This one is not likely to be popular here, but I have to be totally honest and say: Miley Cyrus.
Don't get me wrong. I am not really a fan of her or her music (nor am I a hater). But my god does that woman have an incredible voice and a mastery of how to use it.
I'm the same about Ariana Grande. Not a fan, but I saw clips of her singing showtunes with Seth MacFarlane and it was incredible. She has such range and while I'm not really familiar with her music, I feel like her popular songs don't do her any favours.
Yeah. Superunknown was the first CD I bought. I used to listen to it non stop on my shitty discman that the stabilisation was broken on, so I had to walk around like I was serving customers in a restaurant. I then discovered all his other stuff, including Temple of the Dog which was a mind-blown moment for me. Realising all the voices I knew did other side projects/had history in other projects....
Came to the comments to make sure Mike Patton was mentioned! One my favorite vocalists, with an incredible range of unique vocal styles across so many musical outfits: Mr. Bungle, Faith No More, Fantômas, Tomahawk, Peeping Tom, etc.
He’s so versatile. If you haven’t heard them already, I’d recommend “Melted Bodies” album “Enjoy Yourself”. When I first heard them I thought it sounded like Mike Patton fronting Butthole Surfers in their heyday
Holy cow, that’s absolutely wild! There are a handful of female heavy metal vocalists I follow who do a similar things to this and the contrast between clear singing voices and their growls is just something special. Eg. Kasey Karlsen
When Brandi Carlile’s voice cracks and she belts out the chorus near the end of The Story, it’s just incredible. There are better singers, technically, but the pure, raw emotion conveyed is powerful (to me anyway).
I got into to Brandi Carlile because I kept hearing her songs and not knowing it was her. Each time I thought “damn, this is really good”, looking up the song and each time it was Brandi Carlile. That happened 3 times and I finally decided it was time to start listening to albums.
George Michael had an incredible voice and was my singing idol for a long long long time - I'm a contralto so I can't really sing to a lot of female singers unfortunately... His range and timbre... Just amazing.
Her name is 王OK (thanks copy paste!). I like the first YouTube comment, which described her voice as ‘like a warm blanket during a cold winter morning’.
There is something captivating about Kate Bush's delivery, she collaborated a lot with Peter Gabriel too who was a fantastic singer with unique delivery as well.
Myles Kennedy. Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeet, that man can sing...
I've seen him live (with Alter Bridge) a couple of times, and it has just blown me away hearing his live performance be as good as if not better than the studio versions.
Nobody will read this, but Kristin Hersh. She was the founder / less singer in Throwing Muses, but her solo work truly amazes me. Literally nobody is like Kristin.
I'm consistently impressed by the one vocalist from Beast in Black. When I watch their videos and then realize there is one voice in the song and it's that dude, it blows my mind every time.
tldw; a contestant on a European pop idol type show had such perfect pitch and tone, the judges thought she was lip syncing. She wasn't and it's amazing.
Amber Bain of The Japanese House has a really nice voice.
There's also Caroline Polachek, who I am pretty sure actually has perfect pitch. She is one of the most technically impressive vocalists of her generation IMO.
Brandi Carlisle is completely wasted on country music. I saw her at a music festival when she was mostly playing rock music and some covers and holy shit she has such effortless range.
Einar Solberg, lead singer of Leprous, has a unique voice. It can sound almost fragile at lower registers, very expressive.... And has incredible range.
Dude's personal life is a mess but you can't deny his amazing talent. It's good to see he's back with a new album. Hopefully he stays clean and healthy.
I'm not a fan of her music, but I know talent when I see (hear) it, and her voice is impeccable. In fact, I don't think her overprocessed music is even the best showcase of her talent, she really shines signing randomly off the cuff.
I sing in an amateur choir led by a professional singer, and his voice is the purest, warmest, cleanest sound you can imagine. I melt every time he sings a solo or demonstrates part of a song to us.
Tatsuro Yamashita was pretty impressive for several reasons: great singer/songwriter (he has some really solid range) and producer, S tier in singing English phonetically, and he's good in Japanese, too.
Not exactly what you're asking for, but there's this thing called "shape note singing."
There's a long story of why it exists, but people still do it, and even though it has roots in religion, and the songs are religious, the groups you find today never perform in a religious capacity.
Get a buddy and go to one of the meetings. Everybody sits in chairs, in a circle and everybody sings. No instruments, just voices.
It's a beautiful, eerie sound which always falls flat in recordings.
I had never heard of shape note singing before, but after reading the Wikipedia article, it seems more like it's a system of writing music for easy readability by singers rather than a style of singing. Are you just referring to some kind of gospel tradition?