Best female singer

Linda Ronstadt in her prime.
Carla Bonoff
Sandy Denny

maybe not the best but i'll throw it out there:

mariah carey
donna summer
matha walsh
floor jansen

Off the top of my head...

Madonna
Janet Jackson
Whitney Houston

Marilyn Manson
Alice Cooper

My top four would be Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, Stevie Nicks, and Sandy Denny. When Michael Nesmith passed away recently, I went out to YouTube and listened to Ronstadt singing his song "Different Drum".

Grace Slick
Anne Wilson

Katy Perry. She has big boobs and likes to kiss girls.

Nina Simone
Diana Ross
Aretha Franklin

in no o[particular order

Oleta Adams
Mellissa Manchester
Lorretta Lynn
Lynda Ronstadt

Whitney Houston in her prime was beast. She had a beautiful voice.

Dolores O'Riordan; Donna Summer

Aretha Franklin

Houston, Ross, Franklin and the Wilson sisters of Heart. That’s off the top of my head.

Patty Smyth back in the day was really good.

https://youtu.be/gy7SWp44POE

How quickly we forget. Some good singers have been mentioned, but all of those mentioned so far would be bested by these:

Karen Carpenter
Mahalia Jackson
Julie Andrews

I concur with many of those listed above. I would also add:

Dolly Parton
Eva Cassidy
Lady Gaga

Rihanna
Aretha Franklin
Skylar Grey

I'll add Carly Simon.

And from the Hard Rock corner of the room not living in the past....

Amy Lee
Lzzy Hale
Taylor Momsen

Going way back in time:

Lena Horne
Judy Garland
Dusty Springfield

Billie Holiday.

Katy Perry lol! I do think she has a great voice just crappy songs.

Alison Krauss

Basia (yeah nobody is going to even know what that is)

Tracey Thorn (from Everything But the Girl)


Nobody has said Taylor Swift or Billie Elish - which I think should NOT be in the conversation.

Alison Krauss has a great voice.

This is just a short list of ones I remember.

Anita Baker - I’ve seen her live a few times, and her voice is amazing.
Billie Holliday - a woman with a life story, and a voice that has the depth of her struggle.
Sarah Vaughn - another voice worth a long listen.

Natalie Merchant - she grew on me.
Amy Lee - it took me time to appreciate her voice, but it was worth it.
Lady Gaga - if you strip away the fashion, and other external stuff, her voice can be very smooth.
Whitney Houston - in her prime, her voice was very powerful.

Roberta Flack - she has the power and the texture.
Oleta Adams - I still remember the first time someone played Circle of One for me on a cassette tape - what a voice.

Tina Turner

Mavis Staples

Laura Nyro

Valerie Carter - A lesser known Karla Bonoff type from the Linda Ronstadt era and the women referenced in both a Steve Winwood song and a Jackson Browne song

Laura Flanagan singing “Gloria”

Sorry Laura Branigan

Also Concrete Blonds singer doing “Joey”.

Joni Mitchell “River” is pretty spectacular

Janice Joplin, Bonnie Tyly, Linda Perry (4 non-blondes)

no order:
Rhiannon Giddens
Ronnie Specter

many from above

I’ll add Crystal Waters too

Kirsty MacColl

Have to add Annie Lennox to the list. Lots of great artists already named, but she is in my Top 5.

I always thought Whitney Houston was the greatest of all time.

Fun fact about Anita Baker, I actually met her once and saw her twice at two different basketball games. I met her at a high school basketball game, me and my friends just went up and talked to her. I had seen her previously at a Pistons game a couple years ago. (She had good seats, but our seats were so good she was actually sitting behind us).

Nina, that’s a great story about Anita Baker. I’ve only seen her from the cheap seats, very far away. She seemed to be a woman who appeared small, but who became a giant when she sang.

Janis Joplin
Christina Aguilera
Roberta Flack
Vanity
Missy Elliot
Julieta Venegas

Tarja Turunen. And a smoke show too.

Threads like this are too hard to respond to. Way too vague. Do we limit it to the US. To specific genres or periods.

Da Brat. Nicki Minaj. Edith Piaf. Helena Vondrackova. Kosheen...

Ann Wilson
Stevie Nicks
Natalie Merchant
Annie Lennox

Emilie Autumn —one of my favorites and LOVE her voice so much, hard to recommend her to males though because of how misandrist her songs are. And of course if there’s a male in my vehicle then my music playlist will immediately shuffle over to her since it likes to troll me, but yeah amazing singer

Amy Lee- especially in “hello”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5OzOTjr3ed…

Anette Olzen —seems a lot of hardcore Nighwish fans hate her and consider her the worst and most “pop” of all the female singers, but Storytime is amazing so fuck what anyone thinks there.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dOsfPqVFmq…

Rosario Dawson very sweet voice
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=bhOZyHwldz…

^ I like Annette, she's just third after Tarja Turunen and Floor Jansen.

lots of nightwish fans shit on annette. if ask them which nightwish albums are their favorites most of them will say the ones with annette singing on them. go figure.

^ Tarja at her best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMvkunOn…

^ Go away, Cacaplop.

" I play Celine , he plays Tarja"

Nightwish is great in all it's line-ups, but I like the original the best. You know, a lot of guys that love Celine also love Bette Midler and Liza Minnelli. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

^ Don't believe one iota of Cacaplop's stories. Just like on SCL, he says outlandish shit here to get a reaction.

Just think, if you ever feel like a loser for participating in a P4P message board, there's someone whose hobby it is to troll that board.

^ I saw her on tour with Kamelot. She's legit.

thank god for the female metal singers!!!

you can have beyonce, adele, rhianna, taylor, etc. i'll stick with floor jansen, noora louhima, britney slays, just to name a few.

Patsy Cline, Janis Joplin