| Some of my fav vocals |
| 1 |  | Sharon Van Etten
We’ve Been Going About This All Wrong
‘Darkness Fades’ – Sharon van Etten
I can hardly distinguish a word SVE sings here. It’s all in the shape and colour you can see in the long, keening vowel sounds. Funeral music in the most resonant way. |
| 2 |  | Simon and Garfunkel
Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme
‘For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her’ – Art Garfunkel
Garfunkel holding that soft, angelic tenor all the way through then expanding it with that wide holler for the final line. Beautiful. |
| 3 |  | Sinead O'Connor
Universal Mother
‘Fire on Babylon’ – Sinead O’Connor
One of my phone book voices. Sinead at her most intense and towering, rattling the fillings in your teeth. |
| 4 |  | Queen
Jazz
‘Don’t Stop Me Now’ – Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was technically one of the strongest rock singers ever but what made him so magnificent was his charisma. The glorious camp of “Two hundred degrees, that’s why they call me Mr Fahrenheit!” Such a good time. |
| 5 |  | Tim Buckley
Tim Buckley
‘Valentine Melody’ – Tim Buckley
Tim at his most virtuous. This sounds like something from an early Disney film. Even a line like “In the blue light of Christmas time, Santa Claus was kind” feels important. |
| 6 |  | The Rolling Stones
Exile on Main St.
‘Let It Loose’ – Mick Jagger
“Exile on Main St.” was the peak of Jagger’s vocals, that loose-lipped holler capturing the spirit of what the Stones concocted in that dank and decadent villa. The way he rises with the horns is a beautiful stroke. |
| 7 |  | k.d. lang
All You Can Eat
‘Acquiesce’ – k.d. Lang
That transition between the murmured verse and the heraldic chorus… k.d. always could. She just chose her moment. |
| 8 |  | The Stooges
Raw Power
‘Gimme Danger’ – Iggy Pop
It’s telling that so many reviews of Iggy Pop’s performance describe him as “howling at the moon”. |
| 9 |  | Nirvana
MTV Unplugged in New York
‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ – Kurt Cobain
Truly scary. There is no fourth wall in this performance, no distinction between artist, art and us. |
| 10 |  | Johnny Cash
American III: Solitary Man
‘I See a Darkness’ – Johnny Cash
You can hear both the strength and the vulnerability of ailing Johnny Cash across this whole song. Like a page in a book yellowing with age. |
| 11 |  | The Pogues
Rum Sodomy & the Lash
‘And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda’ – Shane MacGowan
A showcase of how inimitable a performer MacGowan was. No singer with a stronger, cleaner voice would have embodied the damned young soldier better. |
| 12 |  | The Clash
Combat Rock
‘Ghetto Defendant’ – Joe Strummer
It’s weird that this frustratingly inconsistent album – the last before the band blew up – is where Joe Strummer found his best voice. The deep, rich sound here is spiritual blues even if the music is proto-trip hop. |
| 13 |  | U2
Rattle and Hum
‘All I Want is You’ – Bono
The final coda is as extraordinary as everyone says it is but for me… a compilation of every time Bono sings “promises” at the start of the chorus is where it’s at. |
| 14 |  | Oasis
The Masterplan
‘Listen Up’ – Liam Gallagher
Liam Gallagher’s ability to sound sincerely open-hearted when he had a reputation as a totally irreverent rock star was no mean feat. ‘Listen Up’ is my favourite of these because it reflects a band at its peak with nowhere to go but down. |
| 15 |  | Stevie Wonder
Fulfillingness' First Finale
‘They Won’t Go When I Go’ – Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder’s humanitarianism in his music is his most enduring trait so here is a different one: a bitter, self-centred warning against those who embody everything he could not stand in this world. |
| 16 |  | Bob Dylan
Desire
‘Sara’ – Bob Dylan
The stylish conceptualism of “Desire” is underappreciated. The Romany inflection of Dylan’s voice and Scarlett Rivera’s violin was something that existed only for this period of the master’s career. ‘Sara’ is a staggeringly personal revelation from an artist who had made such naked vulnerability the antithesis of his writing. Begging his wife (in vain) not to leave him, Dylan’s plaintive high notes in the chorus and the controlled groan in the verses make this one of his most memorable songs. |
| 17 |  | Jeff Buckley
Grace
‘Dream Brother’ – Jeff Buckley
I could have picked any number of songs for Jeff Buckley but the spookiness of ‘Dream Brother’ and the horrifying prescience of its final line is… transcendent. There is no instrument that can replicate the sound he makes as he cries, “Asleep in the sand/With the ocean washing over.” |
| 18 |  | Led Zeppelin
Physical Graffiti
‘Kashmir’ – Robert Plant
You all know the moment. That mid-section where Plant makes the line “Trying to find where I’ve been” last forever as the band builds, detonates and resumes around him. Had he ever more befitted the nickname of the Golden God? |
| 19 |  | Grace Cummings
Storm Queen
‘Heaven’ – Grace Cummings
Shameless self-plug but check my review of Cummings’ 2024 album “Ramona” to know what it’s like seeing her live. |
| 20 |  | Soundtrack (Film)
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
‘O Death’ – Ralph Stanley
An old man croaking his last appeal to the Grim Reaper. Transfixing and made all the more so as an a capella performance. |
| 21 |  | Elvis Presley
The Sun Sessions
‘Blue Moon’ – Elvis Presley
Standing under a freezing moon in a lonely cornfield with the stalks brushing my cheek as they gently back-and-forth in the lightest of breezes. No, I’ve never actually been there but this performance takes you right to that place. |
| 22 | | Roy Orbison
Less Than Zero
‘Life Fades Away’ – Roy Orbison
The melancholy master calls the curtains with as much soul as someone can put in a Vegas ballad. |
| 23 |  | The Animals
The Animals (US)
‘The House of the Rising Sun’ – The Animals
Claiming the definitive arrangement of a traditional song is max aura. Eric Burdon earned it with the clever restraint building into that gaunt howl of the verse beginning “One foot on the platform”. |
| 24 | | Sam Cooke
Keep Movin' On
'A Change is Gonna Come' - Sam Cooke
Every time you hear a a song whose singer faces a real world trial with hope and dignity, trace it back to this recording. |
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