What do Stephen Malkmus, Black Francis, Bob Dylan, and Ice-T all have in common?

Zak Krone STAFF WRITER

What constitutes a good rock band frontman? Swagger? Looks? Cocaine? Probably a good combination of all three, but I would like to take a few minutes out of your schedule to bring to light a few excellent frontmen with lacking one key characteristic: The ability to sing. Here's where everything else trumps the singing talent of a vocalist:

Stephen Malkmus: First with Pavement, and now with the Jicks, Stephen Malkmus has made a living off of using his uncomfortable small vocal range (I think it's somewhere around a third). Anything outside of this third tends to turn into a wavering mess. He's kind of like Demitri Martin, if Demitri Martin couldn't even sing that well.

Black Francis (The Pixies): Yes, we all saw Fight Club and discovered the Pixies through the final scene with the Pixies's "where is my mind" playing as the buildings exploded (or we knew about them before and brag about it to all our friends) (or you have no idea what I'm talking about and you desperately need to go to Blockbuster). Listen to almost any other song, though, and you'll realize that just being able to understand what Francis's is saying is a miracle. He seems to be going for that whiny six year old boy voice that Cartman uses (but moooooeeeoooooom).

Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan): Bob Dylan is listed at the 7th greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone magazine. How? Who could say such a thing? Over the course of his career he went from a nasal groan to a smokers cough. Seriously, who could defend this man's singing? Bono. Oh yes, Bono could do it, and I quote "To understand Bob Dylan's impact as a singer, you have to imagine a world without Tom Waits, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Lucinda Williams or any other vocalist with a cracked voice, dirt-bowl yelp or bluesy street howl." I imagine he wrote that on a typewriter (because he's fucking Bono) with sunglasses and a leather jacket on while listening to Bob Dylan on his U2 edition iPod. Really Bono? You don't think Louis Armstrong had anything to do with cracked voices? You don't think Joni Mitchell had anything to do with phrasing? Just because Bob Dylan is the definitive songwriter of his generation does not mean that we all have to pretend sings well.

Ice - T (Body Count): No one denies that he is one of the most prolific actors of our generation (Right? He's like Ice Cube and Daniel Day Lewis combined). But a long time ago he was in a band called Body Count, where his job was to… talk. Not rapping, talking. Even when he has to say incendiary things, like "I want to shoot every cop in L.A." you fell like the least he could do is yell. He looks angry enough. Come on Iceberg, just one little yelp? Kinda makes you wish for a little Rage Against the Machine.

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