- The recently released list features pop culture icons like Beyonce, Billie Eilish, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, among others.
Legendary singer Lata Mangeshkar, regarded as one of Indian cinema’s greatest playback singers, is the only Indian among Rolling Stone’s 200 greatest pop singers of all time. Joining India’s nightingale is Pakistani vocal master Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The recently released list features pop culture icons like Beyonce, Billie Eilish, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, among others. Those who made it to the coveted list were chosen for “originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s catalog, and the breadth of their musical legacy,” the magazine said.
Describing Mangeshkar as the “Melody Queen,” Rolling Stone said her “crystalline, eternally girlish voice is a cornerstone of Indian pop music, with a global influence spread via Bollywood films, whose golden era she defined.” She started her career at the age of 13 in 1942 and has sung over 25,000 songs in various Indian languages.
“Even Asha Bhosle, her younger sister and only true peer among playbacks, considered her elder sister — Lata Didi — her “favorite singer,” the magazine said. And “if Bhosle was more versatile and prolific, her elder sister remained the gold standard for the piercing brilliance of her tone.”
A recipient of the Bharat Ratna, Padma Bhushan, Dadasaheb Phalke Award, and many others, she was also conferred by France its highest civilian award, the Officer of the Legion of Honor, in 2007. She died on Feb. 6, 2022, due to Covid-related complications. She was 92.
The New York Times called Khan to be “the greatest qawwali singer of his generation,” while in 2016, the Los Angles Weekly described him as “the fourth greatest singer of all time.”
Khan is an icon in the realm of Qawwali, a type of Sufi devotional song, whose family’s musical legacy stretched back hundreds of years.. Sometimes called the “Shahenshah-e-Qawwali” (the King of Kings of Qawwali), Khan is widely credited with introducing qawwali music to international audiences.
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“His music easily reached global audiences in the 1980s when he began performing abroad and recording for Peter Gabriel’s Real World label,” Rolling Stone said. According to the magazine, Khan has many several fans including “Madonna, Eddie Vedder who duetted with him on the ‘Dead Man Walking’ soundtrack, and Jeff Buckley, who called the singer “my Elvis” and studied Urdu in order to properly cover him.”
The New York Times called Khan to be “the greatest qawwali singer of his generation,” while in 2016, the Los Angles Weekly described him as “the fourth greatest singer of all time.” He died of a sudden cardiac arrest on Aug. 16, 1997, aged 48.