James Labrie. N. 5 for me. His early performances of The Killing Hand give me the same sense of awe as listening to young Luciano Pavarotti singing Ingemisco. Very, very few voices with this level of beauty and richness in harmonics - a bit like Stradivari violin compared to a normal instrument. His Awake performance is my favorite metal singing ever. Sadly, his potential as a vocalist was never fully realized. Too much touring, pushing his voice in the heat of a moment, suboptimal coaching and the bandmates who couldn't write more singer-friendly material to save their lives. JLB gets some flak for having short prime and being inconsistent live but what he had to do was more demanding than anything any other singer in the Top 25 had to sing. And he joined DT at the age when many sigers already have a couple of records and tours under their belt.
Freddie Mercury. N.3. I didn't think anyone would defeat JLB in this countdown - after all, this was his home turf - but when I thought of Freddie, I wasn't so confident in my prediction. Like for, I guess, most people here, Queen are just a mild favorite for me but Freddie Mercury is... simply the greatest rock singer ever. I believe he will be remembered as one of the greatest singers of 20th century across the genres, along with Pavarotti, Sinatra, Elvis and a handful of others.
My list:
25.James Hetfield
24.David Bowie
23.Steve Walsh
22.Jon Oliva
21.Zachary Stevens
20.Ian Anderson
19.Jon Anderson
18.Greg Lake
17.Mikael Akerfeldt
16.Hansi Kursch
15.Myles Kennedy
14.Peter Gabriel
13.Annie Haslam
12.Cat Stevens
11.Fish
10.David Gilmour
9.Art Garfunkel
8.Michael Stipe
7.Loreena McKennit
6.Geoff Tate
5.James Labrie
4.Dolores O'Riordan
3.Freddie Mercury
2.Einar Solberg
1.Daniel Gildenlöw
Some singers I was surprised didn't make the countdown: Myles Kennedy, Fish, James Hetfield, David Gilmour
Some singers I was happy to see ranked by others: Jon Oliva, Greg Lake, Michael Stipe