Vocal "control" and expressiveness

I voted for Peter Gabriel, his kinda theatre-like vocals have a lot of expressiveness. I think Hammil might come close, but i don't have that many of his records, cant really tell. Same for Fish, his vocals on script are great.

The other two (ian anderson and greg lake) have beautiful voices and are great vocalists, but their vocal style doesn't really fit that well to the question, i think they belong into another group.

I narrowed it down to Peter Gabriel or Fish.

Fish it is!

I picked Pete, cuz he's got wonderful technique with his voice. He IS my favorite singer, but I picked him because I find he has them ost control. Just watch the Growing up live dvd, he does downside up while walking upside down on the ceiling, and does solsbury hill on a bycycle.

If pete wasn't there I would have picked Fish. This guy has wonderful emotion in his works.

Peter Hammill does with his voice that Gabriel cannot: control.

Gabriel often jumps with his voice, which is a clear sign of NO control. However, Hammill never does this, and he knows how to form his voice to more emotions and expressions.

Peter Gabriel is definitely my favorite P/Rock vocalist, but as far as range, technique and sheer expression as concerned, I had to vote for Hammill.

Hammill
Soothing and scary often in the same line of verse.

Lake certainly sings with a high degree of passion - but that's not necessarily a good thing - Hammill can almost kill a song with the extremes of passion he tends to put in. Lake's voice has hallmarks of having been trained early in life - probably in a church or school choir (I don't know his background, that's just what it sounds like), and as a result, his consonant enunciation and vowel sounds are very good, from a technical perspective. His tuning is generally good (with one or two exceptions) - but overall, there's a "precious" aspect to his voice that leaves me cold, on the whole. Again, there are exceptions - ITCOTCK being just one. Lake does not seem to dramatise lyrics, or have a sense of the drama within the music - his feel is more for the drama of a show, which is a different thing. Vocal control = 7/10, Expressiveness = 6/10.

Anderson's voice is wild and shows no wish to be trained. By wild, I don't mean in the sense of Arthur Brown or The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, since it is also comparitatively restrained. What I mean is that he allows his voice to dance around the lyrics, taking on characterisations where necessary. His voice sounds absolutely absorbed in the music, and is an essential part of the "Tull" texture. Technique-wise, I have always found his voice a little "nasal" for my taste,  and, as a vocalist, I think he's a great flute player... Vocal control = (is this relevant to Ian??!!!) 5/10, Expressiveness = 8/10.

Hammill, as I mentioned earlier, tends to over express - fans would probably argue that this is a good thing - the sign of an impassioned performer, but I find it detracts from the music overall - which is a great pity, since VDGG produced some very fine music. He has a wide vocal range, but his control is subservient to the feeling he puts into the vocal lines. His voice has the hallmarks of some vocal training - possibly operatic, since he often uses vibrato as a colouring technique. Sometimes, though, when I consider the vocal melody along with the lyrics, I find the colouring a little excessive. Vocal control = 8/10, Expressiveness = 7/10 (he loses points for being overly expressive!).

Gabriel shows little sign of vocal training, as his voice tends to dance around the notes in a manner that doesn't convince me that it's entirely intended from a purely musical perspective.  However, from a dramatic perspective, he obviously gets the results he wants, so that shows a great deal of control. Here is the natural voice of a singer who simply enjoys what he does without taking it too seriously - and it shows. Gabriel sticks within the range he knows he has, only pushing the envelope at the top end, and allowing it to "crack" with emotion, without allowing it to get "precious". His vocal sounds are more varied even than Hammill's, as he gets into various characters to suit different songs or different sections of songs. Vocal control = 8/10, Expressiveness = 9/10.

Like Gabriel, Fish sounds self-taught. I'm not at all convinced that he modelled his sound on Gabriel, as I hear far more Hammill influence in the Fishy one. He expresses his lyrics almost perfectly - you couldn't imagine them being projected any other way - and uses a wide range of vocalisations. His voice has a tendency to sound "pinched" at the top - but so does Gabriel's - unless he moves into falsetto, which he does convincingly, without sounding like the Monty Python harpies. Fish's passion for very strong melodies requires a considerable amount of vocal control, which he delivers, and the quality of his lyrics  demands high attention to detail in expressiveness - which he pulls off perfectly. OK, nothing's perfect... Vocal control = 9/10, Expressiveness = 9/10.

James Lee wrote: I don't know much Fish...sorry. From what I've heard he's got a good rock voice, but I don't remember being blown away by it in any respect.

You are not really familiar with fish-era Marillion?

Fish is by far the better vocalist out of the choices.Rock voice? Nah,emotion and expression in spades and an ability to pull it off live too.A genuine superstar.

Reed Lover wrote: You are not really familiar with fish-era Marillion?

Not familiar enough to make an informed decision. I think I listened to Script once or twice, a decade or so ago. Not really my cup of tea...or should that be: not my kettle of fish?  

Sorry, as ever I'm going to be different. Francis Dunnery is my man., both when in It Bites (when at times, he could be the best Peter Gabriel sounding vocalist around ), and then his solo career. Sure he has taken his references from Gabriel and to a far lesser extent  Fish, but he has then extended the expressiveness of those guys  into a much broader range. Take a listen to his cover of Cat Stevens's Father & Son (ex. Long Tall Helicopter - in fact listen to whole album) for an excellent example of his power - makes that recent hit (which had to bring in Yoshif Mohammed in to save it) sound desperately poor.