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I was listening to a couple bands today that were on their 2nd singers and was wondering which band you thought did the best job of replacing a singer. Be it the 2nd, 3rd or hell, even a fourth.

I like John Bush with Anthrax and Henry Rollins with Black Flag.
Rollins, was BF's 4th, but they did their best with him. I have nothing against Joey, and I will always rock fucking out to his tunes, but I enjoy Bush's singing more and I just can't help but laugh at the high notes Belladonna hits.

So who is/are your favorites?

The new Dropkick Murphys singer is better than the first one. I think he used to sing for The Bruisers before starting at the Dropkick Murphys.

Iron Maiden, of course. DiAnno lacked that certain something.

The replacement singer of Nightwish, Anette Olzon, has gathered much criticism, but personally I like her voice. It may sound strange, but it is somehow more alive and expressive than Tarja Turunen's opera-style voice (although Mrs. Turunen is still a good singer and there are some songs which I just cannot see Anette performing, so excellent was Tarja's voice).

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Iron Maiden, of course. DiAnno lacked that certain something.

Aye, you beat me to it. Black Sabbath as well, putting out two great albums with Dio. Iced Earth's current singer (can't remember name) is an improvement as well. If you count The Small Faces and The Faces as the same band, then Rod Stewart was a big step up.

Tiriol wrote:The replacement singer of Nightwish, Anette Olzon, has gathered much criticism, but personally I like her voice. It may sound strange, but it is somehow more alive and expressive than Tarja Turunen's opera-style voice (although Mrs. Turunen is still a good singer and there are some songs which I just cannot see Anette performing, so excellent was Tarja's voice).

As much as I think Anette turned out to be a good signer for Nightwish, I have to disagree with you totally that the results have much to do with Anette's replacement of Tarja. It has a whole lot more to do with the direction the songwriting took; a lot of the change in sound and style was already happening at by Once, if not to some extent before. Anette was more a beneficiary than a cause. The fact that Marko was the vocalist for a significant chunk of Dark Passion Play goes a long way towards proving my point. And the same holds true for their live show, at least the one I saw, where he acutally did the singing for the majority of the show! Anette's good but she's hardly indispensable.

On top of that, some of the songs that Anette fell flat on, like "Eva" for instance, would probably have worked much better had Tarja sung them. Anette doesn't have the same ability as Tarja and it shows occasionally. Of course the fact that Nightwish can't perform a fair number of songs any more is testament to that.

AC/DC with Brian Johnson (and, before that, Bon replacing Evans).
Justin Hawkins replacing Tony Martin.
Rush with Neil Peart.
Deep Purple with Ian Gillian.
Then there are dozens of punk bands that got better in their second or third incarnations, but I won't bother going into those because some might be too obscure for people here.

Though, there are some bad ones. Phil Collins dumbed down Genesis, Michael McDonalds softed the Doobie Brothers up, Sammy Hagar was no replacement for David Lee Roth, and John Corabi made Motley Crue even worse then they already were (but he removed the "fun" factor that Neil had).

Stormbringer wrote:The fact that Marko was the vocalist for a significant chunk of Dark Passion Play goes a long way towards proving my point.

I actually find a lot of the songs that Marko either sings himself or does significant backup singing to be some of Nightwish's best, IMHO. This almost falls in line with the OP since even though he's not a replacement, he has been more involved in the vocals than he was before.

Civil War Man wrote:

Stormbringer wrote:The fact that Marko was the vocalist for a significant chunk of Dark Passion Play goes a long way towards proving my point.

I actually find a lot of the songs that Marko either sings himself or does significant backup singing to be some of Nightwish's best, IMHO. This almost falls in line with the OP since even though he's not a replacement, he has been more involved in the vocals than he was before.

I don't know if I'd go that far. At least for me Tarja's singing was a big part of why I liked Nightwish. Still, he does a damn good job. "Reach" is probably my favorite off the new album.

Ziggy Stardust wrote:Rush with Neil Peart.

Whatchyoutalkinboutwillis? Peart is the bands main lyric writer, but he has never, to my knowledge, been the lead singer. Now if you meant Geddy Lee, rock the fuck on, although, I don't think the guy that was the singer for like three months before Geddy in 68 really counts.

Then there are dozens of punk bands that got better in their second or third incarnations, but I won't bother going into those because some might be too obscure for people here.

Not for me.

I've always liked Dave Hunt's vocals. Some of the meanest out there. The Destroying Angel, more specifically, the spoken word bit after the Blackadder sample at the start. For a good mix of "you can really tell that guy is angry" and "that's surprisingly melodic" there's Between Shit and Piss We Are Born.

I also really like Burton C Bell's Fear Factory vocals, demanufacture and obsolete albums had his best for my money. Also, the obsolete guitar tone is probably my favourite.

havokeff wrote:

Ziggy Stardust wrote:Rush with Neil Peart.

Whatchyoutalkinboutwillis? Peart is the bands main lyric writer, but he has never, to my knowledge, been the lead singer. Now if you meant Geddy Lee, rock the fuck on, although, I don't think the guy that was the singer for like three months before Geddy in 68 really counts.

The story I heard about Rush's origins was that they'd drawn straws to see who would be the lead singer. And Geddy Lee drew the short straw. It could easily be apocryphal, but that's how I heard it.

Sammy Hagar worked well for Van Halen and gave them a terrific 'second era' that counterbalanced the Roth Era nicely. A shame that Gary Cherone didn't sound quite right with them; I've long wondered whether it was just the way that III was produced, because he sounded fine with them live IMO. But that was (just) in the pre-napster era when album sales still mattered to the dose.

This may be stretching the bounds of the topic, but the gradual drift in Pink Floyd from Barrett to Waters to Gilmour comes to mind. Gilmour actually has a good singing voice. Yes, Barrett and Waters sung together before Gilmour came along, then Waters and Gilmour, but only Gilmour was left at the end.

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:Iron Maiden, of course. DiAnno lacked that certain something.

You mean social skills? Responsibility? The ability to refrain from coming after people with knives?

YT300000 wrote:Black Sabbath as well, putting out two great albums with Dio.

But YT, don't you like singers that sound like they're gargling phlegm?

Iced Earth's current singer (can't remember name) is an improvement as well.

Iced Earth's second singer was John Greely on the "Night of the Stormrider" album. He was technically more skilled than Gene Adam was on their full length debut, but I think Adam had more raw style even if Greely was capable of possessing Halford-level vocal range.

Either way, I think you're thinking of that mumbly dude, Matt Barlow. It irritates the fuck out of me that Jon callously kicked Tim Owens out to make room for him simply on the whims of fans, and by no method less personal than email to boot. Barlow was ejected because he wanted to go off and be a cop and never liked fast, heavy music in the first place; the Horror Show album is fucking full of pitch corrections so ghastly they're a testament to Jon's skill as a producer, all because he refused to give it the proper effort. He had his run and I'm sickened that he's been allowed to crawl back into the band. I don't ever intend to buy or even listen to another Iced Earth record, which I hadn't been doing for years anyways because Jon went so far up his own ass with all that cheap "operatic" bullshit that he forgot how to write melodically intricate yet pummelingly fast and heavy music ever since around Burnt Offerings.

Personally? I offer Annihilator's Coburn Pharr, who is now the VP of a plastics engineering firm, and I guess Craig Pillard from Immolation - nothing against McEntee, but Pillard's voice lends that natural, ominous tone to Immolation that makes them one of the best, most atmospheric death metal bands of all time.

I have to say Faith No More. Mike Patton replacing Chuck Mosely was a great move.

Question; are singers who replaced singers who sang before the band had recorded material included? Or singers who sang on recordings that came after demos, LPs, splits, etc, but not before full-lengths?

TithonusSyndrome wrote:But YT, don't you like singers that sound like they're gargling phlegm?

Well, my two favourite singers are Roger Daltrey, who sounds like he could use a cup of water, and David Bowie, who accidentally swallowed a reverb spring one day, so...

As long as they're singing and not rapping, I'm willing to make quite an allowance, and often grow to be fond of a sound that I disliked at first (Axl Rose).

Iced Earth's second singer was John Greely on the "Night of the Stormrider" album. He was technically more skilled than Gene Adam was on their full length debut, but I think Adam had more raw style even if Greely was capable of possessing Halford-level vocal range.

Yeah, Greely, that's his name. There was just something about the tonal balance of his voice that I like. Barlow not so much (a check of wikipedia turns out he returned in 2007 which I didn't know, sorry for the confusion), he has a good voice which is suited to slower stuff, like Hallowed Be Thy Name off Tribute to the Gods, he does Bruce justice in that cover. But on the whole, he just wasn't as good.

Just going by what I listen to commonly, since I'm too tired to think of the great singers who don't find themselves in my Metal playlists...

Eric Adams (this intro, for example).

Mathias Nygård, simply because it's a lot like how I sing (albeit, lower, since I'm a base), so I can sing along and do covers pretty well.

On the Annette/Tarja debate... I like some of what Annette does with her voice, other times not so much. Dark Passion Play struck me as a bit of a concept "what direction do we go in now" kind of album.

I'm going to agree regarding Nightwish. I honestly do like Annette for a lot of their more 'traditional' metal stuff, but she'll never be able to match Tarja on the old operatic stuff (Be honest. Can you see Annette giving a great rendition of Nemo or Sleeping Sun?)

I also fully agree with Marco as being essentially their 'second second' replacement. The man is an amazing singer, both for Norse Thunder God style, and for far more melodic tunes (While Your Lips Are Still Red is the perfect example. Tarja had no involvement whatsoever.)

I prefer Phil Collins as lead singer of Genesis to Peter Gabriel as lead singer Genesis

I like the new lead singer of Journey. He sounds exactly like Steve Perry and has his hair, clothes, and moves, but he's a tiny Asian guy, as opposed to a 6'2 chipmunk.

TithonusSyndrome wrote:Question; are singers who replaced singers who sang before the band had recorded material included? Or singers who sang on recordings that came after demos, LPs, splits, etc, but not before full-lengths?

Well based on my own examples, I would say that this would be based on singers with a significant amount of time in the group, or those with the group when they "hit". Joey Belladonna wasn't Anthrax's first singer, but he was the one that every one associated with the band.

Well of course I wouldn't count singers who filled in during the proper singer's down time, but I don't see why they shouldn't count as long as they put in at least one album's worth of material - so three demos, two LPs or splits, etc.

Donald Fagen was about a million times better than the first singer of Steely Dan.