[RadeeoheadMuse]

I am in love with both of these bands as you can tell from my username.  I like Radiohead more as a band because of their ability to consistently make good music over the course of 15 years.  But, when it comes to sheer vocal strength and versatility, I'll go with Matthew Bellamy.  When you listen to Muse songs like Futurism, Showbiz, Falling Down, and Feeling Good, you will hear his range.  He has a 3.5 octave range which is great when it comes to lead singers in rock bands.  Thom Yorke really lets his potential show on songs like Nude, the bridge to Creep, The Bends, and Pyramid Song.  But in my opinion, Matthew Bellamy could sing operas if he tried to.

 

[Sordel]

I think that Matt is technically the better singer, but neither of them comes close to Freddy. That's no insult, by the way: there are maybe ten other vocalists in rock history who are in the same class as Freddy.
 
Technique aside, I find Matt's voice very wearing on the ear, so I'd go for Thom's voice for preference. I like both bands a lot: in fact, I bought Muse's Showbiz album after I saw them supporting Skunk Anansie, so I always feel a bit like I "discovered" them!

 

[gutted]

  Wow. It never ceases to amaze me how many different definitions of falsetto and head voice you can see on the net. Books I've read on vocal technique as well as most of my voice teachers have more or less agreed that head voice and falsetto are the same thing. There are two physiological ways the vocal cords vibrate: vibrating full length to produce chest or modal voice or closing half and vibrating half length to produce head voice or falsetto. falsetto however does have the connotation of a sloppy or weak sound that comes at the bottom of the head voice range, in the tesseratura or passagio section of the range. Falsetto is never produced by notes higher than head voice range.
 
That being said, matt bellamy's chest voice is breathy, resonant, and angsty and has a teenagery disneyprince quality in an english accent that makes it sound damn sexy, if I can say that as a heterosexual male. It also helps that he can write solid and beautiful melodies built on time-tested pop and classical conventions like prosody, proper voice leading, natural declamation, and sequencing.
 
Thom yorke has his own style, that haunting, eerie sound of an old woman channeling prepubescent backwards talking midget aliens that gives me chills but also is kind of weird/embarrassing to listen to with friends. His melodies are kind of weak and disjointed and detract from the songs. Especially on eraser and in rainbows. Those two albums disappointed me very deeply as a hard core radiohead fan.
 
Here's what it comes down to: Say I can do a perfect impression of either singer, I have a guitar, and there's a girl in my living room I want to get to my bedroom. Who do you vote I should sing like?
 
Bellamy. to get laid. FTW.

 
 
Yorke is one of our greatest living songwriters. There's nothing particularly out of the ordinary in writing "solid melodies" built on "time-tested pop conventions". Although, the supposed conventions you list seem to refer to rhetorical terms rather than composition, so your knowledge on the matter will have to be called into question regardless - nevermind your judging singers by which one is more likely to get hormonal teenage males some action. Yorke's writing is as complex as it is memorable; a daunting achievement.