How many times over the years have you said, "This band would be so much better without the vocals"? I for one have uttered those words too fucking often. Good bands are often sabotaged by weak/annoying singers, whose grating, nauseating, mewling (etc., etc.) tones serve as turds in otherwise inviting sonic punch bowls.

Vocalists whom I'd like to see permanently muzzled come in varying shades of awfulness, of course. What follows is a rogues gallery of front bastards I would like to see STFU forever (in no particular order; they are all equally despicable to my ears).

[01] The castrato heavy-metal wailer. Dude, I know this is your method of projecting "soul" and/or "anguish" and/or "badassitude," but you sound like a bitch (the canine kind) that needs to be put out of her misery. May I do the honors?

[02] The death-metal Cookie Monster growler [see video below]. Okay, we get it: You are beyond a shadow of a doubt the scariest, most cut-throat motherfucker in the universe—or so you think. In reality, you're a cartoonish laughingstock. Your lyrics could be Dante-esque or Shakespearean for all we know, but nobody in this world (or likely in the next one) can decipher them. Let the music do the important job of making listeners void their bowels in fear. You, you're ruining the desired effect, clown.

[03] The Robert Smith emulator. For decades, I've wanted to slice the tongue out of the Cure manchild's mouth. Unfortunately, the whiny Brit's laughing gear remains intact and he's spawned legions of imitators who think blobby Bobby's the ultimate figurehead of misunderstood youth. So even when the Cure go on one of their many hiatuses, dozens of sad pseudo-goths rush in to fill the always-on-the-verge-of-crying void. I would love to give these bleating poseurs a real reason to weep.

[04] The well-off, suburban American punk who tries to sound like a circa 1977 English yob—with clogged sinuses. Your parents are rich and you have no genuine strife in your life, but somehow your existence sucks (maybe one of the wheels of your skateboard is perpetually wobbly or the convenience store ran out of your brand of cigarettes). You got nothing substantial against which to rebel. Yet you fancy yourself as the reincarnation of Sham 69's Jimmy Pursey and the Cockney Rejects' Stinky Turner. Maybe you should enlist in the Marines, so you'll really have something against which to rail.

[05] The unassuming white boy who squeezes out that constipated bovine yowl with squinty-eyed intensity. Again, straining vocal cords ≠ soul. Striving to revive Bad Company's Paul Rodgers' lascivious blues belting is not a clever idea, especially if you have dubious sex appeal. Ingest some laxative and stay at least 20 feet from all microphones. Gracias.

[06] Joanna Newsom. Not all unique voices are necessarily good. While Newsom should be commended for her idiosyncratic music, her so very precious vocal stylings possess the power to instill in ordinarily pacifistic listeners (like your blogger) homicidal urges. Keep on harpin', Joanna, but, please, zip your piehole.

[07] The honky who adopts Jamaican patois. This is simply dreadful (rimshot) and all perpetrators should be yanked offstage posthaste with one of those old vaudeville canes and be denied ganja privileges for the rest of their green-black-and-red-knit-capped days.

[08] The oleaginous male neo-soul/R&B singer who inevitably draws adjectives like "shmoove." His ballads are like 10 pounds of ick in a five-pound bag and his lyrics are stultifyingly trite. Singers of this ilk deserve a lifetime of cock-blocking.

[09] The oleaginous female neo-soul/R&B singer who inevitably draws descriptors like "diva" and who over-uses melisma. Your effortful emoting just screams "high-maintenance" and your ululating showboating is tedious. You need more time in the lab with Aretha Franklin, Lyn Collins, and Dusty Springfield's '60s recordings.

[10] Dave Segal. This fool struggles to attain a monotone. Even Lee Hazlewood and Leonard Cohen songs are beyond his range. Dull, dull, dull!

Dying Fetus- “Homicidal Retribution”