>>12809122Objectively? Kiara. I've actually been thinking about this for a while, but we haven't heard too much of Sana, so I'll focus on the chicken.
Whether you enjoy someone's singing is only a small part of whether the person is a "good singer". Singing technique is judged by how much control the person is able to exert over their own voice. There are many factors that can be used to get a good idea of their skill level. But this thrown together rubric is obviously not exhaustive and some categories overlap.
1. Pitch accuracy. Does she easily go sharp or flat without realizing it? Does she misjudge the first note of a phrase? Does she have to slide into notes because she is unable to accurately estimate and hit the note out of the gate?
2. Vocal control. Does she estimate the note's pitch accurately, but have to scoop into it because she is unable to hit them otherwise? Can she jump between widely-spaced intervals accurately and quickly? Does she have to yell to force out high notes, or is she unable to sustain her voice while singing softly? When she transitions between chest and head voice, is it extremely noticeable and jarring, or so smooth/hidden it can't be noticed?
3. Breath/volume control - Does she breath at bad timings, breaking the flow of a line? Does she trail off weakly at the end of lines when she should be ending off strong instead? Does she maintain a consistent volume when required, with smooth dynamic changes?
4. Enunciation - Are most of her sung lyrics understandable? Are any syllables pronounced overly harshly?
5. Consistency of tone - Does the singer's timbre change between or even within the same line, even at the same pitch? Do different types of syllables make her voice sound too unpleasantly different, such as 'aaah's being harsh while 'oooh's sound diffused and unfocused? When hitting high notes that should be within her range, is her voice way too breathy as compared to her comfortable range?
I think Kiara has good but definitely not stellar pitch accuracy, notably from several a cappellas she did on the fly. The Goodbye Sengen chorus comes to mind when she was showing her chat she could sing it without autotune - it's easy to go out of tune while singing at the top of your range, especially when rapidly jumping between notes like that passage demands without breaking up. It's very easy to notice when she's practiced a song - she's mostly on point for those. But when she hasn't, or gets emotionally carried away, there are glaring mistakes.
Her Glamorous karaoke is an example of her switching between head and chest voice with ease and hitting the notes with minimal to no scooping. Her 2020 Simple and Clean performance also demonstrates her level of vocal control - but her performance of the same song this year demonstrates what happens when she gets careless with it.
Her breath control is excellent. There's not much to say about that, because it's one of those things that is done properly if you don't notice it. The most easily noticeable example is how she handles long notes and executes vibrato. For an example of bad breath control, see Mori's Memories of You. Granted, that is a difficult song, she was winging it, and probably didn't intuitively understand the lyrics enough to grasp the natural phrasing. And it's still an enjoyable performance. But I don't think I've heard Kiara ever deliver a performance quite with that lack of control.
I don't personally feel that there's any real problems with her enunciation, but if nitpicking it could be improved depending on the song.
Kiara's tone consistency is very good when she's within the comfortable portion of her range, but clearly suffers outside of it. Bokura no Ashiato has several places where this is really obvious with the end of many lines and u-syllables, for example.
Subjective factors:
Quality of tone: Is the tone of her voice pleasant to the ear?
Expressiveness: Are the appropriate emotions expressed suitably through her performance?
See, this is what most people get caught up on. They hate Kiara's timbre/tone, and I can relate. But this doesn't mean she's a bad singer, just a singer that they don't like to listen to.
And I don't think anyone can dispute that Kiara puts a lot of expressiveness into her performances, to the point that other aspects sometimes suffer for it.
What this boils down to is that just because you can't stand someone's singing doesn't mean that they're bad at singing. It just means, well, you don't like their singing. Overall, I don't think Kiara is a top singer in hololive, but she's definitely nowhere near the bottom. Incidentally, I would think that IryS does extremely well in all categories except for expressiveness. The issue with IryS is that she does too well on all of them. Perfection sounds boring. That's why many people probably enjoyed her recent 'Never Gonna Give You Up' despite it being the worst performance technically by far.
