucking awful the drums sound, and i noticed how distinct even their screams are. yeah obviously they wrote very different kinds of songs, but grant had a much fuller, rounded, warmer voice than Mould's bark. like compare him being mournful on 'hardly getting over it' to 'green eyes,' i can't see anyone mistaking those for the same person.

yea I can't tell the AnCo singers apart

FWIW all my favorite The Band songs are the Richard Manuel songs, don't know if that counts.

xp yeah as an AC superfan their voices are not in any way 'utterly distinct' from each other. i could pull out extremes of their respective vocal styles and deliveries, but even I can't make out who's who in something like 'who could win a rabbit' or the chorus of 'summertime clothes'

I guess David Palmer had a "better" voice than Donald Fagan

Fagen

I'm very surprised that people can't tell Yule's and Reed's voices apart.

― No purposes. Sounds. (Sund4r), Friday, February 9, 2018 6:47 PM

"Couldn't tell Lou Reed from Doug Yule" was an MES taunt. It was supposedly about Bowie

I'm trying to think of a rock band with more than one singer of the same sex who sound utterly distinct from each other and I'm having trouble.

The Who - Townshend's voice obviously suits some songs much better than Daltrey's, Entwhistle's voice works better on tracks like 'Whiskey Man' and 'My Wife' than Daltrey's would have done, and Moon's theatrical character driven delivery is perfect for 'Bellboy' etc..

Also there's Queen - Mercury, May, and Taylor are very different sounding singers.

The singers of Animal Collective don't distinguish themselves from each other by the timbre of their voices largely because of the way they're recorded and produced-- lots of layers. They are such polar opposites when it comes to melody-writing and text-setting tho that I always find them easy to tell apart

The Cars are the first band I thought of when I saw this thread title

And I always prefer the female vocalist to the male vocalist except in the case of Blonde Redhead

They are such polar opposites when it comes to melody-writing and text-setting tho that I always find them easy to tell apart

right, and this is a pitfall to look out for itt. separate songwriters in bands may write very different types of songs but still have similar voices. imo the test here is if you can tell the singers apart when they're harmonizing or singing in unison, i.e. Mould & Hart in Husker Du, who always sound distinct even when they're singing the same melody at the same time.

FWIW all my favorite The Band songs are the Richard Manuel songs, don't know if that counts.

― Fedora Dostoyevsky (man alive), Friday, February 9, 2018 2:14 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Band said they considered Manual to be their lead singer, but it always seemed to be more of an even split. For example, on the self-titled album Manuel sang lead on 5 songs, Helm on 4, and Danko on 3

The Cars are weird because Orr seemed to have two distinct singing styles, one that sounds really different from Ocasek and one that sounds pretty similar (e.g. on Candy-O)

Madness : Chas vs Suggs.

i love it when Chas is in charge.

Cats eyes - Rachel is a more versatile and engaging singer than the horrors guy

"I'm trying to think of a rock band with more than one singer of the same sex who sound utterly distinct from each other and I'm having trouble."

Don't think Bob Weir sounds all that much like Jerry Garcia. Back in the 60s early 70s the Dead used to do more gang singing also adding in Phil, but that faded a way as time for the most part as time went on.

first act to occur to me after seeing the thread title was Tears for Fears, and how they started out with pretty much a 50/50 lead vocal split between Curt and Roland on the Hurting before Curt is gradually edged out over the course of the next two albums despite having the better voice

Both Andy McLusky and Paul Humphreys are average-cabbage singers (whose voices I adore) but I'd edge Paul out over Andy some days

Not really pertinent to this original question but I love that chronologically the first voice you hear on a Neu! record is two-and-a-half albums in and it is Michael Rother whispering and simpering pathetically, only for Klaus to start screaming endlessly and perfectly a track later

any of the wilburys songs not primarily sung by orbison

Joe Goddard > Alexis Taylor in Hot Chip, especially as Taylor has gotten slightly worse since their second album

At this point, I much prefer Townshend's croon to Daltrey's corn, but in general you can sense that Daltrey based his delivery on what he heard in the demos, his own character coming out only when he pushes the chorus to the all out growls and screams. As I was becoming a fan, I had a hard time telling them apart. His solo stuff is where you get Daltrey unadulterated, and clearly he benefits from adulteration.

Same phenomenon happens in the Cars - a lot of Orr vocals seem like smoother extensions of how Ocasek probably presented the songs. Same in the Velvets with Yule. I can certainly picture Reed, Ocasek and Townshend putting a damper on broader interpretations of their material on albums they were masterminding. No, the fucking melody goes like this goddamnit.

Not really pertinent to this original question but I love that chronologically the first voice you hear on a Neu! record is two-and-a-half albums in and it is Michael Rother whispering and simpering pathetically, only for Klaus to start screaming endlessly and perfectly a track later

What track is Rother's voice on? Also there's vocals on all of their albums!

i think it's rother on "Leb' wohl" from "75"

Sonic Youth? Lee Ranaldo's voice is passable at best, Kim Gordon's voice is 100X more distinctive.

Sounds like Dinger to me. (xp)

I adore "Eminence Front"

Massively butthurt. How could I not be with that take down! Fortunately taste isn’t subjective.

Jeez, dude. I wasn't pulling rank or even making an argument, just expressing a more-or-less irrational but strong personal disagreement on that particular opinion. 2xp

Hook sounds a bit like Chris Rea here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U08U2RbqFi8

while obv not the case overall, I do think oates's gives his all to songs like 'friday let me down' whereas hall would sleepwalk his way through it, so theres usually an oates banger on each of their albums. Also noticed between song like this, 'youve lost that loving feeling' and 'alone too long' that poor old oates seems to live quite the lonely existence :(

ZZ Top. Bassist Dusty Hill tends to sing a song or two per album and has a much higher, cleaner voice than Billy Gibbons.

I know Suzanna Hoffs has the more distinctive voice, but I feel like Michael Steele and the Peterson sisters have prettier voices.