Rob Halford- The greatest Metal Vocalist

There were 4 vocalists in my mind while writing this post i.e. Bruce Dickinson, Ronnie James Dio, Rob Halford and Ian Giilan. But this content is of the greatest metal vocalist. So after a long duration of research and listening the vocal styles and abilities in the metal genre I found Rob halford as the best out of these vocalists and in the entire metal history.

I've spent a lot of time to think and write about Rob halford thats why I feel that he is the best metal vocalist till date. Many people would now object this post as some will say Robert plant should have been the best or Ian Gillan or even Dickinson but guys let me make it clear that during the 70's Zeppelin initiated the metal style but actually it was not metal is was rock.


The huge contribution of metal started with Black Sabbath and the actual metal singing was started by Ronnie James Dio. Ronnie's vocals were highly appreciated in the metal genre but still his vocals was majorly considered hard rock. Then the metal style was somehow being realted to Deep Purple. To an extent I can accept that Ian Gillan's vocal style was metal but overall the sound that the band gave was hard rock. So I had to drop Gillan from the list. Finally one vocalist whom I can consider a true metal vocalist having a metal style with a metal sound(of the band) was Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden. He was a very fine metal vocalist during the 80's but when I heard Rob Halford then my mind said " this is what metal vocals are all about".

What I really love about Halford's vocals is his ability to screech with his falsetto technique at a very high pitch and very few metal vocalists can do that. Many vocalists can screech but not at Halford's pitch. Apart from his screeching ability he was outstanding in his low notes. His lowest note in studio recording was D2 and he had beaten many rock vocalists low notes like Robert Plant, Ian Gillan and even Freddie Mercury. He had a 4 octave vocal range starting from low D2 to high B5. Some of his greatest vocal performance songs are Victim Of Changes, Painkiller, Dreamer Deceiver, Blood Red Skies, A Touch Of Evil, Screaming For Vengence, Dissident Aggressor etc. Rob has been a great influential metal vocalist till date. My favourite song Of Halford would be Painkiller. The whole song is a 'falsetto' based with heavy screeches and high F#5 screams and finally hitting a F4 with his chest voice and holding it for about 19 seconds, well that's a lot of abilities in a single song and he showed one of his best vocal techniques in this song. So, Halford Was Actually The Backbone Of His Band, Judas Priest, And Also A Great Vocalist OF The Metal Genre !.