Why It's (not) Great - Sorry, Axl Rose Is Not The Greatest Singer of All Time

A blog post comparing the vocal ranges of famous pop singers has been making the social media rounds, and I feel obliged to dig in and explain its shortcomings. The problem with articles like this is that, to an audience with little musical training, it can lead to news feeds like this:

Any collection of data or study really needs some context when presented for public consumption. And, to be fair, the source post is a little more nuanced in its discussion. I'd like to think that they would have fact checked it further had they known it would go viral. Here, in order, are my five major beefs with this one:

1. Range Means Nothing

This should be self-evident, but there is absolutely no reason why a large range should equate to great singing, and yet nearly every post on the Facebook feed made that ridiculous logical leap. Singing tastes are, of course, completely subjective. In practice, Otis Redding might make me feel more with a few mid-range notes than 1,000 virtuosic singers.

2. What Is A Note?

I took a little time to listen to some of the samples given and found them to be incredibly dubious. Can Axl Rose really sing an F1? The recording sounded like it had some rumblings in the backgrounds, but I heard nothing resembling a well-formed note. The same goes for David Bowie's supposed low G. Any supposedly sung note much below C2 should be met with great skepticism. Axl's very high Bb also sounded more like a harmonic squeak than anything he might be able to reliably reproduce in a melodic way. Prince's high notes are much more fully formed, but not particularly pleasant to listen to. For any list like this to be remotely informational there needs to be a stronger definition of what it means to produce a tone.

3. It Is Skewed Toward Male Singers Who Use Their Falsetto

Some men are capable of very squeaky high notes, well into soprano range, if their music calls for it. If comparisons were made on a chest-voice-only basis, AC/DC's Brian Johnson would have a strong showing as he belts out high F#s and Gs in Back in Black. Singers like Johnny Cash and Leonard Cohen have actual shockingly low voices, but neither would be likely to sing in their falsetto so the range they use is purposely smaller.

4. It Is Inaccurate

I don't have time to factcheck all of the data, but at a glance I can already find some errors (besides the dubious definitions of what a note is, mentioned above). For one, Mariah gets up to an E7 in Emotions, not a G7. Steven Tyler's high E in Crazy is debatable; it sounds like the guitar is playing the note, but he might be there. It's certainly not anything he would repeat live. Almost every extreme note that I checked out on the list was highly debatable.

5. It Focuses On A Very Small Group Of Singers

If you're looking for the greatest singers (or those with the largest range), well-known pop singers represent a pretty small part of the human species. I once watched Ravi Shankar's cousin fill a concert hall singing a sustained low A2 with no microphone, but he'd never be on this list. If you opened this study up to the rest of the world, I bet the Tuvan Throat Singers would have a pretty strong showing.

A list like this is inherently flawed because it asks the wrong questions. If you wanted to make a case for which popular singers regularly use the largest part of their range in a musical way, I would probably throw out Prince, Mariah, and Bobby McFerrin as top contenders. But that would not be the reason I, or most others enjoy their singing.

When I was young, just getting interested in music, I loved the idea of "the greatest" anything. The more I learned and grew, the more I realized that there is no such thing as the greatest anything. Superlatives are an exciting, simple way to looking at things; but in the real world, especially in the arts - and especially when it comes to singing - real greatness usually lies in connecting with people, not in doing an impressive trick.