Rolling Stone recently released their list of "The 200 Greatest Singers Of All Time", and KISS' Gene Simmons has shared his opinion.
TMZ caught up with Simmons to find out his thoughts on the list. When the reporter noted that KISS were excluded from the list, Simmons responds: "That's OK. I was thinking of buying Rolling Stone."
He adds: Well, it's skewed. You have to consider who's popular and who's not, but if you really think about it, how good somebody sings may be part and parcel of what they do. For instance, if Jimi Hendrix - who had a long... well actually a short career, but he was very famous - would he make it on American Idol? What about Bob Dylan... and I wrote songs with Bob Dylan, I know the guy. Would he make it on American Idol?"
Gene continues: "How well you sing is not the most important thing, it's do you have style, do you have a fingerprint that says I know that voice immediately?"
Hear more from Gene below:
Introducing the list, Rolling Stone stated: "When Rolling Stone first published its list of the 100 Greatest Singers in 2008, we used an elaborate voting process that included input from well-known musicians. The results skewed toward classic rock and singers from the Sixties and Seventies. This new list was compiled our staff and key contributors, and it encompasses 100 years of pop music as an ongoing global conversation, where iconic Indian playback singer Lata Mangeshkar lands between Amy Winehouse and Johnny Cash, and salsa queen Celia Cruz is up there in the rankings with Prince and Marvin Gaye. You might notice that, say, there isn’t any opera on our list — that’s because our purview is pop music writ large, meaning that almost all the artists on this list had significant careers as crossover stars making popular music for the masses.
Before you start scrolling (and commenting), keep in mind that this is the Greatest Singers list, not the Greatest Voices List. Talent is impressive; genius is transcendent. Sure, many of the people here were born with massive pipes, perfect pitch, and boundless range. Others have rougher, stranger, or more delicate instruments. As our write-up for the man who ended up at Number 112 notes, “Ozzy Osbourne doesn’t have what most people would call a good voice, but boy does he have a great one.” That could apply to more than a few people here.
In all cases, what mattered most to us was originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalog, and the breadth of their musical legacy. A voice can be gorgeous like Mariah Carey’s, rugged like Toots Hibbert’s, understated like Willie Nelson’s, slippery and sumptuous like D’Angelo’s, or bracing like Bob Dylan’s. But in the end, the singers behind it are here for one reason: They can remake the world just by opening their mouths."
Singers making the list that may appeal to BraveWords readers include:
#199 - Glenn Danzig
#181 - Bob Seger
#176 - Iggy Pop
#165 - Ronnie James Dio
#134 - Axl Rose
#129 - Rob Halford
#112 - Ozzy Osbourne
#109 - Roger Daltrey
#105 - Eddie Vedder
#82 - Steve Perry
#80 - Chris Cornell
#63 - Robert Plant
#52 - Mick Jagger
#32 - David Bowie
#26 - Paul McCartney
#14 - Freddie Mercury
#12 - John Lennon
Find out who else made the cut at RollingStone.com.
