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THE best female vocals? (your favorite female singers)
Dec 31, 2013 at 3:08 AM Post #1,861 of 5,010
tj elite said:
So my challenge is for someone to suggest me an artist that I will genuinely like (and haven't heard before of course). If you manage to do this you have earned a tip of the hat from me.
 
To give you a couple more hints in case you can't gather it from those names, I appreciate singers who have a recognizable voice with character. Nothing turns me off more than a singer whose voice you can't tell apart from a girl you met on the street.
Click to expand...

 
I think I kinda get what you mean and pulled these names from my music collection. I starred the ones that I think are the most unique and probably best fit your criteria. I'd be really surprised if you can't find a single vocalist from this list that you like.
 
Abigail Washburn *
Alison Krauss
Alison Sudol (a.k.a.) A Fine Frenzy *
Ani DiFranco
Beth Gibbons / Portishead * (most of her work is with Portishead as their lead singer, she has only 1 "solo" album)
Birdy
Emiliana Torrini *
Jeannie Kendall
Jewel
Joanna Newsom *
Joni Mitchell *
Kate Bush *
Katie Melua
Katy Perry
Kelly Sweet
KT Tunstall
Laura Veirs *
Lindi Ortega *
Lori Carson *
Neko Case *
Patty Griffin *
Priscilla Ahn
Regina Spektor *
Sara K
Sarah McLachlan
Sia / Zero 7 * (caveat: not Zero 7's "lead" singer, more of a "moonlight" singer with them)
Sierra Hull
Vienna Teng
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 5:06 AM Post #1,862 of 5,010
Screw you folks, my previous post is the best one by far!
tongue.gif

Here's some for TJ Elite:
 
Diamanda Galás

 

 
 
Tanya Tagaq

 
Well... you asked for it...
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 6:02 AM Post #1,863 of 5,010
tj elite said:
 
 
So my challenge is for someone to suggest me an artist that I will genuinely like (and haven't heard before of course). If you manage to do this you have earned a tip of the hat from me. If no one succeeds I don't really lose anything, so this will be a fun experiment either way. To give you some aids, here are some singers I've mentioned earlier in this thread:
 
Ane Brun
Björk
Dusty Springfield
Ella Fitzgerald
Imogen Heap
Tori Amos
Wata (from Boris)
Youn Sun Nah
Click to expand...

 
ohhh good taste, I enjoy Bjork and Tori also.
 
Mary Jess Leaverland (same producer for Tori Amos, search "are you the way home" in this thread or youtube)
Kelly Sweet (search "we are one")
 
Trust me, you won't be disappointed with either of these fine ladies.
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 10:34 AM Post #1,865 of 5,010
 Madeleine Peyrouxis one of favs also I have a few of her albums
 
A couple of my favorite female singers who have there own distinct and unique style are Kate Rusby  and Kathryn Williams    
 
Kate Rusby (as its Christmas)
 

 
This is a my favourite cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah from Kathryn Williams  it just seems to have a real honesty about it.  
 

 
Dec 31, 2013 at 1:35 PM Post #1,866 of 5,010
I bought 2 of Kathryn Williams' albums in London, a couple of years ago, but have never really sat down and listened to them for an extended period of time. One of them is 'Little Black Numbers', and I can't recall the other. Maybe I should dig them out and get reacquainted with her.
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 1:39 PM Post #1,867 of 5,010
jamiemcc said:
   
 
This is a my favourite cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah from Kathryn Williams  it just seems to have a real honesty about it.  
 
 
 
Click to expand...

 
Did you hear this track, by Lydia Gray ? :
 
http://www.head-fi.org/t/522812/the-best-female-vocals-your-favorite-female-singers/1755#post_10042102
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 4:28 PM Post #1,868 of 5,010
mython said:
  It's not that I'm unwelcoming, it's just that when you turn up and tell everyone you 'are not willing', why do you expect others to be willing on your behalf? It's rather rude...
 
Don't worry, I'm not having a go at you, I'm just explaining my response.
 
 
 
Others take the time to peruse the thread.
 
 
Still, just looking through your list of singers, they seem quite different from each other, so it's difficult to suggest someone consistent with them.
 
 
I could suggest Madeleine Peyroux in regard to Ella Fitzgerald, but it's not easy to find a close match to Ella, and I suspect you're already aware of Madeleine:
 
and perhaps Stacey Kent:
Click to expand...

The tone of your reply made it sound like you had a bit of a bad attitude. I HAVE been taking an occasional look at this thread from time to time over its entire lifespan, never finding anything that was of interest to me. I find it rather rude of you to make an assumption as to how much of an effort I've made before inquiring me anything about it first. It wasn't necessarily stated explicitly how much familiarity I've had with this thread, but I don't think I gave a justified reason to draw the conclusion I'd hardly ever visited this thread either. All I wish is that you could try to perhaps be a bit more friendly towards others in the future, okay?
 
As to your suggestions, I don't really see the connection between Ella and Peyroux. I'm also sorry but she didn't particularly tickle my fancy either. I would actually be interested to hear why you thought I might already be aware of her. Both her name and voice ring no bells. As to Stacey Kent, she is a better suggestion for me and reminds me more of Ella in at least her choice of singing standards. The Rodgers and Hart Song Book is actually my favorite of Ella's records in the American songbook series of the ones I've heard. Still, I don't feel Kent has the same kind of charm to me as Ella does. Then again Ella is a rather unique lady. If I wanted to hear these standards I feel I've already heard other interpretations I'd rather listen to when the mood strikes. Just to make sure I checked out some of her other songs on Spotify, but there's something that's hard to describe about her voice that simply doesn't quite appeal to me. I can fully see why someone would like her though.
 
I appreciate your effort to try to come up with suggestions despite saying initially you wasn't going to. If you do feel like giving me other recommendations, my advice would be to try a perhaps a bit less… linear approach, if you get what I mean. The fact that you saw very little similarity between the short list of singers I mentioned suggests to me we might be viewing things from differing viewpoints, and you might have to try to adjust your thinking a little if you want to try to see things more the way I do. I attempted to explain how I thought at least some of the singers I named were related to each other, but I'm not sure if you're more concentrated how they sound if you compared them to one another side by side, or what they have musically in common. To try to clarify, I don't want people who sound like someone else, I want people you couldn't possibly mistake for anyone but themselves. So what we are looking for is more of a spiritual connection between their music rather than some form of more immediately obvious connection.
 
asr said:
 
I think I kinda get what you mean and pulled these names from my music collection. I starred the ones that I think are the most unique and probably best fit your criteria. I'd be really surprised if you can't find a single vocalist from this list that you like.
 
Abigail Washburn *
Alison Krauss
Alison Sudol (a.k.a.) A Fine Frenzy *
Ani DiFranco
Beth Gibbons / Portishead * (most of her work is with Portishead as their lead singer, she has only 1 "solo" album)
Birdy
Emiliana Torrini *
Jeannie Kendall
Jewel
Joanna Newsom *
Joni Mitchell *
Kate Bush *
Katie Melua
Katy Perry
Kelly Sweet
KT Tunstall
Laura Veirs *
Lindi Ortega *
Lori Carson *
Neko Case *
Patty Griffin *
Priscilla Ahn
Regina Spektor *
Sara K
Sarah McLachlan
Sia / Zero 7 * (caveat: not Zero 7's "lead" singer, more of a "moonlight" singer with them)
Sierra Hull
Vienna Teng
Click to expand...

Thanks. I was rather hoping to avoid running into long lists of names, because the main reason why I'm found this thread and others like it unfruitful so far is that there is simply so much information and practically no other way to filter it than manually go through it post by post. Your list however has already been filtered in a way since you've tried to take my preferences into consideration and have even designated entries you feel are of particular interest. I appreciate this, even if I would've preferred having to deal with a bit fewer names at the same time. I'm currently listening to a triple album I got for myself as a Christmas present based on the recommendation I got from a musician cousin of mine (1-3 by Supersilent), but after I'm finished with it I'll boot up Spotify and give these suggestions a try.
 
Names on your list I'm already familiar with and enjoy to varying degrees:
Beth Gibbons / Portishead
Joanna Newsom
Joni Mitchell
Kate Bush
 
Ones I've already heard before but didn't appeal to me:
Alison Krauss
Katy Perry
 
Sara K I've heard before but don't remember if I liked or not. Regina Spektor I recently looked up on Wikipedia for a reason I cannot remember and would have possibly checked out at some point on my own as well. Some of the other names are quite familiar to me, but I've never taken the time to listen to them before and they haven't really been recommended to me either.
 
To add some singers that I like but didn't mention before because I don't necessarily like them to the same degree as the ones on the shorter list I compiled of names I've already mentioned in earlier posts in this thread:
 
  1. Artemis (full name Artemis Robison)
  2. Aruna (full name Aruna Abrams)
  3. Carole King
  4. Charlotte Gainsbourg
  5. Chisu (real name Christel Martina Sundberg)
  6. Linda Ronstadt
  7. Mary Marchenko (from Escenda)
  8. Madonna
  9. Melissa Kaplan
  10. Nico
  11. Patricia Barber
  12. PJ Harvey
  13. Rai Kamishiro
  14. Saiya (Don't know her full name. Has worked with AVTechNO!.)
  15. Susana (Don't know her full name. Works in the EDM scene.)
  16. Tarja (full name Tarja Turunen)
  17. Zoë Johnston
 
Those off the top of my head. I'm sure there are countless others still.
 
kkl10 said:
  Screw you folks, my previous post is the best one by far!
tongue.gif

Here's some for TJ Elite:
 
Diamanda Galás
 
Tanya Tagaq
 
Well... you asked for it...
Click to expand...

Both sound musically a bit creepy but Galás isn't a bad suggestion. She remind me of someone I can't think of right now but also Lisa Gerrard of Dead Can Dance in a way. I'm not sure if I'd want to add her music to my music library though. Tagaq I can actually imagine potentially traumatizing some poor kid if they saw that video. Hell, she might've traumatized me a bit.
 
angelsblood said:
 
ohhh good taste, I enjoy Bjork and Tori also.
 
Mary Jess Leaverland (same producer for Tori Amos, search "are you the way home" in this thread or youtube)
Kelly Sweet (search "we are one")
 
Trust me, you won't be disappointed with either of these fine ladies.
Click to expand...

Asr also mentioned Kerry Sweet. I will check both her and Leaverland out, thanks. The first Tori Amos album I heard was Abnormally Attracted to Sin so I must have heard her for the first time in late 2009. I must say I've instantly been a big fan ever since. I'm frankly surprised I'd never heard of her anywhere before that. One of the first CDs I ever bought was a Björk CD, but it was way too much for my musically inexperienced brain to handle at the time and it probably took half a decade before I was able to develop an appreciation for her music. Björk plays by nobody's rules and I love it.
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 6:44 PM Post #1,869 of 5,010
TJ Elite, I believe I have a good grasp on what you want, you basically want a unique and vital voice that doesn't conform to an overly conventional style, I understand that.
But if there's something that this thread isn't lacking is many posts with beautifull unique voices and skilled singers (it also has a lot of crap truth be told) and it would be wise to take some time to just give attention to what has been posted if you really want to discover a good female singer.
For example in my post just before you throw the challenge for someone to please you, there are several unique, highly skilled and beautifull singing voices of lot's of varieties and origins, some of them are unanimously regarded (for those who are in the know) as the best at what they did and it doesn't take a genious to indeed ackowledge their gifts and talents and to apprecciate them. For those who don't know how to apprecciate those singers there might be a learning curve to take and this is the best way to trully develop any remotelly reasonable aesthetical "know how" or taste.
I'd say that if you happened to hear any of those artists in my link and didn't care for any of them (besides Bjork), then you have an underdeveloped taste for vocal sounds and you're not worth the effort and the time to please.
Instead you are the one who should be working harder to learn what good singing really is and to discover new artists.
Good singing, or whatever art, is not just about being unique or different from others, it's mostly about doing it right.
If you care about good singing then don't wait for someone to post something to please you.
Search and hear for yourself with open mind and humility. If you just want something that you "think" is good because it pleases you... well, then you probably won't gain much and just remain in ignorance.
 
The following vids are unrelated from this subject just posting casually stuff I apprecciate, not to please you.
 
Hindi Zahra

 
Sidylle Baier
 
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 7:19 PM Post #1,870 of 5,010
asr said:
 
I think I kinda get what you mean and pulled these names from my music collection. I starred the ones that I think are the most unique and probably best fit your criteria. I'd be really surprised if you can't find a single vocalist from this list that you like.
Click to expand...

Aaand we have two winners. I was kind of starting to lose hope as I was closing the end of the list but ultimately I did find two artists whose music had enough musical appeal to me to be something I could see myself wanting to listen to. Upon first taking a listen to Priscilla Ahn's When You Grow Up album, I thought it was "nice" but after listening to a couple of songs it didn't feel like something I'd actually ever listen to if I owned the album. Then I luckily took a listen to another album of hers called Natural Colors, and based on the couple of first tracks at least it seemed like something I'd actually like to have in my library. The CD seems to be a Japan-only release but that is not an issue since I was planning on placing an order on Amazon Japan in January anyway and they seem to have it in stock. I'd say I'm more drawn to the album because of its musical content rather than Priscilla's vocals, but she does have a nice voice and I can see myself perhaps taking a liking to it after listening to some more of her music.
 
When I was already convinced I'd be reporting only one name out of the total of 25+ suggested to me, the last name on your list, Vienna Teng, managed to really impress me musically based on what I listened. Again it's not Teng's voice that captured my attention, but she sounds like someone I might develop a genuine liking for over time. Both her Dreaming Through the Noise and Inland Territory albums sounded interesting and I might order a copy of both in the coming weeks. Vienna Teng was exactly the kind of recommendation I've been expecting to find from one of these threads over the years, something obscure enough that I would have likely never discovered on my own. I probably didn't find a new favorite singer, which is not something I expect to happen more than once in a couple of years at most, but I did find three albums to add to my wish list. If this was to be inspected from a numbers perspective, this result represents a success rate of roughly 5-10%, and that's with a non-random group of artists. I guess this makes me a bit less surprised why I've had so much trouble on my own just browsing through random recommendations.
 
There might've been albums by the artists I checked out that would've appealed to me, but I simply didn't feel like going through the entire discography of over twenty artists which would've taken quite a bit more time than trying just a couple of their albums. Of course there's the matter of listening to the albums in full and the added aspect of repeated listening, but that's quite dedicated research indeed, in my opinion at least. There were a few more artists among the suggested ones that had some appeal to me, but not enough to feel like something I'd actually listen to even if I owned the records. Ani DiFranco for example sounded musically interesting at times but not really so vocally. Kelly Sweet was also nice, but sadly something that would only collect dust on my shelf. Not bad music but not something I'd reach for on my shelf to pop into my CD player. Emiliana Torrini was reasonably interesting as well, but not the kind of thing I'm looking for either. These just some examples of my impressions.
 
I'm happy to see I didn't turn out impossible to please in the end (I know I can be kind of picky when it comes to vocals sometimes, but I honestly didn't expect it to be this difficult to discover a couple of names when I could probably achieve the same in a couple of minutes by going for example on Bandcamp and browsing their Discover feature for a few moments.). Of course if someone wants to recommend me more names, I'm still open to suggestions. I believe my curiosity regarding why these kind of threads have proven an inefficient source of discovery for me in the past has been at least partially sated. Thank you all.
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 8:08 PM Post #1,871 of 5,010
Finally got around to reading all of this thread over the holidays.  I have quite a few to add that haven't been posted yet.  I'll post in a couple of parts to not bring any browsers to a screeching halt.  I also rarely use Youtube, so hopefully I'm finding decent quality examples. As I'm posting, I'm noticing that apparently a lot of these are really obscure, so I'm linking them however I can, sorry for the inconvenience but they are worth it.  My rough list has 24 non posted people and I'll put them up as well as I can, but I'm sure to add more as I run into them in my collection.
 
Part 1
 
Trespassers William -  Hauntingly beautiful voice, and Different Stars is currently my second favorite song (and out of about 50,000 songs in my collection, that is saying something)
 


 
Kris Delmhorst - Earthy sound that sticks in your head.  You're No Train ends up sticking in my head for extended periods of time and is very high up on my list of songs.
Best link I could find here was the Itunes preview.  You're no train is my favorite then try Bobby Lee
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/songs-for-a-hurricane/id151898799
 
Jorane - French Canadian singer and cellist.  One of my earliest finds and still enchants me.


 
Hannah Fury - Tori Amos like sound with at least one of her albums being based on Wicked.  Again, finding a decent quality clip of many of these is proving to be challenging.


 
Ascendance & The Nineties - And now for something completely different.  Dubstep style with beautiful vocals.  Still haven't been able to find anything else by them though.

 
Splashdown (and later Universal Hall Pass) (Melissa Kaplan) - Interesting style of music with a wide range.  The only commercial success that I think they had was getting one song on the Titan A.E. soundtrack.  The band eventually broke up and made it so that all of the music is available for free at:
http://www.injected.org/splashdown/downloads.html
Melissa then went on to form Universal Hall Pass.  They released 2 cds, and their website seems to be working, but I haven't heard anything out of them in years (I still keep hoping).


 
And that is it for part 1, I'll try and post the rest over the next couple of days.  Enjoy everyone.
 
Dec 31, 2013 at 8:24 PM Post #1,872 of 5,010
kkl10 said:
  TJ Elite, I believe I have a good grasp on what you want, you basically want a unique and vital voice that doesn't conform to an overly conventional style, I understand that.
But if there's something that this thread isn't lacking is many posts with beautifull unique voices and skilled singers (it also has a lot of crap truth be told) and it would be wise to take some time to just give attention to what has been posted if you really want to discover a good female singer.
For example in my post just before you throw the challenge for someone to please you, there are several unique, highly skilled and beautifull singing voices of lot's of varieties and origins, some of them are unanimously regarded (for those who are in the know) as the best at what they did and it doesn't take a genious to indeed ackowledge their gifts and talents and to apprecciate them. For those who don't know how to apprecciate those singers there might be a learning curve to take and this is the best way to trully develop any remotelly reasonable aesthetical "know how" or taste.
I'd say that if you happened to hear any of those artists in my link and didn't care for any of them (besides Bjork), then you have an underdeveloped taste for vocal sounds and you're not worth the effort and the time to please.
Instead you are the one who should be working harder to learn what good singing really is and to discover new artists.
Good singing, or whatever art, is not just about being unique or different from others, it's mostly about doing it right.
If you care about good singing then don't wait for someone to post something to please you.
Search and hear for yourself with open mind and humility. If you just want something that you "think" is good because it pleases you... well, then you probably won't gain much and just remain in ignorance.
Click to expand...

Oh I saw your post. Do you seriously assume I've never heard Billie Holiday or listened to My Bloody Valentine? In this day and age I would expect even a just-born child to be able to say who Billie Holiday is. Sadly that is of course not true and the appreciation for music is possibly at an all time low while more music is being made and listened to than ever before during the history of our planet.
 
I currently have a music collection of 3k+ CD and 100+ LPs plus an unknown number of digital-only releases and acquire roughly at least a couple hundred new albums each year. Close to all of my free time is spent either listening to music I have or discovering new music to listen to. I listen to anything from free jazz to trance, modern classical to atmospheric sludge metal, art pop to abstract hip hop. Most of all I love jazz and my favorite musician of all time is John Coltrane, some of my favorite recordings of his being Ascension, Interstellar Space and The Olatunji Concert, which most would regard as free jazz. Earlier today I just spent three hours and ten minutes listening to avant-garde free improvisation (the Supersilent album I mentioned). I'm constantly developing my tastes, and I shall do so for as long as I live. I can't possibly like everything I hear, but I try to give everything a fair chance at least whenever possible. So you tell me, are my tastes underdeveloped? I know talked exclusively about vocals, but I don't personally hold them in any special position when it comes to generating sound. For me a person's voice is their own personal unique instrument that they have. We find it more easier to relate to often times than other musical instruments because our ear is tuned to be most sensitive to the typical vocal spectrum and because we're so used to hearing the human voice over our lifetime.
 
You said there is both a lot of good suggestions and a lot of crap in this thread. I agree. Majority of the good ones I'm already familiar with, majority of the rest don't seem appealing enough to me musically to be more than easy-listening background music. No offence intended to those who enjoy those artists, there simply is hardly a person on this planet who enjoys absolutely everything. I've come to realize that the biggest problem for me with this thread is that is focuses on the singing with the music sometimes taking a secondary role. That is how I see it at least. I am simply not a person who can listen to the greatest vocal performance in the history of mankind and say I enjoyed it if it is a performance of one of the songs considered to be universally one of the worst songs ever written.
 
I called my "challenge" an experiment, and experiment to see if there is any kind of overlap at all in musical taste with me and some of the members in this thread. I practically never ask people for suggestions regarding music, preferring to discover things on my own. If you've misunderstood somehow that I was making a desperate attempt to broaden my musical horizons by depending on suggestion made in this thread, I apologize for not articulating things in a manner that left absolutely no room for misinterpretation.
 
Lastly, I STRONGLY disagree with you on any form of art being mostly about "doing it right". There is NO right or wrong in art. Not the way I see it. For me art is about expressing yourself through whatever it is that you do. The only way you can be wrong in doing that is if you are being dishonest with yourself, who you are and what you have to say. If you disagree on this, I must conclude that we seem to have rather different views and leave it at that. If we were talking about entertainment, yeah, doing "it right" is probably the best you can do, really.
 
Jan 1, 2014 at 12:21 PM Post #1,873 of 5,010
The question I raised wasn't whether you knew any of the artists on the post mentioned, it was whether you cared for any of them or not, in other words, if upon listening to them, something tickled your most rudimental curiosity or if you were able to discern or have a glimpse of what makes them special and distiguishable from other vocalists.
Singing can become a form of art in itself, when performed in an highly skilled way by a gifted singer but, like everything else, only a handfull of few performers have enough gifts and skill to achieve such heights of excelence, while the vast majority of others can only dream of such. You and anybody who checks out that post will have the opportunity to hear and apprecciate at least 3 of the highest vocal artists of the 20th cenury.
 
So you tell me, are my tastes underdeveloped? I know talked exclusively about vocals, but I don't personally hold them in any special position when it comes to generating sound.
 
Well... I can only say you don't know what you're missing.
If you have indeed so much time dedicated to music exploration, then you are doing yourself a major disfavor by neglecting the oldest musical instrument in human history.
 
I STRONGLY disagree with you on any form of art being mostly about "doing it right". There is NO right or wrong in art. Not the way I see it. For me art is about expressing yourself through whatever it is that you do. The only way you can be wrong in doing that is if you are being dishonest with yourself, who you are and what you have to say.
 
Just to clarify that you misunderstood my point here. I don't disagree with what you say here.
My point was that good singing is not only about being unique and different from others, it's about doing it right, meaning it's about doing it competently and skillfully. This was mostly directed at your stance of not caring for technically correct singing.
Just like any other art form, singing must have an underlying technical paradigma and context to allow for interpretation and real apprecciation.
Anarchy doesn't quite work here.
 
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