Other jazz-vocal legends like Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald thrived on refinement Billie Holiday privileged emotional truth.

(On 1969’s Nashville Skyline, he even morphed into a clean-voiced crooner.) And in his later years, he’s built an entire mature style out of his increasingly ragged-throated sound, moving freely between wistful romance (see Triplicate readings like “My One and Only Love”) and bawdy black comedy (“False Prophet”). Once he was fully in control of his instrument, he could use it to express everything from wry disdain (“Like a Rolling Stone”) to deep devotion (“If Not for You”), wrenching pathos (the Basement Tapes masterpiece “Goin’ to Acapulco”) and sardonic venom (“Idiot Wind”). But the confidence with which he owned his ugly-duckling delivery, and shaped it into something as expressive as his wildly inventive lyrics, has made him one of America’s great vocal eccentrics. To some listeners, Bob Dylan’s voice, especially the wheezy and/or aggressively twangy strains he favored in his early years, will always sound like a caricature of itself. Image Credit: David Redfern/Redferns/Getty Images “She knows every detail about her voice,” says Savan Kotecha, a songwriting partner to Grande since her debut: “‘That note over there, that’s a little bit flat.’ We’ll be like, ‘What? No it’s not.’ She’s like, ‘Yes it is, that little syllable there.’ The way that Jimi Hendrix was with a guitar, Ariana Grande is like that with vocals.” -M.C. Even more impressive is her technical ability to make these massive songs. The set list for her last (and third) arena tour, named for her 2018 album, Sweetener, was absolutely relentless, a barrage of hits through which she never lost a breath. Ariana is such an apt and knowledgeable vocalist that she also recognizes the power of restraint, wielding her gift in both showstopping (think “God Is a Woman”) and simple ways (Think “7 Rings”) across her already-expansive catalog.

With a whistle tone that rivals Mariah Carey’s in her prime and a voice that is intricate and honeyed across four octaves, Grande became one of the biggest stars of the 2010s - but there are layers to her genius. But in the end, the singers behind it are here for one reason: They can remake the world just by opening their mouths. A voice can be gorgeous like Mariah Carey’s, rugged like Toots Hibbert’s, understated like Willie Nelson’s, slippery and sumptuous like D’Angelo’s, or bracing like Bob Dylan’s. In all cases, what mattered most to us was originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalog, and the breadth of their musical legacy. As our write-up for the man who ended up at Number 112 notes, “Ozzy Osbourne doesn’t have what most people would call a good voice, but boy does he have a great one.” That could apply to more than a few people here. Others have rougher, stranger, or more delicate instruments. Sure, many of the people here were born with massive pipes, perfect pitch, and boundless range. Talent is impressive genius is transcendent. You might notice that, say, there isn’t any opera on our list - that’s because our purview is pop music writ large, meaning that almost all the artists on this list had significant careers as crossover stars making popular music for the masses.īefore you start scrolling (and commenting), keep in mind that this is the Greatest Singers list, not the Greatest Voices List. This new list was compiled our staff and key contributors, and it encompasses 100 years of pop music as an ongoing global conversation, where iconic Indian playback singer Lata Mangeshkar lands between Amy Winehouse and Johnny Cash, and salsa queen Celia Cruz is up there in the rankings with Prince and Marvin Gaye. The results skewed toward classic rock and singers from the Sixties and Seventies. When Rolling Stone first published its list of the 100 Greatest Singers in 2008, we used an elaborate voting process that included input from well-known musicians. These are the vocalists that have shaped history and defined our lives - from smooth operators to raw shouters, from gospel to punk, from Sinatra to Selena to SZA.

And you can think of our list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time as a celebration of that bond. Aretha Franklin described her mission as a singer like this: “Me with my hand outstretched, hoping someone will take it.” That kind of deep, empathetic bond between artist and listener is the most elemental connection in music.

Usher caught up instrumens