10 Greatest Rock Frontmen Of All Time
Turning singing into a theatrical performance.
Singers have a tendency to be looked at as divas in their respective bands. Instead of playing an instrument, these people have to just show up without a sore throat and sing to get a big check at the end of the day. However, there's being a singer and then there's being a frontman.
A frontman is the one who brings the most physicality to any band's show. With the other members left to play their instruments, a frontman must be able to move across the stage while making sure the audience is having the time of their lives at every minute. Since they are normally left without an instrument, singers must typically use their voice to bring across a song's emotion in addition to running up and down the stage. No matter how good the instrumentation is, the frontman always has that X factor that keeps the crowd ravenously fixated towards the stage.
Through translating musical emotion to the audience, the frontman is the one member that makes a rock show feel like something bigger than just music. Across the classic rock glory days, these singers have had audiences eating out of the palm of their hands for decades.
10. Ozzy Osbourne - Black Sabbath
With metal rapidly growing a following in the early 70's, Black Sabbath were the prime source of all things evil in the hard rock world. Even though Tony Iommi's guitar work sends chills up and down your spine, Ozzy Osbourne's visceral shouts left audiences absolutely terrified.
Starting out, Sabbath's records sounded almost demonic with Osbourne's booming presence as he told tales of darkness from "Paranoid" to "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath." When Sabbath hit the stage, Osbourne would become something else entirely.
Suddenly, the dastardly voice present on the records had a face, and it screamed pure insanity. Whereas most of the band tended to stand fairly still, Osbourne felt like a madman that had recently escaped from an insane asylum. As the band delivered riffs of doom, Osbourne would stand there with an expression of off-kilter euphoria. It felt almost as if every word coming out of his mouth was a trance-like initiation into Sabbath's world of madness.
The aura that Ozzy created led him to an equally successful solo career after Sabbath which involved even more tales of Satanic debauchery. After Sabbath, rock went from party music to sonic witchcraft, with Ozzy as the High Priest of Darkness.