List of most popular artists (all time)

Richard Hugh "Ritchie" Blackmore (born 14 April 1945) is an English guitarist and songwriter, who began his professional career as a session musician as a member of the instrumental band The Outlaws and as a backing musician of po...

Mark Freuder Knopfler (born 12 August 1949) is a British singer, songwriter, guitarist, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, lead singer and songwriter for the rock band Dire Straits, wh...

James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer and dancer. The founding father of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century popular music and dance, he is often referred to as "The Godfather of Sou...

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was an American actor.

Henry Jaynes "Hank" Fonda (May 16, 1905 – August 12, 1982) was an American film and stage actor with a career spanning more than five decades.

Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry (born October 18, 1926) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter.

Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter, artist and writer.

Yngwie Johan Malmsteen (born Lars Johan Yngve Lannerbäck; 30 June 1963) is a Swedish guitarist, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and bandleader.

Stephen "Stevie" Ray Vaughan (October 3, 1954 – August 27, 1990) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer.

David Eric "Dave" Grohl is an American rock musician, multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter, and producer who is best known as the former drummer for the grunge band Nirvana and the founder and frontman of the rock band Foo Fig...

Tyler Gregory Okonma, better known by his stage name Tyler, The Creator, is an American rapper and record producer from California. Born in Ladera Heights, he rose to prominence as the leader and co-founder of the alternative hip...

Richard Stuart Linklater (born July 30, 1960) is an American film director and screenwriter.

Michael John Douglas (born September 5, 1951), better known by his stage name Michael Keaton, is an American actor, producer, director and comedian. He is currently a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University.

Pierce Brendan Brosnan, (born 16 May 1953) is an Irish actor, film producer and environmentalist who after leaving comprehensive school at age 16, began training in commercial illustration. He then went on to train at the Drama Ce...

Viggo Peter Mortensen, Jr. (October 20, 1958) is a Danish American actor, poet, musician, photographer and painter. He made his film debut in Peter Weir's 1985 thriller Witness, and subsequently appeared in many notable films of t...

Klaus Badelt (born 12 June 1967) is a German composer, best known for composing film scores. Badelt was born in Frankfurt, West Germany. He started his musical career composing for movies and commercials in his homeland. In 1998,...

Ronda Rousey (born February 1, 1987), also known as Ronda "Rowdy" Rousey, is an American mixed martial artist, judoka and actress. She is the first and current UFC Women's Bantamweight Champion, as well as the last Strikeforce Wom...

Tijs Michiel Verwest (born 17 January 1969), better known by his stage name Tiësto, is a Dutch DJ and record producer. In 1997 he founded the label Black Hole Recordings with Arny Bink, where he released the Magik and In Search of...

O'Shea Jackson, Sr. (born June 15, 1969), known by his stage name Ice Cube, is an American rapper, record producer, actor, and filmmaker. He began his career as a member of the hip-hop group C.I.A. and later joined the seminal gan...

Andre Romelle Young (born February 18, 1965), known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American rapper, record producer, and entrepreneur. He is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and Beats Electronics. Dre was p...

Eric Lynn Wright (September 7, 1964 – March 26, 1995), better known by his stage name Eazy-E, was an American rapper who performed solo and in the hip hop group N.W.A. Wright is affectionately called "The Godfather of Gangsta Rap"...

Sia Kate Isobelle Furler (born 18 December 1975), sometimes referred to mononymously as Sia, is an Australian singer-songwriter. She started her career as a singer in the local Adelaide acid jazz band Crisp in the mid-1990s. In 19...

Todd McFarlane (born March 16, 1961) is a Canadian cartoonist, artist, writer, designer and entrepreneur, best known for his work in comic books, such as the fantasy series Spawn. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane becam...

John Baldwin (born 3 January 1946), better known by his stage name John Paul Jones, is an English multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, composer, arranger and record producer. Best known as the bassist, keyboardist, and co-songwriter...

John Henry Bonham (31 May 1948 – 25 September 1980) was an English musician and songwriter. He is best known as the drummer of Led Zeppelin.

Robert Anthony Plant (born 20 August 1948) is an English musician, singer, and songwriter best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band Led Zeppelin. He has had a successful solo career spanning over 40 years...

Ryan Rodney Reynolds (born October 23, 1976) is a Canadian actor and producer. He portrayed Michael Bergen on the ABC sitcom Two Guys and a Girl (1998–2001), Billy Simpson in the YTV Canadian teen soap opera Hillside (1991–93), as...

Michael Edward "Mike" Mills (born December 17, 1958) is an American multi-instrumentalist and composer who was a founding member of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Though known primarily as a bass guitarist, backing vocalist, and...

Peter Lawrence Buck (born December 6, 1956) is an American rock musician and songwriter who is best known as co-founder and lead guitarist of the alternative rock band R.E.M. Throughout his career with R.E.M. (1980–2011), as well...

John Michael Stipe (born January 4, 1960) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, film producer, music video director, and visual artist. He was the lead singer of the alternative rock band R.E.M. from their formation in 1980...

Kesha Rose Sebert (born March 1, 1987) (formerly stylized as Ke$ha) is an American singer, songwriter and rapper. In 2005, at age 18, Kesha was signed to producer Dr. Luke's label Kemosabe Records. Her breakthrough came in early 2...

Amethyst Amelia Kelly (born 7 June 1990), better known by her stage name Iggy Azalea, is an Australian rapper, songwriter, and model. Born in Sydney and raised in Mullumbimby, Azalea moved to the United States at the age of 16 to...

Paul D'Amour (born May 12, 1967) is an American musician, and the first bass guitarist for Tool. His bass sound was recognized by the aggressive picked tone he developed with his Chris Squire Signature Rickenbacker 4001CS, which c...

Justin Gunnar Walter Chancellor (born 19 November 1971) is an English musician formerly in the band Peach but best known as the bass player for rock band Tool. Chancellor is of English and Norwegian descent. Since settling in the...

Daniel Edwin "Danny" Carey (born May 10, 1961) is an American drummer best known for his work in American Grammy Award-winning progressive rock band Tool. He has also contributed to albums by artists such as Zaum, Green Jellÿ, Pig...

Cyril Takayama (born September 27, 1973) is an American-Japanese magician of Japanese, French, and Moroccan descent. He is perhaps best known for his magic performances around Japan. Some of Cyril's signature tricks include the ha...

Georges Bizet (25 October 1838 – 3 June 1875), registered at birth as Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer of the romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few...

Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Скря́бин; 6 January 1872 – 27 April 1915) was a Russian composer and pianist. Scriabin, who was influenced by Frédéric Chopin, composed early works that are characte...

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck (10 December 1822 – 8 November 1890) was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life. He was born at Liège, in what is now Belgium (though a...

Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British classical music, with a range of works including opera, o...

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925) – he signed his name Erik Satie after 1884 – was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avant-garde. His work was a precu...

François Couperin (10 November 1668 – 11 September 1733) was a French Baroque composer, organist and harpsichordist. He was known as Couperin le Grand ("Couperin the Great") to distinguish him from other members of the musically t...

Aaron Copland (November 14, 1900 – December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. Instrumental in forging a distinctly American sty...

Olivier Messiaen (December 10, 1908 – April 27, 1992) was a French composer, organist and ornithologist. His music is rhythmically complex; harmonically and melodically it often uses modes of limited transposition, which he abstra...

Paul Hindemith (16 November 1895 – 28 December 1963) was a German composer, violist, violinist, teacher and conductor. Notable compositions include his song cycle Das Marienleben (1923) and opera Mathis der Maler (1938). Hindemith...

Charles Edward Ives (October 20, 1874 – May 19, 1954) was an American modernist composer. He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though his music was largely ignored during his life, and many of his wor...

Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 1874 – 13 July 1951) was an Austrian composer and painter. He was associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School. With the...

Christoph Willibald (Ritter von) Gluck (2 July 1714 – 15 November 1787) was a composer of Italian and French opera in the early classical period. Born in the Upper Palatinate (now part of Germany) and raised in Bohemia, he gained...

Gabriel Urbain Fauré (12 May 1845 – 4 November 1924) was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th-century composers...

Jean-Baptiste Lully (born Giovanni Battista Lulli; 28 November 1632 – 22 March 1687) was an Italian-born French composer, instrumentalist, and dancer who spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France. Lully di...