The Best Screams in Music History

The Pixies’ unique ability to give alt-rock a surreal spin is on unfortgettable display here. The second song on the band’s third album, Bossanova, doesn’t have one specific moment of screaming from frontman Black Francis. The whole thing is a 1:52 scream tantrum, with every lyric shrieked like his hair just caught on fire. He kicks off the song by repeating the phrase “Your mouth’s a mile away” eight times, each one sounding more unhinged than the last, as guitarist Joey Santiago answers back with peels of banshee noise.–J.D.

On this punk-rock classic, Joe Strummer paints an ominous picture of a dystopian London hurtling toward the apocalypse. The Clash’s signature reggae-infused punk sound lays the foundation underneath lyrics inspired by the chaotic world events taking shape in 1979, such as racial injustice, police brutality, rising unemployment, a drug epidemic, nuclear disaster, and the rise of Margaret Thatcher. Strummer graces the bridge with a staccato, cackling call to arms, echoing through the cold over the Thames like a distress signal.–J.S.

Donald Glover laid the vocal groundwork and Seventies vibe with his first single, “Me and Your Mama,” off his third studio album, Awaken, My Love, wailing across the entire track. But it’s the second single, “Redbone,” that drilled into a mainstream audience just how versatile Glover’s range can be. About halfway through the psychedelic funk-fused R&B track, he captivates with a sultry cry that could raise Marvin Gaye from the dead. A falsetto with every second of that summoning dripping with soul.–J.S.

When Sleater-Kimmy came roaring out of the riot-grrrl scene in the mid-1990s, one of the first things people noticed was the way Corin Tucker’s soaring vocals cut through the band’s dynamic punk rock. On the opening song and title track from the band’s breakthrough second album, Call the Doctor, Tucker pushes herself to the limit as she repeats the title phrase. Just as striking is the series of almost frighteningly intense screams we can hear in the background, giving the song a sense of deep rage coming to the surface.–J.D.

It’s kind of astonishing that the massive sludge guitars on this eight-minute epic from North Carolina band Wednesday’s breakthrough 2023 album, Rat Saw God, are only the second most intense thing in this song. They’re loud, but not as explosive as singer-guitarist Karly Hartzman’s shrieking, which closes out the song. She sings about watching a friend give in to addiction. Her lyrics reference the video game Mortal Kombat, and she takes a phrase from that game — “Finish him” — and repeats it until her voice becomes an improvised wail that ends up stretching out for more than two extremely raw minutes.–J.D.

The hit single from System of a Down’s groundbreaking 2001 album, Toxicity, is a prog-metal roller coaster with a powerful message about religious hypocrisy — particularly the way people’s lives are often judged by the circumstances of their death. Singer Serj Tankian proves himself to be one of the most dynamic singers in rock. He goes from machine-gun shouting to operatic wail. The way he stretches out the word “die” in the lyric “I cry when angels deserve to die” is epic, and the metal-avenger yowl he delivers after that is one for the ages.–J.D.

A searing highlight from indie singer-songwriter Mitski’s third album, Bury Me at Makeout Creek, “Drunk Walk Home” finds her walking home after a boozy night that has collapsed into frustration and disappointment. Against march-time drums and punishing guitar, she sings, “And I sit on the curb ’cause it’s the prettiest night/With no one else in sight/You know I wore this dress for you/These killer heels for you.” Her white-knuckled anger comes out in a hellacious scream that takes up the last 30 seconds of the song.–J.D.

Expressing the angst of surviving adolescence with 9/11 in the rearview, war in your midst, and a looming recession hovering over their gateway to adulthood, this understandably became an anthem for the angstiest generation. Gerard Way desperately, yet unconvincingly, pushes to reassure that he is emotionally stable in the bridge of the 2004 emo classic, via a vindictive exclamation point of a punch behind the “okay.” It’s the “okay” that launched MySpace-era emo into the mainstream through the plea of a man at the end of his rope.–J.S.

On their 1979 debut, Three Imaginary Boys, the Cure put their own moody, black eye-liner spin on angular U.K. post-punk. The album’s darkest and most haunting moment is “Subway Song.” Over an ominously rumbling bass line, Robert Smith sings about a woman walking alone in the London Underground, sure she’s being followed by a predator. “Turn around,” he whispers. When the song fades out, we’re left assuming the story is open-ended — until Smith lets out a blood-curdling wail of terror. It’s definitely a top candidate for the greatest horror-movie jump scare in rock history.–J.D.

One of the coolest bands of the past five years, Wet Leg always have the perfect barbed lyrics to fit their sharp songs. “When I think about what you’ve become, I feel sorry for your mum,” Rhian Teasdale sings to an ex that wasn’t worth the time. The real burn comes later in the track, when Teasdale informs us, “I’ve been practicing my loudest and longest scream.” Well, she warned us. The cackle of catharsis she releases lasts 10 seconds, cutting through the band’s sing-song background vocals and sweet guitar churn like a hot knife through butter.–J.D.

A lot of the artists made this list with unhinged shrieks or wild yowls. Rob Halford is here thanks to pure precision, the kind of control and power that’s made him one of the most respected singers in metal history. After establishing themselves as one of biggest metal bands of the late Seventies and early Eighties, Judas Priest needed to prove they could still bring it in the 1990s, and they crushed that mission with “Painkiller,” which hits an Olympian peak at the 1:22 mark. Halford shrieks, “This is the painkiller!” and lets out a piercing cry that could put a seasoned opera singer in traction.–J.D.

“This is a song about a jerk. I hexed him, now he’s losing his hair,” Courtney Love said, introducing this grunge classic on the TV show Later… With Jools Holland in 1995. The resentment is palpable in the throat eviscerating, gargles-with-rocks “forever” she hurls at us during the chorus. She then proceeds to top that with the “take everythings” that close out the track.–J.S.

New Wave mutant Adam Ant was a true king of the wild frontier. The repeated shrieks he lets out after each drum hit and slashing strum at the opening of “Prince Charming” serve as the perfect setup for the song’s defiant message: “Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.” The song’s Cinderella-themed video, featuring evil step sisters in drag, is one of the crazier productions on the early MTV era. The whole thing is an argument for flamboyance as its own liberating sake, and it touched a nerve, going Number One in the U.K.–J.D.

On the raging lead single from the Foo Fighter’s second album, 1997’s The Colour and the Shape, Dave Grohl processes the collapse of his marriage in real time, delivering one of the most honest and gripping breakup anthems of the 1990s. As the song barrels along, Grohl’s frustration and anger build and build, as he pushes his voice deep into the red. Right after he arrives at the cathartic epiphany, “Still, there’s one thing that comforts me/Since I was always caged and now I’m free,” he lets forth a howl that does indeed sound like a wild animal that’s just been released from captivity.–J.D.

A pioneer of shock rock, Hawkins initially set out to create a bluesy, refined love song. But after enjoying a few drinks, he embraced a weirder, more sinister approach and a cult classic was born. Bringing a macabre essence throughout the song, he finished with a series of hysterical, chaotic noises — grunts and snorts included — that possess wild and hauntingly violent undertones. The song was so disturbing for its time that it was initially banned from radio.–J.S.

This hard-hitting Beasties classic was a lighthearted middle finger to their Ill Communication engineer-producer, Mario Caldato Jr., who was growing increasingly annoyed with their inability to get anything done in the studio. Like a rebellious teen, Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz penned lyrics teasing Caldato by accusing him of sabotaging their art. That mischievous spirit reaches its peak just after the break in the song when the signature riff kicks in. The culmination of “f-you’s” is an outburst with so much energetic force it sounds like the band could burst through a concrete wall.–J.S.

Armed with just a Farfisa organ, a drum machine, and a distortion pedal, the pioneering electro-punk duo of Martin Rev and Alan Vega were more out-there and intense than pretty much any of their guitar-wielding peers on the 1970s New York punk scene. Their peak moment of sonic and emotional terror is “Frankie Teardrop,” a 10-minute meltdown about a guy who loses his factory job and goes on a killing spree. The topic is scary enough, but the way Vega punctuates his lyrics with unhinged yelps makes it even more chilling.

Women have long faced the unrealistic expectation to always be positive, sweet, grateful, and never angry, to express only the “good” emotions. Rodrigo’s sarcastic pop-punk take on this fallacy reaches its boiling point as she demonstrates, “I scream inside to deal with it,” releasing the repressed, piercing exhale of a young woman scorned by the societal and political pressures of existing while female, then reverting back to the outward presenting perfect all-American girl.–J.S.

It’s seemingly impossible to steal the spotlight from a band like the Rolling Stones in their prime. Merry Clayton did it at 20-years-old, pregnant, and fresh out of bed in her pajamas and curlers for a recording session that took place in the middle of the night. It’s her “murder” in the third refrain that cries out so hard, gifting us with a voice crack so iconic that even Mick Jagger couldn’t hold in the awe. His reactive “woo” can be heard in the background on the original recording.–J.S.

Rock & roll’s first great screamer. Little Richard’s performances perfected the idea that music can push you to a point where words weren’t going be enough to communicate the power of what you were doing. The quintessential example is the ecstatic holler he lets out before the sax solo on “Good Golly, Miss Molly.” “The scream that I scream just before the saxophone player takes a solo is a scream of excitement,” he said. Every rock shouter still lives in his shadow.–J.D.

Despite this epic emo power ballad being a Paramore fan favorite, singer Hayley Williams’ vocals are so precise on “All I Wanted” that she avoided performing it live until the When We Were Young festival in 2022. At 2:39 in the track, the music stops abruptly, and Williams’ voice ascends heavenward as she gives into an all-consuming desperation with a stunning mix of power and vulnerability.–J.S.

Nirvana closed their 1993 MTV Unplugged in New York performance with a searing rendition of the traditional folk-blues song “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” based on Lead Belly’s 1940s version. Kurt Cobain goes deeper and deeper into the song’s sense of desperate betrayal until he lets out a noise that sounds more like a wounded animal than a sad rock singer. It might be the most chilling moment of his entire career.–J.D.

Only a once-in-a-generation talent like Chester Bennington could capture this level of anger, exhaustion, and over­whelming defeat and channel it into one perfectly controlled 17-second vocal-cord Chernobyl. On this new nu-metal rager, the Linkin Park frontman sounds like he’s pulling from the depths of his own personal hell with a laser-focused release of pent-up frustration.–J.S.

Janis Joplin is the bridge that unites blues legends like Ma Rainey and Seventies rock shouters like Steven Tyler, with an explosive style so physically demanding she had to refrain from speaking after shows. Her classic 1968 hit fronting San Francisco psychedelic-blues greats Big Brother and the Holding Company peaks at 3:31, with a window-rattling blast of resilience in the face of romantic desolation.–J.D.

In 1970, John Lennon and Yoko Ono underwent primal-scream therapy. Lennon used that experience when he created his classic album Plastic Ono Band, especially on the opening track, about his late mother, Julia (“Mama, don’t go,” he sings). It is a pivotal moment in the history of the rock scream, going beyond mere heartbreak to excavate deep psychological pain.–J.D.

When Prince’s iconic falsetto morphs into a raw, provocative siren, it’s impossible not to be mesmerized. He reinvented rock & roll sex appeal with the orgasmic cry of “Do Me, Baby,” the vocal shredding that closes out “Computer Blue,” and the sultry intro to “Temptation.” But nothing in his vocal arsenal can match the erotic magnetism of  “Darling Nikki,” which goes from a wink of guitar to a cinematic full-body rush.–J.S.

The Eighties were full of preening metal screamers, but the tight, piercing, almost-post-human shriek that opens GN’R’s 1987 classic, Appetite for Destruction, unleashed a completely different species of rock & roll animal into the jungle. It was a precise, difficult sound to get, a true feat of pharyngeal gymnastics that oozes sexuality in its primal delivery.–J.D.

No singer can beg, scream, or shout like the Godfather of Soul — whether it’s the “wows” peppering “I Got You (I Feel Good)” or the depth of the “losts” in “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” Brown knew how to use his signature shriek to elicit a range of emotions. In this case, it’s a five-alarm wail daring you to get up and move, an invitation to an all-night rager where all of your woes get swallowed whole.–J.S.

Groundbreaking producer Phil Spector’s magnum opus was born out of a frenzied session in which he used a then-unheard-of-number of session musicians and background vocalists. Tina Turner’s gravelly vocals burst through Spector’s famous Wall of Sound with the force of a hurricane, crescendoing in a banshee vocal tear that remains one of the greatest performances in rock-soul history.–J.S.

Power, ecstasy, terror, hunger, rage, desperation, and elation — Roger Daltrey summed up all of that and more in the peak moment from the Who’s classic anthem of political alienation, delivering what is easily the most volcanic yowl in classic-rock history. “It’s almost like he’s a late-Fifties, early-Sixties Method actor,” Pete Townshend told Rolling Stone of the way Daltrey can inhabit a song. In fact, when he recorded his vocal for the track, the band, who were eating lunch in another room, rushed into the studio, awestruck at what they’d just heard.–J.D.

Scream until your screams come true. It’s hard to fathom how an artist like Steven Tyler could have experienced even the slightest insecurity when it comes to his voice. But up until the recording of Aerosmith’s signature power ballad he had been hiding behind a husky, more subdued vocal style due to self-consciousness. “I changed my voice when we did the final vocals,” Tyler recalled later. “I was insecure, but nobody told me not to do it. I thought I didn’t sound right on tape. … I used this voice for [entire album] … except ‘Dream On.’ ‘Dream On’ is the real me.’” The resulting performance culminates in a ceiling-smashing high-pitched belt of freedom and determination that would immediately enshrine Tyler as one of rock’s most powerful voices.–J.S.