History LargeHam / Music

"A MONNSTER A MMONNTSER AND IT KEEPS GETTING STRONNGEERRR"

* Carl Smyth's opening line at the beginning of "One Step Beyond" by Music/{{Madness}}: "HEY YOU! DON'T WATCH THAT! WATCH THIS! THIS IS THE HEAVY HEAVY MONSTER SOUND! ONE... STEP... BEYOND!" And the rest of the otherwise totally instrumental piece is interspersed with him yelling, "ONE STEP BEYOND!"

** Rockers don't do it that bad either. Enrique Burnbury from Heroes del Silencio was (and it looks like he still is) an epic rock ham in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVgZtUZXyfI Entre dos tierras]] - though let's be fair, [[BadassBaritone with a voice like]] ''[[BadassBaritone that]]'', it couldn't be less.

* Creator/WilliamShatner, for a certain value of "music" and "singing". His classic stuff is straight-up SoBadItsGood, but his more modern offerings, while still dripping with pork, actually.. sorta work, somehow.

-->[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ypkv0HeUvTc HEY YOU, YOU ARE TRYING TO BE MEAN? YOU LIVE WITH APES MAN, IT'S HARD TO BE CLEAN!]]

* [[Music/TheRollingStones Mick Jagger]] certainly enjoys himself. Add the fact his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf35K2Ps_aY "dance moves"]] are often MilkingTheGiantCow...

-->Especially in concert. Hammed UpToEleven in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kys0i4Krlbs this one]], but [[TheUnintelligible no idea]] [[WordSaladLyrics what they are singing]].

** He's pretty hammy on much of ''Music/TheWall'', but "The Trial" takes it UpToEleven, with Roger hamming it up in six different voices.

* Spinal Tap. [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap These hams]] [[MemeticMutation go to]] [[UpToEleven Eleven]].

** His replacement, Tommy Karevik, is no slouch in this department either. And with his other band, Music/SeventhWonder, Tommy gets [[UpToEleven even hammier]], going into some insane R&B-esque runs contrasting the more gothic style he uses with Kamelot.

* All of Music/ShaNaNa, but most especially Jon "Bowzer" Bauman, he of the booming bass voice and elastic face. He was already the hammiest of the bunch in live performances but his performances on their variety show take it UpToEleven. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zT_yayH_cw Have a gander!]]

* [[Music/{{Journey}} Steve Perry]] deserves a mention: "All night oh every night! Hold tight hold tight! Oh every night! (beat) She said, hold oooooooooo-oooooon!!!" Not to mention, that pretty hair and those [[PaintedOnPants painted-on-pants]] he wore in "Just The Same Way". [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqWO0vNVegk And he's still hammy at 66!]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3bP03_bYlU Just]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bacsfjcMt08 look!]]

* Music/DavidLeeRoth is probably the best example.
** So much he gets his [[http://www.realmofdarkness.net/sounds/dlr/dlr-soundboard-2.htm own]] [[http://www.realmofdarkness.net/sounds/dlr/dlr-soundboard-3.htm soundboard.]]

* Music/MyChemicalRomance in general and lead singer Gerard Way in particular. His theatrical vocals and equally theatrical stage presence make for a potent combo - he's even been known to climb lighting rigs and jump from ten feet high, and he loves using stark monochrome facepaint to reflect whatever character he may be embodying at the time.

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avM_UsVo0IA YOUR SUUUUUUUUUUUPREMACYYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAYAAYYYYYYYYYYYYAYAYAYAYYYYYWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO]]

** ''Music/{{Animals}}'' has plenty of it, most notably on "Sheep":

* Music/{{Nightwish}} is completely over-the-top, with HeavyMithril lyrics, EpicRocking, and a [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gg5_mlQOsUQ truly passionate]] opera-trained female vocalist.

* If we allow for musicians as well as vocalists to count as hams, then ProgressiveRock is the musical equivalent of this trope and is a veritable goldmine of hams. Keyboardists seem to be particularly susceptible to this ([[Music/{{Muse}} Matt Bellamy]] may be incredibly hammy on the microphone, but he's equally hammy on the piano and guitar; [[Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer Keith Emerson]] and [[Music/{{Yes}} Rick Wakeman]] are also excellent examples of hammy prog keyboardists), but there are plenty of hams on other instruments as well (Neil Peart of Music/{{Rush}}, Music/BillBruford of Music/KingCrimson and Music/{{Yes}}, Steve Hackett of Music/{{Genesis}}, Steve Howe of Music/{{Yes}}).

** "So light em up (mup mup), light em up (mup mup) I'M ON '''FIYYYYAAAAAAAAAAH!'''"

* If we allow for musicians as well as vocalists to count as hams, then ProgressiveRock is the musical equivalent of this trope and is a veritable goldmine of hams. Keyboardists seem to be particularly susceptible to this (Matt Bellamy may be incredibly hammy on the microphone, but he's equally hammy on the piano and guitar; [[Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer Keith Emerson]] and [[Music/{{Yes}} Rick Wakeman]] are also excellent examples of hammy prog keyboardists), but there are plenty of hams on other instruments as well (Neil Peart of Music/{{Rush}}, Music/BillBruford of Music/KingCrimson and Music/{{Yes}}, Steve Hackett of Music/{{Genesis}}, Steve Howe of Music/{{Yes}}).

-->Careful with That Axe: "You can't escape from the bed you've made; when your time has come, you'll accept the..... BBBLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAADE!!!
* [[Music/{{REM}} R.E.M.]] frontman Michael Stipe ''defined'' AlternativeRock ham in the '80s and '90s, via unmatched TranquilFury and a theatrical sense of mannerism and poise, made more pronounced in his VocalEvolution from [[TheUnintelligible unintelligible]] introversion to his more well-known expressive and direct style.

--> "SCREAM FOR ME, [[CheapHeat <place of the gig>]]!"

* Music/{{Megadeth}}'s DaveMustaine is both this in his music and in real life. He is very fond of doing the hammy supervillain voice in his songs, examples include "Dawn Patrol", the spoken section in "Breakpoint", "Captive Honor" and "Prince Of Darkness", just to name a few. In other cases, he will often completely over-sing things, "Wake Up Dead" features him stretching his voice to breaking point. "Good Mourning...Black Friday" is probably the hammiest song he has ever done.

* Fuki (of Unlucky Morpheus and other bands) fulfills this trope in spades. Big voice with a broad vibrato? Check. Enough [[CapeSwish Cape Swishes]] to create a small tornado? Check. MilkingTheGiantCow so much that it would give Japan a dairy surplus for decades to come? Check. She's practically a GenderFlipped version of [[Music/{{Versailles}} Kamijo]].

* DMX has been doing ham!

* Lots of old soul/blues singers dip into this on occasion, though it usually is genuine enough to keep from being overly hammy (see: [[Music/ArethaFranklin Franklin, Aretha]]. Considering most '60s/'70s soul singers either started out or turned to singing gospel, it adds to their powerful performances.

* When it comes to [[CrazyAwesome extravagant nuttiness]] in pop music, Music/LadyGaga is pretty hard to beat.
** Which explains her choice of having her old friends from New York, Semi Precious Weapons as the opening act on her tour. Lead singer [[CampGay Justin Trantor]] is one of few people that can give her a run for her money in the CrazyAwesome department.

* Music/MidgeUre, anybody? He sings each track in a over-the-top fashion that just ''screams'' "This is ''SO'' dramatic!" "DANCING! WITH TEARS IN MYYYY EYES!" "AHHHHH, VIENNAAAAA!!" Naturally, this can be {{narm}}-y as hell to some listeners.

* Music/MidgeUre, anybody? He sings each track in a over-the-top fashion that just ''screams'' "This is SO dramatic!" "DANCING! WITH TEARS IN MYYYY EYES!" "AHHHHH, VIENNAAAAA!!" Naturally, this can be {{narm))-y as hell to some listeners.

* Peter Hammill of Music/VanDerGraafGenerator. Due to his serving as a jesuit choirboy for much of his youth his regular singing voice is already huge, deep and bombastic. Adding to the dramatic effect is his tendancy to unexpectedly break into piercing shrieks and growls. Incredibly overblown, but mightily entertaining at the same time.

* Music/JoeCocker - to the point where Creator/JohnBelushi did an over the top, and brilliant, parody of him.

* Spinal Tap. [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap These Hams]] [[MemeticMutation go to]] [[UpToEleven Eleven]].

* Arthur Brown: '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOErZuzZpS8 I AM THE GOD OF HELLFIRE AND I BRING YOU.... FIRE!!!]]'''
** On Music/TheAlanParsonsProject's debut album ''Tales of Mystery and Imagination'' Brown plays the narrator in the adaptation of [[Creator/EdgarAllanPoe Poe's]] "The Tell Tale Heart", and goes wildly over the top.

* If we allow for musicians as well as vocalists to count as hams, then ProgressiveRock is the musical equivalent of this trope, and is a veritable goldmine of hams. Keyboardists seem to be particularly susceptible to this (Matt Bellamy may be incredibly hammy on the microphone, but he's equally hammy on the piano and guitar; [[Music/EmersonLakeAndPalmer Keith Emerson]] and [[Music/{{Yes}} Rick Wakeman]] are also excellent examples of hammy prog keyboardists), but there are plenty of hams on other instruments as well (Neil Peart of Music/{{Rush}}, Music/BillBruford of Music/KingCrimson and Music/{{Yes}}, Steve Hackett of Music/{{Genesis}}, Steve Howe of Music/{{Yes}}).

* While everyone in [[Music/DAY6 DAY6]] has their moments of {{Keet}}-level hyperactivity during live performances, lead guitarist/vocalist Jae takes the cake with his frenzied, impassioned stage presence - he's well-known for his spins, high-flying jumps and kicks, theatrical expressions and gestures, leaping off of stage risers ''in the middle of riffs or solos'' and the fact that he still manages to not miss a single beat or sound out-of-breath.

* Music/RonnieJamesDio . A vocal and singing style made of pure Christmas ham, and beloved for it. See 'Shame On The Night', 'Stargazer,' 'Holy Diver,' 'We Rock', 'I',... the list goes on.

-->DRINK UP, SHOOT IN!! LET THE BEAT-INGS BEGIN!! [[PunctuatedForEmphasis DIS-TRIB-U-TOR]] OF PAIN! '''''YOUR LOSS BECOMES MY GAIN!!!'''''
-->'''ALL HAVE SAID THEIR PRAYERS - INVADE THEIR NIGHTMARES!!! JUST SEE INTO MY EYES, ''YOU'LL FIND WHERE MURDER LIES!!!!!!'''''

* Music/{{Megadeth}}'s DaveMustaine is both this in his music and in real life. He is very fond of doing the hammy supervillain voice in his songs, examples include "Dawn Patrol", the spoken section in "Breakpoint", "Captive Honor" and "Prince Of Darkness", just to name a few. In other cases he will often completely over-sing things, "Wake Up Dead" features him stretching his voice to breaking point. "Good Mourning...Black Friday" is probably the hammiest song he has ever done.

* Music/{{Venom}}'s Cronos, at least when it comes to stage banter. Enough so that a bootleg consisting ''entirely'' of [[http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2005/08/youre_fuckin_pr.html his banter during one somewhat unlikely set opening for]] Music/BlackFlag became something of a cult phenomenon for it's quotability and sheer over the top {{narm}} ("You know what this is? This comes from where Music/{{Venom}} come from, it's called Newcastle Brown Ale! IT KNOCKS YOU ON YOUR FUCKIN' BACK, ''LET ME TELL YOU!!!''").

* Music/MarilynManson fits the bill nicely. Given he follows the footsteps of two artists listed above (Alice Cooper and David Bowie), and adds some weird imagery to boot...

* Music/{{Rammstein}} definitely qualifies, with their firestarting, firework-setting and gimp-humping performances.

* Helloween's Andi Deris is a huge ham on studio, but live he just becomes the whole christmas dinner. He mimics [[PunctuatedForEmphasis EVERY!SINGLE!WORD!]]. Songs like Back Against the Wall are just hilarious.

* Music/SaintVitus' original vocalist, Scott Reagers, is one of the largest hams DoomMetal has ever seen.

* Music/{{GWAR}}, which is basically KISS, Alice Cooper and Manowar thrown together in a meat grinder - with any traces of subtlety removed afterwards.

* Nobody holds a candle in hamminess towards Music/WyclefJean. If you hear his performance of "Mista Mista" on Music/TheScore by Music/TheFugees you realize ChewingTheScenery can be an artform in itself! Every line he sings gets more and more ridiculous to the point that he sounds like someone with severe brain damage!

--> JUST LOOK OVER YOUR SHOULDERS HONEY!!

* Franz Liszt, a brilliant, unbeatable and rather hammy piano man. (''Play us a tune, you`re the piano ham...'').
** The nineteenth century saw the rise of the solo performers, many of whom excellated in hamminess.

* Music/CabCalloway was perhaps the largest ham in the 1930's jazz scene.

** Not to mention the song "Kickapoo", which is basically HamToHamCombat between Creator/JackBlack, Music/MeatLoaf and the late great Music/RonnieJamesDio.

* Pretty much every member of Music/JAMProject. Masaaki Endoh and Hironobu Kageyama not only have lots of fun onstage, but pretty much compete with Ricardo Cruz to see who is the hammiest.

--> '''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDNepPvmeN4 ¡ES - CÁN - DA -LO, ES UN ESCÁNDALO! ES - CÁN - DA -LO, ES UN ESCÁNDALO!]]'''

* Latin-American singers from TheSixties, TheSeventies and TheEighties really loved to ham it up to absolutely ''epic'' levels, relaying on lots of stage antics and upbeat music. Some of the most radical cases are: [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NS8DX4mVhxM the (late) Mexican]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ga5Bo4YdgH4 Juan Gabriel]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ebD6kqke8 the Venezuelan Jose Luis "EL Puma" Rodriguez]], [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-_cBe4-2aQ the Argentinian Jairo]] and the late King of Latin-American Singing Porks, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vBqMx9CWIg the also]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJWcntSAVR8 Argentinian]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idZ_JCLY0YA Roberto "Sandro" Sanchez]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgUJB_EL02A alias "El Gitano"]].

* Those who thought that the only good edible things coming from Belgium were chocolates, beer, fries and waffles should think again, since the absolutely [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMzAmrNS164 magnificent and bombastic ham]] provided by Music/JacquesBrel is so thick that it'll give anyone lots of chills. ''After his death''.

** Raab was responsible for some ham he didn't personally deliver himself. In 1998, he wrote Germany's entry, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPZX7EZIFD0 "Guildo hat euch lieb!"]] (which he conducted), all about how singer Guildo Horn will cheer you up when you're down. The oddly-dressed balding man proceeded to work the crowd, play handbells, and climb up the scaffolding as a big finish. There have been many Large Hams at Eurovision, but Guildo is still the one to beat.

* Ian Anderson of Music/JethroTull. Especially [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqZmtq5LhFo live]].

* Parts of Kurtis Blow's "The Breaks." ''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis "THESE! ARE! THE BREEEAAAAAKS!"]]''

* [[Music/LinkinPark Chester Bennington]] can get quite hammy, especially in songs like "Crawling", "Blackout" and "The Messenger".

** The opening of the "Rollin'" video has some particularly delicious (and {{Narm}}-y) ham: ''"Oooooohhhhh yeeeaaaahhh.'' Keep on rollin', baby. You know what time it is." Later parodied on ''Series/MadTV.''

** His replacement, Tommy Karevik (also of Music/SeventhWonder), is no slouch in this department either.

* Serj Tankian of Music/SystemOfADown. Watch his [[https://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=UR4y1AvhzqU live]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5QxHIYH4-k shows]]. He dances, throws out random vocalizations, and just generally [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqnuwfPpu9c messes around]]. Much of the tomfoolery stems from a desire to make the taciturn drummer, John, laugh onstage and get off rhythm.

*** And if you are Creator/ChristopherLee and somebody else is narrating your album, it's still one of the hammiest albums ever recorded, with plenty of EarWorm ("shed the blood of the Saxon men...") and SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic.

* Music/{{Billy Joel}} can be this, occasionally. Usually - such as in the case of "All for Leyna" or "The Downeaster 'Alexa'" - [[TropesAreNotBad it makes the song even better.]]

* Music/{{Kamelot}}'s Roy Khan has some hammy tendencies thanks to his theatric performing style and odd mannerisms.
** His replacement, Tommy Karevik, is no slouch in this department either. It's more obvious in his work with Music/SeventhWonder.