9. Beach Boys
Mike Love is credited as Beach Boys' lead singer, but his nasally vocals fell into the background as the group's music grew sadder and more complex. (Not to slight the underrated Love—he's an obvious influence on Joey Ramone, and therefore a major influence on the signature punk-rock vocal style.) Al Jardine and Dennis Wilson also made worthy vocal contributions on the upbeat songs, but the band's ballads were always carried by Carl and Brian Wilson, both of whom were blessed with flawless tenors that carried the Beach Boys' most beautifully uplifting and devastating music. Singing together, they weren't too shabby, either.
10. Grateful Dead
Nobody in the Grateful Dead could sing all that well, including Jerry "Captain Trips" Garcia, the most prominent vocal presence on the Dead's records. So while Bob Weir and Phil Lesh are pedestrian singers at best, they aren't that much worse than Garcia, who surrendered the microphone whenever his bandmates made songwriting contributions. While The Dead aren't known for vocal harmonies, they sounded better singing together than on their own, as shown on the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young-style "Uncle John's Band" from Workingman's Dead.
11. Sloan
It's possible that perpetually underappreciated (in the States, anyway) Canadian power-pop band Sloan is too democratic. Fans tend to gravitate to bands where the members have clearly defined roles and responsibilities. In Sloan, everybody sings, writes, and trades off instruments. This means there's no leader or star in Sloan, though a surplus of wonderful songs and killer harmonies would make up for that in a just world. Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, Andrew Scott, and Jay Ferguson have enough songs and vocal ability to carry a band on their own, but it's what they do together that makes Sloan one of the great unheralded power-pop bands.
12. Uncle Tupelo
In retrospect, it seems amazing that Jay Farrar and Jeff Tweedy—the songwriting core of the trailblazing alt-country band Uncle Tupelo—were able to make four albums before their creative and personal relationship flamed out. They were never all that compatible to begin with: They had such separate, strong sensibilities that they each formed a thriving, distinctive band around them after breaking up (Farrar's Son Volt and Tweedy's Wilco). While each Uncle Tupelo album coheres around a unifying sound—like the acoustic minimalism of March 16-20, 1992, say, or the more ornate, string-laden studio record Anodyne—their individual songs stand out like lumps in oatmeal. Farrar was the more austere and affected of the two, with a thunderous voice that drove propulsive country-rock classics like the No Depression opener "Graveyard Shift" or aching ballads like Anodyne's title track. Tweedy was more of a wild card: Rather than outbelting Farrar, he took playful pop end-run-arounds, from the deft Minutemen tribute "D. Boon" off Still Feel Gone to Anodyne's single "The Long Cut," which hinted at a commercial potential the band wouldn't stay together long enough to realize.
13. The Clash
For two singers with jarringly dissimilar voices, the gruff, gravelly Joe Strummer and the sweetly melodic Mick Jones pulled off some great vocal interplay in The Clash. Strummer, of course, will always be remembered as the band's driving force and political conscience, but Jones had his fair share of high points: Tracks like "Stay Free" and "Lost In The Supermarket" show a vulnerability that only Jones could pull off. Even Strummer wrote the lyrics for the latter song with Jones in mind. At the height of The Clash's worldwide popularity, Jones outnumbered Strummer when it came to radio hits: While Strummer belted out the roaring "Rock The Casbah," Jones sang lead on the soulful, bittersweet "Train In Vain" and the raucous "Should I Stay Or Should I Go."
14. Mission Of Burma
While less polarized than Strummer and Jones, post-punk champs Mission Of Burma had a similar dynamic: guitarist Roger Miller sang the rawer, more cryptic stuff, while bassist Clint Conley tackled the poppy and personally poetic. And as with Jones' songs, Conley's tracks are the catchier ones. The band's most indelible songs, "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate" and the oft-covered "That's When I Reach For My Revolver," came from the bassist—and Burma's debut single from 1981 is the perfect distillation of Conley's anthemic tunefulness ("Academy Fight Song") and Miller's cerebral angularity ("Max Ernst").
15. The Go-Betweens
Like many of the bands on this list, The Go-Betweens sometimes inspired division: Fans could like both Robert Forster and Grant McLennan's songs, but they tended to have a clear preference. That makes sense, since the two have striking differences: Forster's voice was a little flatter and his lyrics more heady ("Spring Rain"), while McLennan tended toward gentler, more melodic songs like "Streets Of Your Town." And though they complemented each other with backing vocals, more often than not, they stayed out of each other's way. The duo split for most of the '90s to make solo discs, but reignited The Go-Betweens in 2000, with different backing musicians. McLennan died suddenly in 2006, ending the band for good.
16. Pink Floyd
Throughout the '70s, David Gilmour and Roger Waters brought complementary voices to Pink Floyd: one husky and anthemic (think "Wish You Were Here"), the other dramatic and high-strung (see "Brain Damage"). But their partnership unraveled on their later rock operas, as Waters seized the vision and lyrics on The Wall and The Final Cut. After Waters split, he and Gilmour struggled to replace each other on their respective tours, with Gilmour clubfooting his way through the verses of "Comfortably Numb," and Waters resorting to Bryan Adams and Cyndi Lauper at his solo The Wall (Live In Berlin) concert.
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