I actually watch a lot of singing shows. I am a music fanatic. Metal has always been my favorite genre, but I listen to just about everything. I play guitar, I've played Cello, I've played keyboard, and I've composed electronic music. I do not go out of my way to purchase most of the songs that singing shows have in them, but I can appreciate the talent and I like to see people that are supposedly "unknown" get a chance. I can appreciate musical styles that do not grace my personal collection.

Many times I've found myself hoping for a really good metal vocalist. I am not talking a growler, screamer, or death metal style vocalist as those are only a fraction of the types of vocalists out there. As a connoisseur of vocalists I can say with a certainty that some of the best vocalists in the world sing metal.

So why would they rarely grace the singing competitions out there?

I believe it is likely for a number of reasons...

• Negative connotations and bias that some people have for it
• Religious reasons
• Energy level is VERY high, so it makes it kind of like having a sugar crash if a band of lesser energy follows such an act. This is not due to the following act being poor. It is simply due to the energy level being distinctly different.
• More focused on instrumentation than a lot of music styles. Vocals are important, but they can in many cases be no more important than the rest of the musicians in the band. In fact a great vocal cannot necessarily make a great metal song. It takes some skilled instrumentation behind it as well. A good metal song can survive without vocals if need be.
• The shows emphasize emotion as being important. They leave out aggression, excitement, and fear as emotions. They do consider sadness an emotion and that is in some metal, but it is mostly fear, excitement and anger which are completely valid emotions that need outlets just like any other type. It's better that outlet is in the music than on the streets or the battlefield. People pay for those emotions when they ride amusement park rides, when they climb, when they sky dive, etc.

I tend to torrent "The Voice", "X Factor", and other shows from other countries so that I can watch them around the world. The Voice has had quite a bit of metal on it in various European nations. Yet I assure you it has nothing to do with skill, as I've seen the X Factor push through VERY shitty vocalists just on the novelty or humor. I couldn't bring myself to complete their latest season as I was blown away by them pushing Honey G and another act through as far as they did.

I would like to dedicate the rest of this post to first... some good Metal Style vocalists that DID make it into some of these shows.

After that I'd like to highlight a few absolutely amazing metal vocalists that show off how insane their ability can be.

Some exceptions to this observation

Caleb Johnson actually won a season of American Idol. He is more the Progressive Rock, Hard Rock style, but he is also very much in the vein of a good metal vocalist.

There are a number of Metal Auditions collection videos out there. Here are a few of them:

The girl at the end of this singing AC/DC was surprising and killed it.

If people want to make me more ashamed to be American all I need to see is people loving music like the following and wondering why my own country seems so biased and in a way prudish when it comes to Rock and Metal.

Examples of some truly great Metal Vocalists

I am not really showing much in the way of Death Metal style vocals, because I can kind of do that myself. I tend to highlight people that are unusual in their ability. I may show some Death Metal style, but if I do it will likely be a vocalist that is capable of mixing that with other styles. I like hybrid/progressive stuff a lot.

Source: allaxess.com

Daniel Gildenlow of Pain of Salvation - this guy does some truly crazy and exciting things with his vocals. He is very skilled. Easily as skilled as any vocal moments I am used to seeing on vocal shows, and exceeds most of them.

And of course one of my favorites who I've dedicated blog posts to before.

Source: The Romania Journal

Warrel Dane of Warrel Dane, Nevermore, Sanctuary, and guest vocalist other places. Not only does he have an insane vocal range he also does some very DIFFERENT styles of inflecting and shaping sounds. This is partially why I think non-metal vocalists like Sia or Alanis Morisette were cool because, they did very different things with their vocals. It was not simply about range, and vibrato with a bit of emotion. They change it up and sing things in unusual ways and with immense vocal control. This is what Warrel Dane does as well.

I am also a big fan of Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth for his ability to mix Death Metal vocals with very folk/60s style clean vocals in the same song. His range is not extreme, but the difference between these two textures can make for an interesting song. I would not necessarily want to listen to either style often exclusively, but when you mix the two it makes for some very compelling music to me. I don't know of any videos out there to summarize this in a short spot. I'll instead link one here that has quite a mixture in one song... and if you want more I refer you to my earlier Opeth Choose Your Own Adventure post.

Here is a video from youtube dedicated to 14 insane vocal ranges - yes some growling in here

Here is a video specifically targeted at female vocalists. They are under represented in Metal.

Alissa White-Gluz currently the vocalist for Arch-Enemy did audition for one of the Vocal shows. She also can sing cleanly quite well.

Screaming

A common derogatory attack leveled at Metal vocalists is that they are screaming. Some of them are. Have you ever tried to melodically scream while changing the note and with vibrato and other inflections. That is no easy task. Very few people can do it and sound good. Not all metal vocalists sound good. Yet the truth of the matter is that most metal is NOT screaming. In fact, some of the very skilled vocalists are classically trained in Opera. Many of them sing other styles like Country, or Rap. They tend to be diverse. Really the only consistent thing about Metal tends to be that it can be dark, fear, excitement, aggression, anger, sadness, and all of these things mixed together. It literally is tapping into the emotions that people go to watch horror movies for, go bungee jumping, watch fighting events, and punch walls. The difference is that the music gives an outlet for these emotions and inspires these feelings without requiring the negative aggressive event they have substituted. Growls, and Screams sometimes are FITTING depending upon what is trying to be conveyed. Some of these topics would sound very stupid if they were sung any other way.

Yet when it comes to screams... they do have some of the best recorded vocal screams of all time. I still think Tom Araya's scream at the beginning of the studio version of Angel of Death is probably the best vocal scream in history. He couldn't do it live for long though as it is super tough to do. Also for those of you on this journey that don't know this song. It is not a Satanic song!! It is a song about the Holocaust. There are Jewish metal fans that absolutely love this song.

A talk about energy levels

I do believe the energy levels of metal are a factor for why it is difficult for them to be at these shows. They tend to lift the energy of a crowd to very high levels. If this happens and they are followed by an act of lower energy level it can feel much like coming down from a sugar high and crashing. The act that follows can truly be good and skilled. If they had gone before the metal act then there would have been no problem, it would have been a smooth ramp up to the energy level. Following a metal act when it comes to energy level is TOUGH. I suspect it can lead to dread for people that follow them.

You can encounter this within Metal itself. I went to a Megadeth, Testament, and Judas Priest concert right after the Painkiller album for Judas Priest came out. One of my friends went as well and it was his first concert.

He was pumped and we were all insane through Megadeth and Testament. He fell asleep during Judas Priest. He likes Judas Priest... the energy level of the older Judas Priest stuff was just way lower than Megadeth and Testament. The Painkiller stuff was up there and could hold that level pretty well, but most of their music was not at that level...

Let me give you an example of what that concert was like... perhaps you'll understand what I am getting at (if you don't already).

Then this came on...

It is GOOD, but the energy level is noticeablly different... so it could feel like a sugar crash. The percussion and overall song is just way lower energy as it hails from a time before Thrash/Speed Metal stormed the scene.

They did have songs like the following at the concert but the bulk of their stuff was the above energy level...

So something like this could be bad for a show. Also the energy level LIVE for these things is vastly greater than is conveyed over a television screen. A good metal show live is one of the most crazy and intense audio experiences you are likely to ever encounter.

Steem On!