What singer has the best falsetto?

Singing: What's the highest note that a male singer can reach without it being considered falsetto?

• Answer:

  A note isn't "considered" falsetto.  Falsetto has nothing to do with how high the notes are.  Falsetto is a singing technique that allows one to sing higher notes.   It's a small but important distinction, it's not like you just keep going up and one note is normal and the next is falsetto, there has to be a change in singing technique, and the difference is very obvious.  Falsetto is not a label that you attach to a note that is so high, it is something that the singer consciously does to make the note a different way. That said, it depends on the singer.  Before my vocal injury last May, I could hit up to an A or, on a good day, Bb above middle C without falsetto.  Right now I can get up to G and I feel like I'm pushing it.  A professional Opera Tenor is expected to have a range up to C above middle C (often called Tenor C).  Some can go even higher.  My teacher can hit the D above Tenor C Then there are some techniques used primarily in heavy metal music, where singers like Jim Gillette (Nitro), Rob Halford(Judas Priest), and modern masters James Labrie(Dream Theater) and Tommy Karevik(Seventh Wonder, Kamelot) go even higher than the Opera tenors using a rare technique that I don't completely understand which involves "a flip of the velum, as if using your whispering voice".  I don't know how high the others have gone, but James Labrie is famous for his F# above Tenor C in "Learning to Live", the G above Tenor C in "Octavarium" and F# again in "Day 20: Confrontation" (the big climax of my favorite Ayreon concept album, The Human Equation, definately worth listening to, chocked full of the best vocal talents in the world).