Live Singing Tier List (10,085 views)

[clem]

This Tier List is back. We are using lettered tiers now, like the cool kids. List the singer and the era of their career, and which category you think fits best.

S Tier
Refers to
- Consistently excellent live performances of demanding material, entire setlists without any real deficiencies, and at least one occasion where a live performance eclipsed the studio version. Live is where they come alive.

A Tier
Refers to 
- Consistently very good performances of demanding material, often singing on a comparable level to studio versions. Live or studio, there's little to choose between them.

B Tier
Refers to any of
[1] Generally commendable performances of demanding material, but clearly a shade below the studio version. The album is better, but you won't be that disappointed with the live recordings.
[2] As good performances as can really be expected of material that was unrealistic to sing live. Flawed, but understandably.
[3] Hit-and-miss performances of demanding material, with their best shows being very good, and close to studio level. Not the best every time, but their best concerts were fire.
[4] Performances that consistently elevate rudimentary material. They sound great, but what they're singing just isn't all that flashy.

C Tier
Refers to any of
[1] Solid performances of rudimentary material. They did fine, but you'd like to think so.
[2] A couple of small blunders, here and there, marring otherwise good performances of more-demanding material. You'll cringe just a little, but otherwise actually pretty good.
[3] Generally adequate, though underwhelming.

D Tier
Refers to any of
[1] Substandard, or hit-and-miss performances of rudimentary material. These songs shouldn't be as hard as they're finding them.
[2] Several glaring errors hampering otherwise solid performances of more-demanding material. Most of it's fine, but there's no overlooking some parts that were very not fine.
[3] Notable singing deficiencies that hold the performance back somewhat, but were already present on the studio versions. Not very good, but at least people are getting what they paid for.
[4] Generally disappointing, but not truly bad. 

E Tier
Refers to either
[1] A butchery in comparison to the studio version. Mistakes and drawbacks by the boatload, propped-up only by a decent percentage of the performance being salvageable.
[2] Complete garbage, but the studio take was complete garbage too... so...* this only applies if it's really crummy in a very similar way to the studio version, enough so that it can at least be recognised as a faithful rendition.

F Tier
Refers to
- Scarcely recognisable as the same songs because of the plethora of problems. Bad pretty much from start to finish, with any better moments being few and far between.

[galaxyseal]

Beyoncé (in general) for S Tier 100%, Lady Gaga (nowadays) for at least A Tier

[Karen’s Kickassarole]

Vince Neil slipped hard from B tier to F tier

[Deleted]

Freddie Mercury - B tier
Elton John - A tier (considering all eras)

[clem]

I'm thinking Floor Jansen for S tier pretty much perpetually. If it's not studio quality, it's below her usual standard.

Bruce Dickinson 81-85 is borderline A/B tier. There were certainly a lot of very strong performances in there. He's been B tier for most years post-reunion.

Tony Kakko 2004-2011 feels like a B tier. He did a good job, but a lot of those songs off the first two albums were all but impossible to do accurately live.

M. Shadows 07-10 could honestly be an A tier. Quite a few of the performances I've heard from that time period were studio level.

[Captain Planet]

Glenn Hughes is a definite S-tier.

[Rodney Blazershorts]

Nov 11, 2021 0:03:43 GMT Captain Planet said:

Glenn Hughes is a definite S-tier.

The S-est of S tiers. Adam Lambert and Russell Allen are as well, for two random names.

[clem]

I feel like Michael Kiske has been A tier for basically his whole career. At some points, even knocking on the door of S tier.

Ken Tamplin might qualify as an S. A lot of his demonstrations are extremely impressive, even if I don't always care for his aesthetic singing choices.

Greg Puciato is kind of a weird one. With Dillinger, his live vocals were always quite flawed, to say the least. But with the Black Queen he's actually pretty good, and that was even the case when he was in both bands at once. Probably just that he's able to focus more on the singing with BQ, whereas the stage chaos was a much bigger deal with TDEP

[Captain Planet]

Nov 11, 2021 0:41:20 GMT clem said:

I feel like Michael Kiske has been A tier for basically his whole career. At some points, even knocking on the door of S tier.

Kiske retained the youthful tone in his voice so beautifully. Every time I listen to his recent performances it makes me wonder what Bruce Dickinson could have been had he not blown out his voice on the 1984-85 World Slavery Tour. They both had remarkably similar voices in their early 20's.

[Seb]

Julian Casablancas at B or C tier. He's so weird live but when he gets in his mojo, he's great. Also charmingly forgets his song lyrics

Brittany Howard at S tier. A wide ranging and consistently soulful voice you rarely come across nowadays

Dave Gahan at A or B tier. To be fair, his songs are rather easy to sing but he does his job damn well. A few lowered songs and a lot of high yelling, which is...confusing. Martin Gore is surely A tier.

Robert Alfons at C tier. He needs a better mic

Luke Jenner at A tier. He just yells high and it works

Wes Scantlin = S+ tier

[queenfan11]

Ronnie James Dio would be B tier IMO. He was a very good and consistent live singer who rarely sounded bad. However I don't think his live performances quite matched up to those in the studio. In the Rainbow era he'd rarely, if ever, hit the highest notes in songs like "Man on the Silver Mountain", "Kill the King", or "Long Live Rock 'n' Roll". I also don't think he ever fully did "Stargazer" justice, though a few performances came close. And from 1983 onward, he'd sing nearly every song a half-step lower. With the exception of "Sacred Heart", none of the songs on the Holy Diver through Lock Up the Wolves albums were ever done in their original keys to my knowledge.

Michael Jackson considering his whole career i'd put in the B or C tier. In his period with the Jackson 5/Jacksons, i'd probably put him in the A/B area. He was generally a strong live singer, though after he hit puberty he understandably couldn't do justice to songs like "I Want You Back", "ABC", or "The Love You Save". But from 1987 onwards, due to a number of reasons (such as persistent throat issues, as well as understandably having difficulty with singing and also doing choreographed dance moves at the same time) he would increasingly rely on lip-syncing. 
- The 1987 leg of the Bad World Tour was entirely live, but on the 1988 US leg he'd start lip-synching most of "Man in the Mirror". From the European leg on he'd also start lip-synching "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Bad", and "Smooth Criminal".
- The 1992 leg of the Dangerous World Tour was pretty much an even split between live and lip-synched. Of the 19 songs in the setlist, 10 ("Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", "Human Nature", "I Just Can't Stop Loving You", "She's Out of My Life", "I Want You Back", "The Love You Save", "I'll Be There", "Billie Jean", "Workin' Day and Night", "Beat It") were sung live while the other 9 ("Jam", "Smooth Criminal", "Thriller", "Will You Be There", "The Way You Make Me Feel", "Bad", "Black or White", "Heal the World", "Man in the Mirror") were mostly lip-synched (it varied from night to night, sometimes he'd sing parts over the playback). On the 1993 leg, "Workin' Day and Night", "Beat It", "The Way You Make Me Feel" and "Bad" were dropped and "Dangerous" (mostly lip-synched) was added, making the ratio 8 live songs out of 16.
- The HIStory World Tour was almost entirely lip-synched. Only four songs ("Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'", "I Want You Back", "The Love You Save", and "I'll Be There") were sung entirely live, though parts of other songs were sung live (it could vary on the night). And when he did sing live he often sounded hoarse and strained.

[Døc]

Kyo- It's complicated, I'd have to split his vocals by era. He's also a highly emotional performer, so you won't ever get a performance from him that won't have some sort of stylistic deviation from the studio recordings, whether screaming out choruses, crying mid song, or just directing the audience to join in, which makes him harder to rank as a vocalist. I'm just going to keep to what is physically possible to perform (for example, he can't sing and scream a different part at the same time, so occasionally his lines get cut off mid sentence as he shifts to a scream.), and what alterations are clearly stylistic. 

1999-2004; C+/B-: He could do the performances well, and oftentimes outperformed the studio recordings, but his performances tended to vary from show to show, with his voice remaining slightly pitchy and struggling with breath control due to a smoking habit.

2005-2007: D Tier declining into E Tier. Due to improper screaming techniques, smoking, and exhausting touring schedules, Kyo struggled in most performances to even stay on pitch, much less give exemplary performances of increasingly demanding material. He was hospitalized multiple times during this period for acute tonsilitis, but would not receive surgical intervention until 2013. Tonsilitis would, from this point forward, become a recurring issue. Some performances were passable, but most were utterly unlistenable.

2008-2010: B tier: His range expanded and his voice back to decent health, Kyo only struggled with breath control in this era, making him pitchy and somewhat loose in the higher register. Please note that the material of this era is much more demanding than anything in the past, with many a number of belted vocal lines reaching up as far as G#5. He had another vocal issue back in 2009, citing inflammation and fluid buildup in his larynx.

2011: B+ tier declining into C+: He quit smoking around this time, marking the end of his breath-related pitch inaccuracy. Most of this year was incredibly strong, but extensive touring with the extremely demanding and growl-heavy Dum Spiro Spero album led to a sharp decline in vocal health with consistent crackling at the final quarter of the year. He was diagnosed with vocal nodules in February of 2012, which were treated with medication. This is the last major medical issue Kyo will have with his vocal cords to date. Kyo's growling technique continues to improve from this point forward, along with his breath support for his cleans.

2012- 2013: B tier rising into A tier: We have a sharp improvement in vocal ability, technique, and health. Apart from a disastrously stressful Ghoul tour, Kyo's vocal health takes a sharp turn for the best. The Tabla rasa tour was a success, with Kyo giving excellent vocal performances overall. One of the finest of which given during a a serious case of tonsillitis and a 104 fever that would send him to the hospital after the show ended. Chronic Tonsilitis seemed to be an issue for Kyo as far back as 2005, and given how his vocals improve after his tonsillectomy, probably made him far more susceptible to vocal health issues. After the surgery is where Kyo truly begins to come into his own. 

Late 2013 to Late 2017: S tier: Now leading his own side project, Sukekiyo, and a slightly more forgiving touring schedule, Kyo's vocal health skyrockets. Despite working with his most vocally demanding material to that point, he consistently gives live performances that outshine the ones in studio. Almost all of his recorded performances during this era are S tier shows (His sukekiyo shows are generally his best performances vocally, a trend that would continue to the present day, rarely dipping under A tier.). At the same time, his physical presence on stage becomes much more mobile and interpretive, from fluid dancing (like the Mode of Dum Spiro Spero performance of Unraveling) to writhing like he's going through a horror movie exorcism (Magayasō on Night one of Arche at the Nippon Budokan, during which he hits a falsetto G5 that modulates between G5 and F#5) without any noticeable effect on the quality of his singing, apart from cutting a few notes short for the sake of the physical aspect of his performances.

Early 2018: B Tier: his voice became scratchy, and he occasionally struggled with voice cracks in his highs, along with a thinning falsetto. Other performances show him struggling on lower notes, but the rest of his range remains relatively intact. 

Late 2018: A?/S? tier: A full return to the condition of his voice in 13-17. I only have seen one show from this era, the Mania No Shikkan performance off of the Infinitum Blu-Ray, which happens to be one of the best shows of his entire career, but the lack of material from this period in time does not give me enough information to say that this is an S-tier era. A single S-tier performance does not an S-tier era make, even if it is with his most demanding material to date. 

2019-2020: C+ tier quickly rising to A tier by September 2019: According to an interview, Kyo began smoking again in either 2018 or 2019, quitting when the pandemic began, which could explain the scratchiness that seems to occasionally plague his mid and upper register through this period. I saw Dir En Grey live in person in December of 2019, and it was a solid A tier performance, but other live performances varied widely in quality, though never dipping to pre-2013 levels. His fry screams became noticeably weaker at times, but his false chord growls remained as robust as ever. The live show in paris (On February 8th) was plauged on  by a rasp and voice cracks, but The World You Live in, a livestreamed concert event held on March 28th, 2020, showcased shockingly strong vocals, apart from voice cracks on the final chorus of Sustain The Untruth, which is a fairly common occurrence in any post 2016 show. 

2021 through 2022: A+ Tier: Dropping smoking and seven months of relative vocal rest has brought his vocals to 2017 levels. Some recorded Dir En Grey live performances have seemed to showcase a slight rasp in his vocals. His most recent Sukekiyo performances show his voice sounding more beautiful than ever before, with clear highs and his most robust lows to date, developing a seductive husky quality, lending me to think that the rasp is a stylistic decision as opposed to a health issue. This could become S tier in the future. However, his endurance has declined due to age. He's remained consistent with his new band, Petit Brabancon, which may contain his most demanding harsh vocal work to date, often pulling off sixth octave whistle fry screams. 

2023: 2023: A tier devolving into a B- tier: This year had quite a strong start, with the bonus CD of Erosio containing four recordings from Sukekiyo's tour in February. He nailed each song, and the performance of Aoguroi hysteria in particular might just be my all time favorite version of that song.
The next show is the 「a knot」 release of the "Phalaris Vol. 2" tour, recorded on May 5th. Kyo nailed every song in the show; including the infamously difficult second chorus of SUSTAIN THE UNTRUTH for the first time since 2016 (the second best performance of the song in my opinion). He showed a mastery of scream singing in Mouai Ni Shosu, belted piercing upper fifth octave notes, and delivered utterly fearsome sounding growls on songs like Schadenfreude. Overall, Kyo's performance eclipses the first night of 'THE FINAL STUDIO COAST' shows, which is one of my personal favorites. However, it's obvious that maintaining performances of this quality has been getting increasingly difficult for him to pull off. He's altering his vowels more than usual during the more difficult parts of the songs (though Sustain the Untruth happens to be an exception to this), and he tends to overshoot the pitch on some belted notes. He even omitted lines in "Gaika, Chinmoku ga Nemuru Koro's" final chorus to prepare himself for the climactic F#5. Despite this, there are many stand out moments in the show, which has even earned itself a few bolds in Kyo's thread.
The next recorded show was took place on May 22nd, from later in that same tour (livestreamed on WOWOW on August 11th). This show is much harder on him. He showcased a rough, harsh rasp that makes his upper fourth and lower 5th octave sound painful. However, he still hit upper fifth octave high notes (but noticeably thinner than on May 5th), and managed to pull off Sustain the Untruth again in the encore. He also exhibited some noticeably strong whistle fry in this show as well, it's clear that touring has become much more demanding on Kyo's voice overall.
Finally, we get to the Sukekiyo TOUR2023 「Dakara Sono Uchi」livestream. This show was recorded on September 4th, and it's easily his worst Sukekiyo show to date. He struggled throughout the performance, missing many lower to mid 5th octave belted notes and was once again plagued by a painful sounding rasp and tendency to over or undershoot belted notes. The performances of Mosaic Shoujo and Moan in particular were his worst since late 2011, their choruses both plagued by painfully undershot notes and frequent voice cracks. As a longtime fan, this year, although mostly comprised of mostly solid shows, has been difficult to watch. Age, it seems, has finally caught up with Kyo. Baring an absolute miracle in the next few years, it's only downhill from here.
(I'd like to thank CalculatingInfinity on discord for helping me edit this entry and getting tour names and show dates right.)

Overall Rating, barring aging: A-/B+
Despite a rough development period, the past decade shows Kyo's voice settling into a powerful, versatile, and expressive instrument capable of handling incredibly challenging material, both clean and growled, that often outshines (but never chooses to mimic) his studio recordings. The fact that he can do this while engaged in a highly active stage presence adds to his overall rating. However, I think that he is still slightly too inconsistent from one performance to another be rated as an anything higher than A- overall.

[clem]

Kurt Cobain's live singing is an odd case. A lot of his live stuff was D/E tier. But then Nirvana's unplugged album is also often seen as one of the best live albums by any rock band ever. A mixed bag. Probably a D tier on the whole, but who had some solid B tier stuff in his locker if you were lucky.

Corey Glover is tough to categorise too. He's kept his voice in shape really well, and whilst his live performances of his back catalogue often wouldn't be quite studio level, he does also throw in some really crazy extra highs that weren't in the studio versions. On the cusp of A/B tier

Rody Walker has been pretty up and down, granted Protest the Hero's music requires infinite belting stamina. The tour for Kezia sounded pretty decent, all things considered. Maybe a C tier. The live album they did on the tour for Fortress was actually mostly not good, even though the Patton-ish scream in Bloodmeat was cool af. From 08-13 he was hanging around the lower end of D tier live. Upped his game a lot in 2013 making "Volition", when he quit smoking, and got himself back into a respectable C tier. Blew his voice out more recently, and had to do some more training and recovery. But over the lockdown, he dropped a live take or two from his home studio that sounded good. I'm just not sure PTH's music is realistic to ever be performed like it is on the record though.

[Aardvark]

Chester Bennington would be S tier, at least up until around 2011. After that, he fell pretty quickly to B tier and by 2014 he was closer to D tier.

Adam Lambert doesn’t perform his own studio songs live anymore but in comparison to the Queen studio tracks, he would be S tier.

Myles Kennedy would be B tier. He could be A tier but he does tend to cut some bigger notes a bit short in live settings.

Nate Ruess - solid B tier

[clem]

Can't forget Ted Neeley, who was S/A tier for decades. B tier up until a few years ago, and still a respectable C tier aged 78.

Early 1990s Little Richard would be an S tier too. That "Good Golly Miss Molly" from Muhammad Ali's birthday is one of his best ever versions of that song.

[innuendo]

Freddie Mercury B+ or even A tier, in my opinion. Maybe more a B+ but his First shows and his prime tour as well (NOTW, Crazy, The Game and Euro Hot Space Tour) are magnificent to me.

[clem]

Jarkko Ahola is an S tier. Pretty much every performance I've ever seen from him has been really good. He even did a more than decent Nessun Dorma, which is pretty far removed from his usual style.

[falsetokaiba]

Paul Stanley seems like the archetypal F-tier for the past decade, having probably been a solid A-tier for most of his prime

[tungsten]

I would place King Diamond on A-tier. Eric Adams could also be there.

[Karen’s Kickassarole]

By this logic, GG Allin would be E tier

[clem]

Nov 15, 2021 17:40:46 GMT Karen’s Kickassarole said:

By this logic, GG Allin would be E tier

I suppose he would   in no way vocally impressive, but if his audience liked his records, they were probably satisfied with the live performances (at least until threw poo at them).

[Batfleck]

Klaus Meine, in his prime, is S-Tier, in my opinion.

Nowadays, Klaus would probably be a light A-tier/strong B-tier singer (mostly due to the fact that he's getting older and the Scorpions downtune their guitars a step down live just so he can catch up with the material)

[clem]

Hansi Kursch has had some strong A tier moments. But he'd probably be B tier overall, on account of how tough so many Blind Guardian songs are to do live. Damned if anyone is singing "Wheel of Time" on tour without changing up the melody a little.

[Rodney Blazershorts]

Nov 15, 2021 20:59:23 GMT clem said:

Hansi Kursch has had some strong A tier moments. But he'd probably be B tier overall, on account of how tough so many Blind Guardian songs are to do live. Damned if anyone is singing "Wheel of Time" on tour without changing up the melody a little.

Disagree. Outside of a handful of documented shows, Hansi’s never been a very stand out live singer. He often undersings and avoids tough parts, and is pretty infamous for speak-singing through parts. He’ll let out some big screams, but they rarely have the power of the studio rendition, and even if they do, it’s not carried through an entire performance often.
I would generously put him in the B tier overall, maybe, but nowadays he's in D.

[Aardvark]

Nov 12, 2021 16:42:33 GMT innuendo said:

Freddie Mercury B+ or even A tier, in my opinion. Maybe more a B+ but his First shows and his prime tour as well (NOTW, Crazy, The Game and Euro Hot Space Tour) are magnificent to me.

I probably wouldn’t put Freddie at A tier. A tier was defined as basically equivalent in quality to the studio where either would be equally accepted. When it comes to many of Queen’s biggest songs, particularly Bohemian Rhapsody, there is a substantial difference between studio and live on Freddie’s part. I’d probably put him at B tier but no higher.