Ah yes, the age-old debate. I remember seeing a clip from That Metal Show, where the moronic hosts made list of the "best metal vocalists". Their lists included folks like Axl Rose ffs, so they are clearly not qualified for their jobs.
Post your favorite metal vocalists here! Can be from any genre or time period.
David Draiman. His vocals are distinct, and I absolutely love 'em.
I think this is the first song I heard by Disturbed...
I first heard it while watching an AMV on YouTube. I was kind of put off at first. I had never been subjected to that sort of music before. I'm glad I found it. It helped me wade through a lot of shit life threw my way. Plus, it gets me pumped for workouts. \m/ ^_^ \m/
Has to be Dan Swano for me. His growls are deep, super clean and have this kind of...distinct harshness from the early 90's Swedish death metal scene. A big fan of the cleans to, they're a good bit different from what we're used to hearing from guys doing both cleans and harsh vocals in metal bands IMO.
Yeah, I'm not sure if I could pick favorites, even in metal, just due to the sheer diversity, especially if you count symphonic metal.
Dianne Van Giersbergen is definitely one of my favorites:
I really appreciate deep voices so Lauri Õunapuu from Metsatoll ranks pretty high. Very fascinated with his,
Pre-Arch Enemy Alissa White-Gluz:
The obligitory Johan Hegg because he definitely has one of the more distinguishable voices in metal https://youtu.be/FN0W6w_m-VY ^ I can't resist screaming: "I DROP THE SHIELD AND GRAB MY AXE A WEAPON IN EACH FIST! THE FIRST BLOW MAKES THE HELMET CRACK THE AXE CUT TO THE TEETH!!!"
Honorable mention to Fernando Ribeiro of Moonspell, only because I never seriously got into them, but I love his voice on Opium
Something that I thought was really amusing was the song by Amon Amarth which featured Lars Göran Petrov. Johan Hegg (Amon Amarth) made Lars Göran Petrov (Entombed) sound ridiculous. Hegg s just plainly a better vocalist and that was really evident to me on that track. A lot of the time though, comparing vocalists is hard because of how different the styles are. Sure one might sound better, but how well it works with the band's overall sound is often much more important. But whatever.
I'm giving away my era (age), but the 'Master of Metal Vocalists' would have to be Ronnie Dio. Ronnie had a varied vocal range, and that could be gleaned when you heard him sing: The Butterfly Ball.
Ronnie also had the distinction of being the originator of the well-known 'horns' gesture with his hands (I've always felt American hip-hop copied this hand-gesture)
Edit: also, on the topic of the devil horns hand gesture - Dio is known to be the originator of incorporating the symbol into metal (he saw his grandmother using this gesture when he was younger). However, the funny part is that good 'ol Gene Simmons claims that he invented it (along with everything else). Here's a funny interview with Dio from the documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey:
I believe that Gene uses the Love Gun album cover art to stake his claim on the gesture: