Who was your favorite weird singer?

Plastic Bertrand

Bjork. Nobody looks or sounds like her.

Michael Jackson

Weird Al Yankovic owns this thread - it's in his name.

Diamanda! Omg we used to call her house and hang up on her all the time. She was so weird when she would answer.

My favorite singer is David Bowie, but he's not weird. He was a strikingly normal, well-adjusted guy who made compelling music and visually fascinating art. After his retirement he lived quietly in NYC, dressing in ordinary clothes to blend in with the crowd, walking his kid to school every day, frequenting bookstores and farmer's markets.

Most of the others on your list were genuinely weird, not just putting on a character for entertainment but living full time as a character, like Tiny Tim or Klaus Nomi. Those guys were really out there.

Bowie was weird looking/sounding?

Yes, #7- how old are you?

Björk most definitely. Shhhh...shhhh...

Yolandi Visser from Die Antwoord

Laurie Anderson

No love for Vitas? He’s kind of sexy in his own way for being such a creep

David Bowie and Boy George are not odd-sounding. The rest of your list were all equally fabulous except Galas who is really really an acquired taste.

Vitas was truly sexy in some of his videos when he was young. Also quite weird, to this day!

Is Rufus Wainwright weird sounding? I can do a pretty funny impression of him. At least I think it's pretty funny.

Yoko Ono

Anohni

I like Death of Samantha a lot.

You can't have a list of weird singers without GG Allin and Wild Man Fischer, two performers whose schtick was acting out their mental illnesses.

Dunno how Allin sounded, but he was famous for taking a shit on stage and smearing it on himself and any unlucky bystanders.

R12 I love Vitas! "Blelelelelelelelehaha..."

R19 I met GG Allin back when I was in college. I went with a friend to interview him for the college newspaper before the show. He was an OK guy ... a bit strange but not a jerk or anything ... but I opted to skip his show. I'm glad I did because my friend attended and got shit thrown on her biker jacket.

James Brown was unusual looking. Love the Diamanda Galas music.

I feel compelled to honorly mention Sandy Dillon.

Lovin' You by Minnie RIpperton is weird. but I liked her.

Siouxsie & Budgie as The Creatures doing a Cover of The Trogg's Wild Thing,

It's been ages since I've listened to Diamanda Galás; this thread has inspired me to listen to some stuff tonight. I loved her 1984 self-titled album, which is out of print now. "Panoptikon" is, I think, the best of the "voice and tape" type pieces she did. Other albums of hers I remember really enjoying include Saint of the Pit, You Must Be Certain of the Devil, Vena Cava, Maledicton and Prayer, and Defixiones, but really, there's good stuff on each of her albums. Schrei is probably the most difficult for me.

I went to see her live in 2008 in London. It was a wonderful concert, at the piano. I remember the crowd was extremely diverse. Little old ladies sitting next to punks, that kind of thing. Everyone enjoyed it.

António Variações, pictured here with his trademark "scissor glasses".

Grace Jones

No love for me?

You all have a very strange definition of weird. David Bowie is not weird.

Morgana King. Half the time you're saying "she sounds great" and the other half of the time you're saying "my God WTF is wrong with her?"

Tom Waits. Good character actor, too.

Monti Rock III, or as he was sometimes known, "Disco-Tex."

Cyndi Lauper.

Siouxsie Sioux (although I find her attractive with all the makeup).

Wow. Great thread to drag back out.

I saw Grace Jones' One Man Show in Manhattan on Halloween. Best show I ever saw.

Lena Lovitch , Souxie Sue and Plastic Bertrand/ Elton Motello were awesome.

Nina Hagen did a show at Xenon when I worked there. She was crazy and dirty. Yuck.

Whatever happened to Antony? Never my favorite but wasn't he popular with the gays?

Pete Burns

Critically acclaimed David Byrnes sounds pretty weird to me.

Not a favorite, but weird nonetheless:

Micheal McDonald.

He just mumbles out sounds.

Have you ever heard someone sing one of his songs a karaoke?

^at, sorry

There seemed to be something going around in the late 70's with "odd" female singers, who were really awesome. Siouxsie Sioux, Nina Hagen, Lene Lovich, Kate Bush... I think Diamanda started up around then too. Whatever was in the water, it was good stuff!

R37, Antony is now a woman named Anohni. Still a great weird singer though.

Kate Bush should be on that list.

Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart), a career of standout weirdness, sure. But his early 'Safe as Milk' album is full of gems, an alltime favorite.

R40 Ah, you’ve caught me relaxing in my music nook!

Legendary Stardust Cowboy

Wesley Willis. RIP!!

How can some of you name all these women and leave out Wendy O. Williams?

I've started delving into Siouxsie and the Banshees. They are SO good! The music is much more varied than I was expecting, lots of great album tracks and b-sides too, it's not only about the singles. Really enjoyable!

John Fred

Yma Sumac - amazing range, ear-shattering high notes.

Shouldn’t Cyndi be listed? After all she is so unusual...

Dave Wyndorf, vocalist of Monster Magnet.

I feel I can’t adequately describe why his voice is so bizarre and yet so appealing. He always sounds like he’s wryly narrating a dark sci-fantasy comic-book from the ‘80s - he sounds by turns psychedelic & loopy & campy, then menacing & seductive. I like that the raw, frank quality in his rock growls is not affected as it is with other metal artists; he’s just putting dynamics where they need to be to get his point across.

Bowie. He's an icon. I can listen to him on a loop. But as others have said, is he weird? He has a really great voice.

Bill Kaulitz, Tokio Hotel.

Where do I even begin? He was obsessed with Nena as a gayling, maybe that was the trigger.

I'm missing something: OP pictures Alice Cooper, but doesn't list Alice Cooper as an option.

Really, bitches?! How fucking DARE you!

R58 that is brilliant! Haha!

Definitely Nina. Look at these old men gawking at her.

Love Nina! She's nuts in such a fun way.

"New Yoooooooork! New YOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRK!!!!"

I'd also mention Karin Dreijer Andersson of the Knife/Fever Ray/Honey is Cool. Her recent artistic choices while certainly being 'weird' have let me down however. She's now very into 'kweer' politics and there's not much substance there.

Also Sopor Aeternus/Anna-Varney has been making shocking, melancholic and utterly haunting music since the 80s but hasn't received much recognition for it.