The best singer in The Beatles, according to Ozzy Osbourne
Half the reason why people love the sound of The Beatles comes down to the harmonies. It’s easy to pick every one of them out of a lineup with their isolated tracks, but when all of them start singing in three-part harmony, it’s the musical equivalent of sunlight peaking through the clouds on a rainy day. There is a certain order as far as Ozzy Osbourne is concerned, though, and John Lennon is still at the top of his list of the greatest voices in rock.
Then again, Osbourne’s turn as a frontman was far removed from the kind of music The Beatles made. Whereas Black Sabbath was known for playing 12-bar blues in their early years, their signature sound was basically as if the back half of ‘I Want You (She’s So Heavy)’ was stretched out for an entire career, except with more allusions to demons thrown in for good measure.
Osbourne never tried to hide his influence, either, saying in Classic Albums, “The first record to turn me on was ‘She Loves You’, then I wanted to be a Beatle, but instead I ended up in Black Sabbath.” For anyone who was a fan of heavier rock, though, Lennon was easily the first person that many went to.
Sure, Paul McCartney could shriek like Little Richard when he wanted to, but Lennon had a more erratic tone in his voice that could cut through any room. From the first time people heard songs like ‘Please Please Me’, Lennon’s voice was far stronger than anyone else’s, almost like he was trying to assert his dominance as one of the main leaders of the group.
Even when he screwed up in his early years, he still managed to sound gargantuan. For as many times that Lennon talked about not being proud of the vocal take on the song ‘Twist and Shout’, that frantic style of singing would actually go a long way in helping introduce that style of singing to the punk community.
While the competition between Lennon and McCartney was fairly stiff, when pressed by Rolling Stone, Ozzy Osbourne considered Lennon the best singer of the group. When looking at both of their approaches, there are actually pretty similar ways that each of them sees themselves as singers.
Aside from Osbourne later covering Lennon’s ‘Imagine’, his softer singing goes from that slightly nasally delivery that Lennon had in his prime, like on ‘Solitude’ from Master of Reality or when he was required to belt on songs like ‘Changes’. That’s not to say that Lennon had only one style, though.
Black Sabbath might be known as the first true heavy metal act, but Lennon was more interested in pushing his voice further on Plastic Ono Band, which resulted in some proto-metal screams on tracks like ‘Mother’ and ‘Well Well Well’. Whereas McCartney usually had a lot of diversity in his vocal range, Lennon’s voice is the kind of sound that you can feel the power of before you even hear any of the notes. Even when he’s in pain, there’s sincerity in every word he ever sang.
