Favorite Harmonic Song, vocals

[Solaris]

What are your favorite songs that have intricate vocal harmonies?

Mine are "Seven Bridges Road" (Eagles), nearly anything by Yes, "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen). There's probably some others that I can't think of right now.

So what are yours?

[Core]

What are your favorite songs that have intricate vocal harmonies?

Mine are "Seven Bridges Road" (Eagles), nearly anything by Yes, "Bohemian Rhapsody" (Queen). There's probably some others that I can't think of right now.

So what are yours?

Those are both great picks, Solaris.

I've always loved the Beatles' harmony, particularly in songs like "Because." The acapella version of that one on the third Anthology is superb.

The Beach Boys have some great harmonies too. "In My Room" is one of my favorites from them, and the intro song "Our Prayer / Gee" from Brian Wilson's SMiLE still floors me everytime I hear it.

[Spike-X]

God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.

[Lubichev]

Carrie Anne by the Hollies.

[TinMan]

Swamped and Within Me: Lacuna Coil
Pain Inside: Adema
Falling down: Staind

[Rob Allen]

Vocal harmony is a major factor in the sound of the Grateful Dead.

Any you can't go wrong with Manhattan Transfer or their musical ancestors, Lambert, Hendricks & Ross.

[Choreoanimation]

"Never My Love" -- The Association

"I Saw Her Again" -- The Mammas And The Pappas

[Pinball]

Everly Brothers, "Wake Up Little Susie". I like how the lead shifts from one to the other.

[berk]

some favourties

Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy - Andrews Sisters
Don't Fence Me In - Bing Crosby & the Andrews Sisters
Daddy's Little Girl - Mills Brothers
Moments to Remember - The Four Lads
Love Walked In - The Flamingos
Cathy's Clown - Everly Brothers
If I Fell - The Beatles
The Warmth of the Sun - The Beach Boys
Two of Us - The Beatles
New Horizons - Moody Blues
Lap of the Gods - Queen


Of course, you could put in a lot of Andrews Sisters and Mills Brothers and Baech Boys and Everly's etc since they specialised in harmonies.

[Chiasm]

Any song by Alice in Chains where Layne Staley and Jerry Cantrell are both singing.

[howyadoin]

"Down to the River to Pray" - Alison Krauss.

[zilch]

I've always loved vocal harmonies in pop music (and classical stuff too)

the Mills Brothers are really fantastic for this, even imitating musical instruments on some of their songs.

Barbershop quartets totally rock in harmonies.

I think a lot of modern rock skimps out on this Mostly because i think most modern musicians aren't vocally trained for it.

Try and find some madrigal singing (in English preferably), some of the stuff they sing about wouldn't be allowed on todays airwaves.

And someone does a song called "Southern Cross" that totally rocks. "Africa" by Toto is very good also.

[Dan Apodaca]

Elliott Smith has some really cool vocal harmonies in a lot of his stuff. It's all over Figure 8.

[TomGun13]

Matthew Sweet always has some cool harmonies on his tunes, usually just layered vocal tracks with himself doing harmony.

[Jonathan Bogart]

Kirsty MacColl's early work is wonderful for this (especially "They Don't Know," "Terry," and "A New England.") She harmonized with herself like Freddie Mercury, but sounded a lot better, because her voice was so beautiful already. Imogene Heap's recent indie-blog hit "Hide and Seek" reminds me a lot of Kirsty.

The Boswell Sisters were the first of the female close-harmony groups to become popular, and I much prefer them to the unimaginative and brassy Andrews Sisters. They contributed as much as Louis Armstrong to the jazzing of vocal music, especially in Connee Boswell's arrangements, which do tricky things with tempo and harmonic trade-offs that the Beach Boys would have been hard-pressed to pull off at Brian Wilson's studio peak. And even recorded music was live in those days, remember.

I like Dolly Parton's bluegrass version of "Seven Bridges Road" better than the Eagles'. (And Steve Montgomery's original version isn't to be sneezed at either.) But outside of Crosby, Stills & Nash, my favorite classic-rock harmony is probably Creedence Clearwater Revival on Leadbelly's "Cotton Fields."

[howyadoin]

God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.On a related note, Brian Wilson's version of "Goodnight Irene" has to be heard to be believed. And all the harmonies are his.