re: The five greatest male voices in the pop/rock era

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All absolutely fantastic singers. With the exception of Coverdale, none have a sensational singing voice.

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We're really starting to parse words, now, though - what makes a fantastic singer? Is David Lee Roth, then? Of course - and a great front man (when you can catch him in a normal phase) - but not a top tier singing voice (although it is better than many give him credit for - it was not easy keeping up with the Van Halen brothers.

Now, as to your point - Tommy Shaw was solid for the material, mabye a little better. Ditto for Steve Walsh (I have a particular fondness for Kansas - "Carry On My Wayward Son" was probably the first rock and roll song I knew all the words to ) - but, Delp, Perry and Mercury all had (and Perry is still with us) - a certain something extra, Mercury, particularly.

And while Coverdale was probably in the category of "Opera-eligible", I didn't find his singing particularly entertaining, despite his obvious qualitative advantage.

This thread is about male voices, but this is kind of akin to discussing the differences between Ann Wilson (Heart), Stevie Nicks and Pat Benetar - three very different ladies, with 3 very different singing voices - while Benetar is probably the top, qualitatively, Wilson probably gets the edge in both "power" and "Rock and Rollness" - Nicks has that more raspy, worldly voice that is not particularly of high quality, but is probably the most expressive of the three, despite its qualitative disadvantages.

Okay - so now we're really getting subjective.