The Greatest

NME, a Magazine that publishes music news, has released a poll that currently shows that Michael Jackson is in the lead for the 'Greatest Singer of All Time'. I have quite a few problems with this. First of course being that the man in second I truly believe could sing circles around MJ vocally. That man being Freddie Mercury, who I consider to be one of the single greatest vocalists at least of our generation. Freddie Mercury had a solid four octave range, and the harmonies he recorded are to this day unmatched. He was also an extremely talented song writer and shattered the supposed limitations to songwriting. If nothing else, it would be fair to say that Mercury was the Beethoven of rock music. But of course, we are talking about singing and not song writing.

The second problem I have with this is how can you even decide who is the greatest 'singer' of all time. Seems like a pretty broad genre to me. Greatest singer would have to also include operatic singers like Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, and Andrea Bocelli. Or what about Broadway stars such as Michael Crawford or Barbara Streisand. Streisand brings up another great point. Can you really categorize women and men together? The vocal abilities of men and women are vastly different, and sometimes preference plays a dramatic role in the choices of who the better singers are.

Ok, so let's be realistic. Michael Jackson was a good singer, and maybe you could even call him a great singer. But what is lifting him in this poll is clearly his iconic nature as one of the greatest entertainers of our time. Ask fifty people on the street if they know who Michael Jackson was and they will tell you. Ask the same fifty people who Freddie Mercury was and I'd be surprised if half of them knew.

Well perhaps you can judge for yourself...

Freddie's Vocal Improvisation

Still not impressed?

Arguably Freddie's Best Live Vocal Performance

Ok, so yeah he's pretty unbelievable. But I'll go ahead and throw in some Michael Jackson clips to be fair.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Bf6AST5Itw

So if we were to have a dancing contest, Michael would mop the floor with Freddie. Still....a pretty impressive vocal performance, just not quite as good as Freddie.

So what is your opinion? Who is the better singer, Michael or Freddie? And if neither of them you consider the greatest singer ever, who and why? Share a video clip and let others judge!