I'm fairly sure that my decades-long aversion to Yes and Supertramp can probably be put down to my run-away-screaming reaction to most falsetto vocals.

I have the same dilemma over certain bands...for example I really want to like The Decemberists, but the guy's voice just grates like fingernails down a blackboard!
I can't handle the trend for whiny, nerdy voices at all - give me a big booming baritone any day!

Maybe, it's my age but I do like a bit of crooning in my rock - nothing better than when Iggy does it (check out his recent cover of Monochrome Set's "He's Frank" with Fatboy Slim).
His collaboration with Ryuichi Sakamoto on "Risky" was another superb Iggy vocal.

Bowie, Nick Cave, Scott Walker, Jim Morrison, Andrew Eldritch (I was never a goth by the way...), David Sylvian...

Mind you there are always exceptions, one of my favourite bands is Sparks and most of their songs are in falsetto!

The baggy/shoegazing/whatever-you-want-to-call it era of the late 80s to early 90s produced so many weedy, fey male singing voices that I'd end up screaming at the stereo for them to "Man up!!"

I also struggle with the Plant-style scream, though Plant himself gets away with it.

I love the Beastie Boys' music but as for their voices - why would I want to listen to some kids having a tantrum? Go to your room!

And I've complained before about that supposedly emotive style of singing that insists on putting a brief, croaky catch in the voice at the start of every line. Sharleen Spiteri is a regular offender.

There's another school of singers who are so instantly recognisable because of their unique vocal mannerisms that I can only really listen to isolated tracks by them, never full albums. For example, much as I like Antony Hegarty's singing, I wouldn't consider going to a live show because I know I'd be all Antony'd out after the first four or five songs.

Similarly, I think I've enjoyed all the Neville Brothers shows I've seen because the vocal duties are fairly evenly shared by all the brothers - any more than half a dozen warbly-Aaron jobbies would have been just too much to take.

I cant understand a word but i can listen to french sounding vocals all day.........

are fine by me. There are however two vocalists that mean I can't ever listen to their material:

Robert Plant. Neil Young.

It's their voices, they just don't sit with me at all. I don't know what it is, they just grate on me.

I absolutely love the *idea* of The Flaming Lips - the intelligence, the concepts, their weird and wonderful live shows - but I can't get past the fact that Wayne Coyne couldn't carry a tune even if he was given one of those big blue Ikea bags to carry it in.

That guy out of Pearl Jam and Kurt from Nirvana started it now there are millions of copyists. Actually Paul Rogers also has it.
Its supposed to equate to singing with feeling I guess. But boy does it grate on me

But i love this one from The Boss & Co

...many types of vocalist, from those Bowie/Ferry/David Sylvian/Scott Walker-style vocals to the dramatic, late 60s/early 70s Elvis Presley or even Roy Orbison.

I also love the UK vocalists that came from the 60s blues boom such as Robert Plant, Rod Stewart, Steve Winwood, Steve Marriott or classic soul vocalists like Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Otis Redding and Levi Stubbs. Howlin' Wolf had a pretty fearsome set of pipes on him too.

I personally have a soft spot for rock/metal vocalists like Freddie Mercury, Rob Halford, David Byron, Ronnie James Dio, Ian Gillan, Bruce Dickinson and Bruce Dickinson- though I reckon I'll be alone on that here!

Jon Anderson apparently doesn't sing with a falsetto- he says it's an 'alto tenor'- but yeah, I can see why he'd put people off (though I've always liked his voice). Roger Hodgson is definitely even more of an acquired taste.

As for singers I personally really, really dislike, all these 'regional' vocalists like Alex Turner and Kate Nash I really can't abide. I have to confess that I too would like The Decemberists a lot more if it wasn't for that vocalist (especially on tracks like 'O Valencia'- nice tune but the delivery is so whiny!).

…whose voices grate on me in some way or whose intonation I find irritating, but the only one who repeatedly makes me want to "run-away-screaming" (© A. Valparaiso, 2008) is Chad Kroeger of Nickelback - his is the voice guaranteed to have me reaching for the off button.

But I'm fond of countless singers