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VOICES OF THE AGES

The 200 Greatest Singers

of All Time
From Sinatra to SZA, from R&B to salsa to alt-
rock
BY ROLLING STONE
JANUARY 1, 2023

Aretha Franklin described her mission as a

singer like this: “Me with my
hand outstretched, hoping someone will take
it.” That kind of deep, empathetic bond
between artist and listener is the most
elemental connection in music. And you can
think of our list of the 200 Greatest Singers of
All Time as a celebration of that bond. These
are the vocalists that have shaped history and
defined our lives — from smooth operators to
raw shouters, from gospel to punk, from
Sinatra to Selena to SZA.

When Rolling Stone first published its list of

the 100 Greatest Singers in 2008, we used an
elaborate voting process that included input
from well-known musicians. The results
skewed toward classic rock and singers from
the Sixties and Seventies. This new list was
compiled our staff and key contributors, and it
encompasses 100 years of pop music as an
ongoing global conversation, where iconic
Indian playback singer Lata Mangeshkar
lands between Amy Winehouse and Johnny
Cash, and salsa queen Celia Cruz is up there in
the rankings with Prince and Marvin Gaye.
You might notice that, say, there isn’t any
opera on our list — that’s because our purview
is pop music writ large, meaning that almost
all the artists on this list had significant
careers as crossover stars making popular
music for the masses.

Before you start scrolling (and commenting),

keep in mind that this is the Greatest Singers
list, not the Greatest Voices List. Talent is
impressive; genius is transcendent. Sure,
many of the people here were born with
massive pipes, perfect pitch, and boundless
range. Others have rougher, stranger, or more
delicate instruments. As our write-up for the
man who ended up at Number 112 notes,
“Ozzy Osbourne doesn’t have what most
people would call a good voice, but boy does
he have a great one.” That could apply to more
than a few people here. 

In all cases, what mattered most to us was

originality, influence, the depth of an artist’s
catalog, and the breadth of their musical
legacy. A voice can be gorgeous like Mariah
Carey’s, rugged like Toots Hibbert’s,
understated like Willie Nelson’s, slippery and
sumptuous like D’Angelo’s, or bracing like
Bob Dylan’s. But in the end, the singers
behind it are here for one reason: They can
remake the world just by opening their
mouths.

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JACK ROBINSON/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

50 Joni Mitchell

“I used to be a breathy little soprano,” Joni

Mitchell told us in 1969. “Then one day I
found that I could sing low. At first, I thought
I had lost my voice forever.” She didn’t, and
she still hasn’t. Mitchell’s songwriting has
long been revered — especially in recent years
by younger generations — but her vocals are
also unmatched, from the way she effortlessly
climbs octaves to her mastering of both a high
register and husky depth (listen to the
incredible For The Roses gem “Lesson in
Survival” for a taste of both). Despite years of
smoking and health setbacks, she’s still
reminding us of her greatness, whether it’s
with surprise appearances or unearthed
gems from the vault.–A.M.

A D V E RT I S E M E N T

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49 Rod Stewart

Rod the Mod didn’t merely mimic his vocal

hero Sam Cooke’s grainy earnestness; he
reimagined it from the inside and grew into
one of rock’s great interpreters. Stewart can
break your heart while singing as a good-time
rounder, can make you wince or smirk with
equal facility — when he’s on, he can make
ordinary material sound as good as a new suit.
And when the material’s great, he’s
irresistible. If all he’d ever made was 1971’s
Every Picture Tells a Story — a vocal tour de
force, every emotion precisely evoked — he’d
belong on this list. But he’s still learning new
tricks, as the Songbook albums show off
nicely. —M.M.

A D V E RT I S E M E N T

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48 Toni Braxton

“My voice was always low,” Toni Braxton told

The Guardian in 2020. “I remember everyone
in class singing ‘Joy to the World,’ and I was
the only one who couldn’t sing it in the key. I
was always the kid in the room with the low
voice that made you turn around.” The R&B
singer’s voice still makes people do double
takes, but not because of what it can’t do;
instead, it’s because of her smooth tone and
ability to make even the simplest sentiments
smolder. Her blockbuster ballad “Un-Break
My Heart” showcases the full extent of her
vocal power, but songs like the pensive
“Breathe Again” show how she can slow-burn
emotion to devastating effect, her steely-eyed
resolve only breaking when it’s clear that
feelings are about to take her over. —M.J.

A D V E RT I S E M E N T

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47 Linda Ronstadt

The queen of country rock never wanted to be

a soprano pigeonholed in one genre, so she
spent four decades following her curiosity
instead of what her fans wanted — a move
straight out of her friend Neil Young’s
playbook. She quickly established herself as
the greatest interpreter in music history,
dipping her paintbrush in everything from
opera to standards to the traditional Mexican
music of her family, exposing boomers to
songs they wouldn’t have discovered
otherwise. And with those legendary pipes
that spanned several octaves, she could truly
sing anything — who else could master both
“Blue Bayou” and “Tú, Sólo Tú”? —A.M.

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46 Mavis Staples

As a member of her family band the Staple

Singers, Mavis Staples injected the power of
gospel exclamation into the pop charts; just
listen to her command on “I’ll Take You
There.” On the records she’s made over the
past two decades, Staples found her voice in
more ways than one. Whether singing civil
rights songs or working with sympathetic
collaborators like Jeff Tweedy, she found the
perfect frameworks for her instrument. But
she also proved that voices can age in
remarkable and expressive ways. Reflecting a
life that’s had its shares of highs (joining the
Band at The Last Waltz) and lows (the loss of
her father and sisters), Staples imbues
everything she signs with experience, warmth,
wisdom, and acceptance. —D.B.

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45 Ella Fitzgerald

Voices change — that’s what aging does. But

although Ella Fitzgerald’s style deepened —
her voice gained in character and her phrasing
in perception — her voice itself generated the
illusion of youthfulness for decades, all the
way to her sixties. What a run! Fitzgerald’s
famously precise enunciation was right there
from her first recording, 1938’s “A-Tisket —
A-Tasket,” with Chick Webb’s orchestra. But if
rock-raised ears may find Fitzgerald’s
portrait-painter precision a mite proper, the
very grain of her voice is always wonderfully
earthy. She’s sensuous, learned, and spry, and
she’s worth hearing in every phase of her
career. —M.M.

A D V E RT I S E M E N T

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44 James Brown

To call James Brown merely a singer seems

like a vast understatement. To hear Brown in
his prime, say on a track like “Super Bad,” is
to experience a lexicon of vocal effects, all
jumbled together and delivered in a breathless
barrage. That inimitable raspy croon is merely
the launch pad. What sends the performance
airborne is the way he offsets his phrases with
attention-commanding asides — “Heh!”
“Hey!” “Good God!” — hoarse exhortations,
and, as he moves from the bridge back to the
verse, that signature, paint-peeling scream,
like Little Richard dialed way up into the red.
Brown could belt out a melody with the best of
them (see “Try Me” or “It’s a Man’s Man’s
Man’s World”), but his real genius was
turning the pop vocal into a contact sport — a
technique that Michael Jackson, among
others, would build an empire on. —H.S.

A D V E RT I S E M E N T

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43 Ariana Grande

With a whistle tone that rivals Mariah Carey’s

in her prime and a voice that is intricate and
honeyed across four octaves, Grande became
one of the biggest stars of the 2010s — but
there are layers to her genius. Ariana is such
an apt and knowledgeable vocalist that she
also recognizes the power of restraint,
wielding her gift in both showstopping (think
“God Is a Woman”) and simple ways (Think “7
Rings”) across her already-expansive catalog.
The set list for her last (and third) arena tour,
named for her 2018 album, Sweetener, was
absolutely relentless, a barrage of hits through
which she never lost a breath. Even more
impressive is her technical ability to make
these massive songs. “She knows every detail
about her voice,” says Savan Kotecha, a
songwriting partner to Grande since her
debut: “‘That note over there, that’s a little bit
flat.’ We’ll be like, ‘What? No it’s not.’ She’s
like, ‘Yes it is, that little syllable there.’ The
way that Jimi Hendrix was with a guitar,
Ariana Grande is like that with vocals.” —
M.C.

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42 Teddy Pendergrass

Though he was one of the Seventies’ most

important vocalists, it took years for people to
learn Teddy Pendergrass’ name — he came to
prominence early in the decade as the lead
singer, though not the leader, of Harold
Melvin and the Blue Notes, before going solo
in 1977. But his voice simply couldn’t be kept
in the background: Pendergrass’ timbre was
deep, wide, and towering like a Redwood, and
it was a fulcrum for equally gigantic emotions.
Teddy’s big masculine rumble could make a
breakup sound like the world ending — “The
Love I Lost,” from 1973, is the most
devastated — but it could also be
transportingly gentle, as on the 1975 entreaty
“Wake Up Everybody.” —M.M.

A D V E RT I S E M E N T

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