I absolutely have to second the"wish fulfillment" sentiment...definately Lee.

"Rain King." Lee Ranaldo. 'Nuff said.

way i see it:

thurston: easily the best vocalist in the band, widest range of voice, cool melodies from time to time.
lee: the owner of a coolest voice in a band, which makes everything he sings sound very,very good, even though his vocals skills are very limited. and i wonder what if he get to sign like 8 songs on an album, would i still love them as much as i love those circa 8 his songs from the last decade?
kim: i said that lee's vocal skills are very limited? well, kim is the worst vocalist in a band, by a mile. i like it when she is nearly whispering and hate when she's trying to sing or scream.
btw: i found this on sy message board some time ago, and added a short piece of skip tracer.. check this out its hilarious http://www.hoarfrost.neostrada.pl/lee.mp3

I cannot stand Kim Gordon's voice. The reason I never really swallowed the SY thing is her singing; I can't fathom a band where the members appear to be of the opinion that it would be artistically/musically desirable to let the member with the most, utterly annoying voice do some singing, while two other members with perfectly adequate voices don't sing.

She sounds like a drunk, boring er...drunk. Mumbling away with the occasional off-key sung-phrase.

Good God!

CRAP...er....What was the question again?

only here wrote:

mattw wrote:It also inspired a similarly ridiculous band named (zip, pow, bang!): Eric's Trip.

And they inspired a ridiculously great band named the Microphones. So i vote for Lee.

How did the Microphones get their name from Eric's Trip?


I picked Thurston because he's consistently good, but Kim and Lee definitely have their moments.

Early SY has lots of great Kim songs. On Confusion is Sex her songs are _very_ unsettling and that's great. But then through the 80's she actually developed a good singing voice, IMHO. But then thru the late 90's ... ooo, man, that beat poetry stuff??? And her growls _used_ to be good, but now they sound way too forced.

Lee and Thurston do the same IM TOO COOL TO ACTUALLY SING yelling thing with the only difference being that Lee's is a little prettier. Probably my favorite vocal moment on a Sonic Youth album is when lee is yelling "HELLO TWENTY!!!!! FIFTEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!" so this one goes to him.

Kim can't sing for shit, but Pacific Coast Highway is my favorite Sister song, so shes ok

AAAAAAAARGH wrote:Lee and Thurston do the same IM TOO COOL TO ACTUALLY SING yelling thing with the only difference being that Lee's is a little prettier. Probably my favorite vocal moment on a Sonic Youth album is when lee is yelling "HELLO TWENTY!!!!! FIFTEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!" so this one goes to him.

Kim can't sing for shit, but Pacific Coast Highway is my favorite Sister song, so shes ok

Thruston doesn't just yell, I think he's got amazing vocals melodies... Total Trash? Teenage Riot? Tom Violence? Expressway Thru Yr Skull? (and dozens more)

I know what you mean... sometimes they kinda sound "lazy"... but man, compared to a lot of other bands... I'd say they're closer to singing than not-singing.

toomanyhelicopters wrote:#1 = thurston
#2 = kim
dreadful = lee

I might not say dreadful, but the order is definitely the same. Lee is a distant third.

blurryboy wrote:I just like it when he goes

"Ask... me... if... I..

CAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRREE!"

This might be one of my favourite SY moments. I'm not sure why, it might be the drums coming in after the word "if" that does it.

I think Kim provides the most powerful SY vocals followed by Lee. Songs like 'Cross the Breeze, Shadow of a Doubt, I Wanna Be Yr Dog, Shaking Hell ect. from the earlier days are pretty fucking harsh due to Kim's unrestrained vocals. Her vocals are just way more intense than Thurston or Lee's.