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Back in the day Shure could liken the 58 to a coke bottle and use their strapline without irony. It was ubiquitous, everywhere from a battered mic crate in the crate of a punk club to the hand of an arena rock legend. While there were other mics that had brief moments of fashion for example the Sennheiser 431 and Beyer M88. But it still came back as the default choice. It sounded good, was very well made and importantly felt good to hold.
It’s been around a while, since the mid 60s but didn’t really take over as the live vocal mic of choice until the mid 70s. They cost a bit more than a bottle of coke back then too, The price in 1979 was just under £80.00,. Almost the same as now!
However, in recent years there have been quite a few new contenders and the old 58 is not seen that often as the singer’s, or sound person’s, mic of choice.
The Sennheiser 935 is popular and arguably sounds better, different anyway, bit more top and the Audix OM3 is justifiably popular. These are about the same price as a 58 so the comparison is a fair one. There are also more exotic choices like the Neuman KMS 104/5 which is a great mic but being a condenser is not really for throwing around and cost over £400. All good improvements but at a cost!
The SM58 is still a popular and useful mic. It has a cardioid pattern and has good feedback rejection, this was really important in the days when the sound person had to wring every last bit of gain out of an underpowered system. Back when if you could hear the lead singer and it didn’t feedback you had done a good job.
These days most systems have a bit more headroom and advanced monitoring like in-ear monitors mean that systems don’t have to be run just the right side of squeaking! (Although some still like that) So feedback rejection is not so important. In fact, the Beta 58, the “improved” 58 Shure brought out in 1989 has a hyper-cardioid pattern which means even more gain before feedback. It became ‘flavour of the month’ for a while but many went back to the old 58.
This has always been the secret of the 58. New microphones come and go or stay and find their place. Many arguably sound better, have better feedback rejection and less handling noise but none have the combination of qualities that the 58 has. Often the limiting factor in how good a mic sounds is how well the singer is performing and the 58 more than any other just feels right and lets the vocalist get on with their job.