All the female singers Mark has worked with

This is from very old interview, back in 2003

I started working with Floor Jansen. she's a very good singer and she developed herself into a high quality singer. On the album Prison of Desire by After Forever I also worked with Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation) for one song. She has a smoother voice than Floor has. More warm, also a very good singer who sings with passion. After this I worked with Helena Michaelsen, probably one of the best singers but not easy to work with.

Now I work with Simone Simons, I adored her voice from the first moment I heard her sing. She has a great colour in her voice. You can't work on it, you have it or not. She's the singer I prefer working with. She's still very young and willing to learn. She keeps on developing herself very quickly and we have to be careful that she stays in Epica because also musicals are always looking for singers like her!

wowcheese thats cool!!!!

I know, i finded this very interesting and fun thing to read

Me too

Simone is the best! Also love Floor!

"I also worked with Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation) for one song. She has a smoother voice than Floor has. More warm, also a very good singer who sings with passion.

D'aww.My favorite composer ever talking about my favorite singer ever

But that's an intersting interview.and of course Floor and Simone are fantastic aswell,all of them in my top 10 fave singers of all the time

That was an interesting thing to read. I'm glad he speaks good about Sharon.
But of course, Simone is THE singer for Mark.

I love all the aforementioned vocalists!

Simone, of course, has a very lush and impassioned voice that reminds me of champagne, for some odd reason.

Sharon, I love because her voice is high and distinctive, like crystal. And I just adore early WT.

Floor is the most powerful, dynamic singer I have ever heard. Still, I prefer the slightly less impeccable vocals. I like Simone and Sharon better because of the feeling in their voices.

I have only heard Helena in Imperia. I need to listen to more clips.

Jenna (Pale Secrecy)

I love the things he said about Simone

Simone and Floor <3 I respect a lot them both. Sharon obviously is very nice, too.

Well Floor is one of the best vocalists in metal,her vocal tehnique is great and she's got a very wide range (something like 4 octaves,i think)....but what i actualy don't like is when that's the only thing people notice.I don't know how many times have i heard people talking bad about Sharon only because she's not that operatic like Floor or Tarja,and because she didn't study solo singing,or whatever.
I don't personaly care about tehnique,range or anything.I just want to feel the emotion through singer's voice,she (or he) must bring the song on the right way.And that's all.And that's what everyone should do.Does it really matter did the singer take classical singing lessons?Nope
So,i prefer Sharon to Floor in every moment.
And i also prefer Simone to Sharon
(sorry Shaz fanatic xD i love her too,totaly,don't missunderstand me xD)

I kinda agree with you.I've seen many people commenting on youtube of how bad is the technique of a respective singer and comparing her with Floor,Vibeke etc.
Honestly,when I look at a singer I don't judge only by how many octaves does she have,or how many years of training,or how high can she gow,and other bullshit.Of course I won't look at a singer with a poor voice control or whatever but I firstly look after how does the respective's singer's voice touches my heart,in an emotional way.

Well in this case Sharon,Simone and Floor(kinda in that order) are my favorite singers of all the time so I won't complain.I just wanted to make an opinion which is kinda off-topic for this thread

I'd say the same about Floor. Her voice is phenomenaly wide and strong. Gotta say, that years back when I saw Sharon's (WT) live gigs on youtube, I thought she sounds horrible because her voice isn't that strong and she was very unbalanced with it. Anyway the reason was (which I noticed afterwards), that the stage they played in was freaking huge and it was mixed badly. By that I mean that she needed a lot more power as she usually did and it broke her voice. I saw her singing 2008 summer live and she definitely made 0 mistakes during the gig, respect!

well,ya see?

Glad there's someone who shares my opinion. xD

Sharon sings quite good live, from not only YouTube I've heard but also from fans! She can't be perfect everytime (even if she has one of the best voices of all time), but she's amazing!!! <3 <3

I smiled when I read what Mark says about Simone. It's kinda cute. Although Simone is the singer of my favourite band, I prefer Floor's voice over all the voices in the whole wide world.

^I agree .Floor's voice is absolutely mindblowing.It's very powerful and versatile
Although it's hard to make a top of my fave female singers I think that Sharon den Adel,Anneke van Giensbergen and she are by far the closest to my heart.Simone comes pretty close thought