Joe Elliott picks “the best rock vocal of all time”
The art of rock and roll singing was never meant to be sophisticated and pleasurable. Since the genre has been descended from bluesmen looking to sing about the pain in their heart, most musicians were channelling something primal whenever they stepped up to the microphone, from Little Richard to Chris Cornell. Although Joe Elliott had to be put through his paces whenever working with Def Leppard, he considered one song to be one of the most incredible vocals of all time.
When first getting started singing, though, Elliott was looking to make something more radio-friendly than what he was hearing in the scene. Although the first Def Leppard record was indebted to the new wave of British heavy metal, Elliott’s love of bands like Black Sabbath was counterbalanced by his love of glam rock, worshipping artists like David Bowie and Mott the Hoople.
Discussing his first loves as a musician, Elliott thought that the first glam bands gave him the confidence to sing for the first time, telling Louder, “I might be able to pull off something akin to what Alice Cooper and Ian Hunter did. They’re not great singers, but they portray a song brilliantly. I love those character singers – Alice, Ian, John Lydon, Gary Holton from the Heavy Metal Kids. Their limitations became their strength”.
As much as he could deliver a snarling vocal performance, Elliott would be put through his paces when working with Mutt Lange for the first time. Coming from the world of AC/DC, Lange was used to whipping artists into shape, including finetuning the vocals until they were as perfect as possible.
Across albums like Hysteria, Def Leppard had the same kind of massive vocal harmony sound that would rival Queen on their best days, featuring many different voices going in and out of the mix. For all of the layers of vocals that the band could pack onto their records, there was one artist who could get it done with one track as far as Elliott was concerned.
Before glam rock had even begun, Mick Jagger had become the embodiment of rock and roll vocals, providing the snarling counterpoint to what The Beatles were doing on the other side of England. Even though Elliott may have inherited some Stones songs secondhand from various glam cover versions, he still maintained that ‘Street Fighting Man’ could never be equalled.
When talking about the trademark Stones rocker, Elliott thought that no other vocal came close to Jagger, explaining, “Mick Jagger was another, and on ‘Street Fighting Man’, he delivered one of the best rock vocal performances of all time”. Considering where rock was at the turn of the 1960s, it would make sense why Elliott would see the same spirit in Jagger’s vocals as well.
Compared to the beginnings of progressive and psychedelic rock coming out around the same time, Jagger’s performance is borderline punk in its delivery, providing the perfect counterpoint to Keith Richards’s snarling electric guitar. Elliott would even adopt a few of Jagger’s moves for his use, always keeping that signature rasp in his voice whether he was singing one of the band’s ballads or their uptempo material. While Def Leppard may be heralded as one of the greatest hair metal bands ever, Elliott always had one foot trailing back into rock history.
