The singer Bruce Dickinson was born in Worksop, Nottinghamshire, England back in 1958, as the famous song of his solo career says. He started his musical career in 1976 and first achieved fame as the frontman of the band Samson. During that time, he even appeared with the band in the cult horror movie “The Incubus” (1981). But obviously, he would really become a Rock star known worldwide when he joined Iron Maiden and released many groundbreaking albums in the 80s. Some of them are “Number of The Beast” (1982), “Piece of Mind” (1983) and “Powerslave” (1984).
Since then, he has been regarded as one of the best Heavy Metal singers of all time, not only for the music he helped to create but also for his incredible vocal range. Curiously, one of his nicknames is “air-raid siren”.
Dickinson has a broad musical taste and is always connected to what is happening in Rock and Roll music. Especially when it comes to singers. Back in the 90s, he even mentioned one vocalist that in his opinion, was the best from that decade.
The singer that Bruce Dickinson said was the best in the 90s
The 80s were really a decade when Iron Maiden became the huge Heavy Metal band that fans known, because they achieved success with their first two records with Paul Di’Anno but really went to another level when Dickinson joined them.
That partnership lasted until 1993 when he decided to leave the band and pursue a solo career. He had already released the solo album “Tattooed Millionaire” in 1990 and during the next years outside Maiden he put out more four praised records. Meanwhile, the Metal band led by the bassist and main songwriter Steve Harris had Blaze Bayley on vocals. With him they released two albums: “The X Factor” (1995) and “Virtual XI” (1995).
But in the 90s, Rock and Metal music were really different. Heavy Metal, especially didn’t had the same appeal that it had in the past decade. Grunge was really the new thing that the record companies, radio and MTV were focusing on. Although that new sub-genre was kind of “killing” Metal, Dickinson loved some of the bands that were labeled into that kind of music.
One of them was Soundgarden. The group was formed in Seattle, Washington in 1984, but only achieved more fame in the 90s. As the Iron Maiden frontman said in an interview with Folhateen, the teenager segment of the Brazilian newspaper Folha De São Paulo back in 1997 (Translated by Rock and Roll Garage), he believed that the band’s singer Chris Cornell was the best one.
He also likes Eddie Vedder
“The best voice I’ve heard in rock is Chris Cornell. I don’t think he’s going to sing hard rock anymore. But he can beat any metal vocalist.” Dickinson had also praised Cornell in a conversation with Let It Rock back in 2001. In which he also included the Pearl Jam vocalist Eddie Vedder.
“The best rock voice… Best two rock voices I’ve heard in a the last few years both have been from Grunge bands. It’s Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam) and the other one is Chris Cornell from Soundgarden,” Bruce Dickinson said.
Chris Cornell was born in Seattle, Washington in 1964 and started his musical career in 1983, one year after Dickinson joined Maiden. In 1984 he helped to form Soundgarden, band that first helped him to achieve success. In the early 90s he curiously, was part of the successful project Temple of The Dog. That supergorup also had his Soundgarden bandmate Matt Cameron and the Pearl Jam members Eddie Vedder, Stone Grossard, Jeff Ament and Mike McCready.
Although Soundgarden came to an end for the first time in 1997, he proved that he could still reach millions of people with his music. In 1999 he released his first solo record and in 2002 joined the supergroup Audioslave.
It was formed alongside the Rage Against The Machine members Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk. In the past two decades, Cornell collaborated with many other famous artists, recorded solo albums. And also reunited with Soundgarden and Audioslave. He tragically died back in 2017 at the age of 52.