(Credits: Far Out)
Wed 17 December 2025 21:40, UK
The singer of a band is the glue that holds everything together. You could have the best instrumentalists in the world and the most intricate style of play, but if your singer isn’t up to the task, everything will fall apart.
What makes a good singer is up for debate. Johnny Rotten never had a lot of range, but he was undoubtedly the perfect frontman for the Sex Pistols. The same goes for the likes of Freddie Mercury, someone with an incredible vocal ability but might be different from the style a punk band would want.
What makes a good singer is entirely subjective, depending on the kind of band they’re in and the style of music they are trying to make. That being said, some objective elements will contribute to what a good singer is, including the natural vocal range.
Concert Hotels did a recent study to find out which famous singer has the most incredible vocal range of all time. In doing this, they ran records from near enough every artist that made up pop culture over the past six decades. They recorded the lowest notes they ever sang and the highest notes they ever sang and worked out a vocal range based on the results. The top artist might be surprising initially, but it couldn’t be anyone else when you consider their discography.
Artists of note on the top ten list include David Bowie, Prince, and Mariah Carey, all influential in their own right and with an undeniable vocal range. However, according to science, the top of the tree and the artist with the most incredible vocal range was none other than the controversial Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose.
The powerhouse Axl Rose. (Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
It should be on the docket immediately that we are not discussing the current iteration of Axl Rose’s performances. Time comes for us all, and Rose has seemingly suffered a degradation of his singing power over the years, with recent viral videos being not only painful to watch but harmful to listen to.
Given that recent performances might not put his vocals in the best light, how long he has been performing and what kind of impact that will have on a singer’s vocal cords must be considered. When you listen back to the songs of Guns N’ Roses, there is no doubt that the singer’s vocal range spans a great distance.
From songs like ‘It’s So Easy’, where he sings in a low rumbling voice, to ‘Paradise City’, where his iconic scream resonates throughout, he can use various octaves to give a different feel to different songs. Arguably, the longevity of Guns N’ Roses can be attested to this vocal ability, as it allowed them to apply a new feel to songs throughout their career without massively changing the instrumentation that fans had grown to love.
There is also the elephant in the room that, while Rose was a fantastic singer, he was very keen on not being heard. He would often delay or try to cancel shows at the drop of a hat, allowing his ego to usurp his talent. But it should be remembered that not everybody can pull such moves and still have a band or a show at the end of it. That’s how skilled and powerful he was in his pomp.
One of the best songs that highlights his range is ‘Sweet Child Of Mine,’ a song prominently sung high but that dips into a buried and gritty “Where do we go now?” after the solo. Listen to his performance below.
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