When he did provide lead vocals, the sweetness of his dry falsetto and conviction of his overall vocal performance added inimitable layers of nuance to each song. Clinton tends to prioritize raw feeling over technical prowess, and his balls-to-the-wall approach to interpreting the collective’s rich lyricism makes for some of the most arresting moments in their towering catalog - check out that gutsy scream at the end of “Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time.” - K.D.ĭavid Byrne’s origin story - meeting bandmates Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth as freshmen at the Rhode Island School of Design, then moving to New York City and immersing himself in the burgeoning punk scene - informed how risk-taking fine art and shambolic live shows formed a compound within him and powered creative choices like, say, a certain way-too-large suit. Byrne’s singular voice, as both as unforgettable vocalist and endlessly curious writer, helped the fusion in his mind leap into reality, and turned him into an all-time great. As a vocalist, Clinton was far from the strongest technical singer in the collective’s rotation of crooners. As a frontperson, Clinton’s eye and ear for melding seemingly disparate sonic and visual aesthetics to create a product that is as singular as it is ingenious is simply unmatched. Their fusion of rock, soul, science fiction, doo-wop, and Afrofuturism - spearheaded by George Clinton - made them one of the preeminent innovators of funk. The hybrid band of Parliament-Funkadelic is perhaps the greatest American recording group of all time. Grab a microphone, some hair product and a feather boa or two and get ready to sing and preen along. With all that in mind, here are our picks for the 50 greatest lead singers in rock history. And most challengingly, we opted to disqualify lead singers whose most famous bands are named after them - Bruce Springsteen, Prince, Joan Jett - because it made the lines between solo artist and band too blurry, and because we’d prefer to use this list to focus on the bands that were more democratically assembled, but whose frontpeople still led the way in singular fashion.

But we were picky about the “band” part - groups had to be mostly consistent from one album to the next and play the majority of their own instruments - as well as the “rock” part while many of the groups here span (and/or defy) genres, we had to be comfortable considering them largely a rock band for them to count here. In assembling our list, we allowed that some bands could have multiple frontpeople considered lead singers, though we only ended up including one per group. These are the most legendary avatars from rock’s seven-decade history, the folks who - with their singing, with their songwriting, with their ineffable live charisma and particularly with their undefinable, all-encompassing presence - have done the greatest job of spreading the music’s gospel to all corners of the world, serving as mouthpieces for their bands and spokespeople for the genre. Here at Billboard, we’re taking a moment to honor those front-of-stage greats: The rock and roll singers who elevated their bands to stratospheric heights, and inspired entire generations of vocalists to follow in the paths they blazed.

And also the one most likely to end up a superstar, an MVP or all all-time icon.

But for the great majority of rock and roll history, the lead singer was more of a quarterback: Just one player on the team, but the one most responsible for calling the plays, for setting the tone and for generally putting numbers on the board. These days, huge bands are increasingly rare, and many of the most important rock outfits are primarily the vision of one individual - with the backing band either inconsistent from project to project, or in some cases non-existent. Lead singers: It’s almost a quaint topic to debate in 2023.

Rockstar piercing