Do you prefer male or female vocals in music?

[PickALilly]

Generally speaking that is. I was having this discussion with a friend prompted by her, and I'm curious If you have a preference which do you prefer?

I prefer male vocalists because I mostly listen to metal/industrial metal and hard rock and for those genres I favour relatively deep and harsh tones.

Female. I love rock/heavy metal with a female vocal. Think Nightwish, Leaves eyes, within temptation etc.

I probably listen to more male artists but my two favourite singers are female. So not sure really, I guess both!

Male, but not exclusively so, there are plenty of female singers that I like.

I do love a male falsetto though.

No preference. I dislike the thought of people preferring male voices, though, because that just seems like internalised misogyny.

Musical preferences can tell you a lot about what people really think (see also: only listening to white male guitar bands, for example).

Male almost always.
There are some great female vocalists out there but I prefer shouty sweary/ miserable men.

Point proven by a PP: 'women who screech'.

I think that calling internalised misogyny is a bit of a stretch as is your remark about it telling you who people really are. I don't imagine that's the case for most people, not on MN anyway. There are a lot of female artists with incredible voices that I enjoy listening to occasionally but for me deeper voices are more pleasing to my ear for the genres that I prefer. I like deep, hard vocals and I'm more likely to hear that from a man when I'm listening to metal. I prefer German too because I think that it fits metal even more than English does, again that's just my preference. That doesn't mean that I don't respect female artists or think that they don't belong in certain genres.

I dislike the thought of people preferring male voices, though, because that just seems like internalised misogyny

It’s just a range thing. I like low voices - way lower than the average female voice could get.

Exactly what Jacqueshammer said.

I don't have a preference. My favourite songs/singers are a mix of both. But I do find it kind of sexy when people sing outside the expected vocal range for their sex.

jacques but male and female pop singers actually sing in similar ranges. Someone like Ozzy Osbourne has a higher range, for example, than Karen Carpenter. And many male singers use falsetto frequently.

Some depressing opinions on this thread — ‘screechy’ or ‘dreadful, breathy’ women vs ‘sexy’, ‘deep’ male voices.

No preference but much prefer music with a distinctive voice and not another manufactured voice (if that makes sense)

Don't have overall preference. Depends on the song, I either like the song or not, but at the moment seem to like overwhelmingly songs by female artists.

I generally prefer male vocals.

My OH is in a band and there are 2 female vocalists - they sound fucking awful and I can't speak to him about band stuff at all in case I tell him what I think about them 🙈.

Perhaps Jacques tends to prefer the deep male voices though? I certainly do. I can enjoy voices that aren't so deep but they rarely make me feel the way that the deeper ones do, and perhaps as a previous poster said it's connected to sex too. A deep male voice will give me shivers in a way that a female one won't. The more bass my favourite singer has in his voice the better.

but male and female pop singers actually sing in similar ranges. Someone like Ozzy Osbourne has a higher range, for example, than Karen Carpenter. And many male singers use falsetto frequently

Well quite, if only I’d known, eh?

As I said “I prefer lower voices, way lower than the average female could get”. That’s fairly explanatory.

Im a mezzo. My singing teacher is a tenor. We have some overlap, but even within the normal tenor range he can get lower than I can.

I absolutely adore the sound and timbre of a baritone or bass.

Lots of women sound like little girls (the ones you see twisting their dress and showing their knickers at the nursery concert). Sounding slightly out of breath or like you're going to cry isn't cute when you're a grown up! There are some powerful woman vocalists too but as a rule I would rather listen to men singing.

What a very odd thread.

For the posters who can't imagine Noddy Holder doing anything different.

And how anyone could think the sex of one voice is preferable to the other.

Generally female. I like lots of male singers too, but my favourites often have quite distinctive voices like Neil Young or Nick Cave.

drcoconut what a horrifically misogynistic comment

Depends on who does the song better.

Female, however I do like love The Calling’s lead man - Alex Band - he has such a deep, sexy voice.

Male. I love me some sexy ass baritone. I'm not that keen on male singers that sing a lot of high notes either. I suppose I'm more into the crooner style than rock/metal when it comes to actual vocals.