I’ve always had a preference for the female voice. I looked for a dedicated female vocalist thread and came up empty-handed.
I am always keen to discover new female vocalists, I’m genre-agnostic so keen to hear the female vocalists you most love regardless of style/genre.
I’ve been really enjoying milet’s acoustic versions of her songs. She has a very unique voice.
Here are a few I like:
Blossom dearie
Patricia Barber album “cafe blue”
Feist
Rasputina
Amanda Palmer ( mostly her solo stuff but also in Dresden dolls)
Nina Simone
Holly cole
I recently discovered Anna Ternheim of Sweden, and then received a bunch of recommendations for Scandinavian women who sing in English. Some of them have accents rather similar to USA country music singers. This makes sense for English speakers coming from native languages that are less nasal than UK English, or who were heavily influenced by USA English.
Anna Ternheim
Perhaps the most interesting Scandi-quasi-country vocalist name is Tina Dickow of Denmark.
Tina Dickow (Dico) when young:
A thread about female vocalists isn’t complete without Eva Cassidy!
100 percent.
@tmarshl introduced me to Halie Loren.
Aretha Franklin, Tracy Chapman, Sarah Brightman to name a few.
Fiona Apple, Pj Harvey
I’m with you! One of my favorite guilty pleasures is putting on a good female vocal playlist. Some of my go to female vocals that never cease to send chills down my spine:
Phoebe Bridgers
Miya Folick
Laura Veirs
Neko Case
First Aid Kit
Brittany Howard
Karen Souza
These albums are what I like:
Favorite headphones for vocalists are hands down the ZMF Aeolus closely followed by the Focal Elex and 6XX. I think tubes are great with all these, and I’ve greatly enjoyed using them on an Echo + Bifrost 2.
Fiona Apple is a firm favourite of mine - When The Pawn … is arguably my favourite album, it’s too raw (emotionally) for some people but I think its phenomenal.
Absolutely, I listen to a fair number of Scandinavian artists. One of my favourite female vocalists is Lisa Ekdahl (Swedish) if you’re familiar with her? I own her entire back catalogue but Back To Earth (a collaboration with the Peter Nordahl Trio) is a perennial favourite, that and Sings Salvadore Poe.
Thanks for this, she has a beautiful and power voice … I’ll search out some more!
Yup, totally with you on this. Aeolus and a boat-load of tubes.
To continue with contributions, I discovered this wonderful pair a few months back - I was really moved by this track, the song writing, their voices and musicianship impressed me immensely.
An unusual and beautiful voice is London Grammar’s Hannah Reid.
See and hear their YouTube Channel.
So many obvious artists like Alanis Morissette or Stevie Nicks or Tina Turner or Debbie Harry or Björk or Toyah, but instead here are a few notable female vocalists whom you may not know:
Anneke van Giersbergen
Floor Jansen
Julee Cruise
Ninet Tayeb
For a random finish, Stefanie Joosten and Donna Burke’s Quiet’s Song + Sins of The Father
Hannah Reid’s voice brings tears to my eyes - as a bearded middle-aged man of some physical stature, I don’t mind admitting that, at all. In all seriousness, Strong, Oh Woman Oh Man and Wasting My Young Years thoroughly take my breath away … stunning!
I can’t exactly place what it is about her voice or presentation that touches me - the only word that comes to mind is vulnerability, it’s somehow palpable with her, in both her song writing and singing. In a similar way to how I am impacted by Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star et al).
There are a couple on your list that are new to me.
Kat Edmunson, Shelby Lynne, Imelda May, Melody Gardot, Rhiannon Giddens, Sarah Siskind-Modern Appalachia, Joanatha Brooke-Live in New York ( some language), ZZ Ward-Til the Casket Drops, and (I am going to cheat here) The Civil Wars-(their cover of Disarm by the Smashing Pumpkins is worth the price of admission alone).
This is a rather diverse list. Enjoy!
For fans of indie or alternative rock, I’d put in a word for Marissa Nadler. I love her voice and she’s a great songwriter. Her album Strangers might just be my favorite of the past decade.
Vera Sola is also well worth checking out. Apparently, she writes the songs herself and plays all the instruments.
I like early Joan Baez and Linda Ronstadt through most of her career. Mama Cass had a superb voice, it’s such a shame about that ham sandwich.
And I always liked slightly offbeat recordings. Probably because my parents listened to Yma Sumac. Anything by Pink Martini has great female vocals, and the title track to “Hey Eugene” is just amazing.
I get conflicted by some modern urban female singers. Not Queen Latifah - uniformly great. LIzzo has such a nice voice, but gets some somewhat um provocative lyrics. And Megan Thee Stallion … She can really sing, but WTF to WAP.
Aurora
such gentle yet penetrating 
A couple more:
EmmyLou Harris
Ritzy Bryan
Aimee Mann
IMHO, Karen Carpenter has to be near the top of this list !! That is a voice that is seldom equaled.
Her less-known stuff is even better than the mainstream hits. ‘Crescent Noon’ and ‘One More Time’ really show off that voice.
Emmylou Harris - Wrecking Ball is like a top 10 or 20 album for me. Some underrated singers for the indie crowd:
Zola Jesus
Wye Oak, or anything with Jenn Wasner
Sharon Van Etten
Lucy Dacus or boygenius
Waxahatchee
