1. Ronnie James Dio (R.I.P.) - Truly fucking amazing, and the reason I still listen to heavy metal to this day. 2. Bruce Dickinson - Great range and a true showman. Maybe not recently but in their prime Maiden put on a show like no other. Live After Death anyone? 3. Geoff Tate - Queensryche If you want to hear vocal range go listen to Operation Mindcrime, fucking unbelievable. 4. Ozzy Osbourne - Prince of Darkness...'nuff said. 5. James Hetfield - Metallica and Hetfield's lyrics and style of play gave a wake up call to all the Glam rock metal bands of the 80's. 6. Ian Anderson - As someone already mentioned, he rocked a flute...a fucking flute, in a heavy metal band. To this day Jethro Tull is the best concert I've ever seen, maybe because when I went I had low expectations but god was that show amazing. 7. David Lee Roth - A true frontman in every sense of the word. 8. Steven Tyler - A signature sound that will never be equaled. 9. Axl Rose - If he wasn't such an ass hat in the early to mid 90's I'd probably have him ranked higher. 10. Eddie Vedder - Between Eddie and Kurt Cobain they vaulted a new genre of music on to America and the world. Honorable mentions - Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, Roger Daltrey, Jim Morrison, Chuck Berry, Jerry Garcia, Getty Lee, Freddy Mercury, and David Gilmore/Rodger Waters. Granted my list is more genre defining, but I believe everyone mentioned at least deserves to be in the discussion.
This is spur-of-the-moment opinion. 10. Rob Zombie 9. Axl Rose When he showed up 8. David Lee Roth I'm not a huge Van Halen fan, but you can't deny that the man had a massive stage presence and was all about the show. 7. Trent Reznor 6. Thom Yorke One of the best live shows I've ever seen. You wouldn't expect it, but this guy has energy comparable to a rabbit on meth. 5. David Bowie 4. Robert Plant 3. Mick Jagger The Rolling fucking Stones. The man pisses swagger. 2. Freddie Mercury One of the, if not the, best voices in Rock. 1. Iggy Pop
I've gotta say, even though I'm not a huge fan, I'm pretty suprised nobody has mentioned Michael Jackson yet.
You guys are slipping. I'm not going to make a list, since most of you have it covered, but to leave out these guys? Jesus. Brian Johnson. Bon Scott (R.I.P) Geddy Lee. I guess if I *have* to make a list: 10) Notorious B.I.G. (do I even need to say why?) 9) Chris Cornell 8) Bruce Dickinson (awesome range and sound) 7) Geddy Lee (again, do I need to provide reasons?) 6) Scott Weiland 5) Roger Daltrey 4) James Hetfield 3) Brian Johnson 2) Till Lindemann (completely unique voice and Rammstein's stage show is in another fucking league - I've seen the old Live Aus Berlin DVD from 10 years ago... WOW) 1) Bon Scott. Obviously.
For the sake of argument, why does Bono always gets shit on? I dont even like U2, but they are obviously world-wide successful. Most of you put Axl on your list and he is ten times more of a dildo than Bono is. Yes, G'n'R was awesome, but Axl's bullshit ruined what could've been an epic musical career.
No doubt but on stage he is a maniac, Bono is embarrassing. He is a great musician but he has really corny dance moves, he's kind of lame live.
I was a big Queen fan in the early 80's but after about 1985 , I felt that their music was no longer inspired and it lacked the variety of the earlier stuff. He was a great singer and frontman though.
How has no one mentioned Jimi Hendrix? That guy was insane. He deserves to be in the top five of any list at least. As far as modern musicians, you could probably tack Dave Groehl onto that list. He's a good musician and he has a really engaging prescence as a frontman.
Wait, is this some kind of awesome troll? Because holy crap the diatribes I could write about why I disagree.
He was the leading force of his band and insanely talented. I think people usually identify lead singers as the frontman. Hendrix was a lead singer but his voice wasn't as out of this world as his guitars skills were.
The legends I hear from old hippies is the Jimi wasn't that great on stage. They used the word "boring" actually. Aside from the guitar roasting to upstage The Who, he apparently didn't do much. I'm sure I will get raped for this, but I saw Fred Durst outshine the mighty Metallica at Summer Sanitarium '03. He is a douche, yes, and his musical fad is long gone, but damn did that dude put on a show. Freddie is at the top of the list and I don't think there should be a discussion about it.
Define boring. I mean, he wasn't going crazy jumping around on stage and freaking out the crowd but I don't understand how you could be bored at one of his shows. He was doing things with his guitar and effects that were definitely not boring. That said I wouldn't call him a "frontman". Same goes for SRV. Truly great guitarists but a frontman creates an experience that is more than the combined musical ability of the band. I also tend to think of frontmen as being part of a cohesive band rather than a shifting group of musicians ala Hendrix and Trent Reznor. The one dude I think everyone forgot is motherfuckin' Sly Stone.
If the list was "10 Greatest Guitarists" or "10 Greatest Rock Stars" or even "10 Greatest Musicians of the 20th Century", I would absolutely include Hendrix on influence alone. But I really call him a frontman. Props to the people who mentioned Bon Scott, Brian Johnson, and Till Lindemann; all three of those are tremendous choices. I find it amusing that almost all these lists, mine included, are musicians from the 70s and 80s. I think that in hard rock and especially metal, starting with the mid 80s, the importance of the vocals was greatly reduced, while the guitar and even bass gained greater and greater prominence. My all-time favorite bands like Slayer, Pantera, Children of Bodom, and Megadeth had/have average singing and frontmen, but possessed legendary guitar players.
Boring? The guy lit his guitar on fire, played with his mouth behind his back and shit like that. The old hippies you know sound like imbeciles to me. I think we don't really define Jimmy as a frontman, but to say he was boring is insane. Of course you did make reference to Fred Durst being better than Metallica so who knows? One other qualification of being a good frontman is that your music isn't humiliating. I have seen many different taste's on this board but that post without a doubt represents the worst artist I have seen mentioned. I understand we all can't like metal, classic rock, (even Michael Jackson) but I can still respect them. Durst might be an average producer but other than that he stinks.
He did do all of those things, but after a while he got tired of being expected to go on stage and do crazy shit so he toned down a lot in his last year or so.
The band never made it far, but I'm still a fan of Ron Ward from Speedball Baby: On the hip hop side, I vote Ice Cube.
My favourite frontman for Canadian music was Burton Cummings, that mustache is engrained in the minds of every Canadian. The current "The Guess Who" touring right now are just horrible, take the husband of a Canadian Idol judge, the two least known members of the band and a few other nobodies and call yourself the Guess Who? So so wrong. Oh and he's not Randy Bachman (well I'm a fan of Bachman too).
So, the people who actually witnessed these performances are imbeciles because you have a YouTube clip of Jimi doing something cool? The fact that the band was call The Jimi Hendrix Experience doesn't make him the front man? He fronted the band, so, using proper math, I believe that makes him the front man. My statement was no indictment on the mans playing ability but the fact that as a "frontman", there is more to it than just singing and playing guitar. If you read up on it, you'd probably come to the same conclusion I did: It stopped being about the show and started being about the music. He didn't have to show the world that he could hang with Pete Townshend and Eric Clapton anymore and just played. When you have a reputation as a guitar burnin', behind the back playing son of a bitch and all of a sudden stop, people will feel let down and think you're "boring". Or something like that.