NPR had a story recently about a guy who was traveling around to different record stores asking people about their favorite musical screams. They offered everything from rap to opera. The NPR story included a few sound files of famous screamers. I won’t give them away, if you’re keen to guess, but it got me thinking about some of my favorite musical screamers.

Here they are, in no particular order:

– Robert Plant’s drawn-out wail that opens Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.”
– John Lennon’s intro to “Revolution.” The shredded vocal cords in “Twist and Shout” are legendary, too, but let’s go with the scream less traveled by.
– The way Joan Jett punctuates,  “I Love Rock and Roll.”
– Joe Cocker’s cover of,  “With a Little Help From My Friends.” I love that the scream simply replaces the lyrics in the answer to the second go-round of, “Do you need anybody?” Oh, I need somebody bad, baby.
– The electronic yowl that flows through the chorus of Judas Priest’s “Screaming for Vengeance.”
– The sorority-girl shrieks that punctuate Weird Al’s “Nature Trail to Hell.” (“So bring the kids along, it’s good clean family fun …”)
– Almost every word of Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart.”

Got more? Talk amongst yourselves.