Songs By Mononymous Singers, Vol. 2 – The Guys

In case you didn't see or read yesterday's post, I'll recap the intro as succinctly as I can. A mononym is "a one-word name by which a person is known." Many singers, songwriters, and musicians in the industry are (or have historically been) commonly known by a single name. Yesterday, I posted a collection of songs by mononymous female singers. Today, it's the singularly-named guys' turn. Enjoy!  ~  JH

(NOTE: Several notable mononymous males are absent  from this list, but that is by design. Prince not only has a comprehensive catalogue of wildly inappropriate music, but he also seems to have wiped his entire music video collection off the face of YouTube. Bono [U2] is a great singer, but he hasn't really done a whole lot solo, so I excluded him from consideration here. Yanni is a popular musician, but he isn't much of a singer. Eminem and Drake may be highly talented rappers in their own right, but their lyrics are so foul that I declined to post any of their music here.)

1)  Sting  ~  "Fields Of Gold"  (You can't go wrong with this guy – classic song, classic voice.)

2)  Moby  ~  "Raining Again"  (Moby doesn't always sing the vocals for his songs, but when he does he's not half bad!)

3)  Matisyahu  ~  "One Day"  (Wonderful song by a one-of-a-kind musician – a Hasidic Jew who sings reggae music!)

4)  Beck  ~  "Loser"  (Some of the most bizarre lyrics ever set to music can be found right here in this song.)

5)  Tedashii ft. BenJah  ~  "Last Goodbye"  (Two mononymous guys in one song – ha!  Warning: You might want to have your Kleenexes handy...)

6)  Maxwell  ~  "This Woman's Work"  (Wow, falsetto much?)

7)  Liberace  ~  "I'll Be Seeing You"  (Good googly-moogly, that outfit!)

8)  Babyface  ~  "Every Time I Close My Eyes"  (This guy's voice is smooth as silk – in other words, I'm jealous!)

9)  D'Angelo  ~  "Cruisin'"  (A classic old-school R & B song given a new-school vibe – I like it!)

10)  Donovan  ~  "Mellow Yellow"  (Donovan had to be on some serious drugs when he wrote this song – and maybe when he performed it, too – there's no other explanation for the blatant weirdness...)

11)  Gotye ft. Kimbra  ~  "Somebody That I Used To Know"  (A great song by two talented singers – both of whom are mononymous!)

12)  Seal  ~  "Kiss From A Rose"  (This was one of Seal's better ballads back in the day.)

13)  PSY  ~  "Gangnam Style"  (Oh, yes, I went there...)

14)  will.i.am ft. Cheryl Cole  ~  "Heartbreaker"  (Technically, I suppose you could say will.i.am is three different words, but I'm going with it anyway.)

15)  Morrissey  ~  "Alma Matters"  (I've heard a lot about this guy, but this is the first time I've actually listened to a song by him – nice voice...)

16)  Usher  ~  "Numb"  (Always a crowd favorite...)