When we want to know who the best musician is, we go straight to travel website Concert Hotels. Well, we don’t actually, but that hasn’t stopped the site from ranking “The Vocal Ranges of the World’s Greatest Singers.” Somewhat surprisingly, Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose comes out on top as the best vocalist of all time. Rose came out on top with two out of the three categories ranked. The way the list was curated was a combination of Rolling Stone‘s 100 Greatest Singers of all time and the top male and female artists at the Billboard Music Awards 2014. It was cross referenced with vocal range curated by The Range Place, which took the highest and lowest notes the artists hit on their recorded material.
So for the interactive chart, Rose came out on top overall, with a vocal range of over five octaves. He also topped the lowest notes as well. If you’re interested in what songs are Rose’s lowest and highest notes are, they’re “There Was a Time” and “Ain’t it Fun,” respectively. Mariah Carey topped the highest overall, but Axl came in fourth, behind her, Christina Aguilera and Prince. It’d be interesting to see what Axl’s actual vocal range is like these days, but hey, at least he’s topping a chart or two these days. Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to go read Pitchfork to find out when the cheapest times to fly are.
