Who is the most famous popular music artist/band by genre, dead or alive? Overall? Definitions for each genre are up to each poster.
Country - not my area of expertise, but I’ll say Johnny Cash. Hank Williams maybe?
Hip-hop - I haven’t kept up with hip-hop for years and it’s not a genre where artists tend to have long shelf lives. I’m just going to go with Jay-Z here.
Pop - I’m going to go with Michael Jackson.
R&B - I have no idea. Beyonce?
Reggae - Bob Marley. No question.
Rock - depending which genre you put them in, I’m going to have to go Beatles here. Elvis is going to be in the conversation.
Overall - probably a long conversation involving Michael Jackson, the Beatles, possibly some others.
Electronic - Fatboy Slim?
Jazz - I think Miles Davis
Country - I think Johnny Cash
Classical - Mozart
R&B - I don’t know either. Maybe Aretha Franklin?
Rock - I want to say Elvis, but the Beatles are pretty huge
I concede that over the long haul of Jazz history, Louis deserves that distinction, but I suspect the under-40 crowd would not be as impressed. For more discussion of that whole issue, look at Most Essential Jazz Musician from 2005.
Blues – B. B. King. He’s become a brand name for the genre; Sirius/XM named their blues channel after him and there are blues clubs with his name across the country.
If you get to break down genres, I’d put Elvis in rock ‘n’ roll and The Beatles in rock.
Louie Armstrong would win for jazz, though, hands down. Unless you wanted to break jazz down in genres, which you should. Then Miles for bebop, Brubeck for west coast jazz, Duke Ellington for swing, Charles Mingus for free jazz, Herbie Hancock for jazz fusion, Kenny G for soft jazz, and Bela Fleck for electric banjo jazz.
[Jazz stops looking right as a word after a while. Maybe we should back to jass and Jelly Roll Morton.]
Overall most famous musical artist: Elvis. I could go almost anywhere in the world and do a bad Elvis imitation, confident that people would have at least a vague idea who I was imitatiing.
That’s actually a pretty good metric. You don’t see very many Beatles or Stones imitators, but you see Elvis (and Michael Jackson) impersonaters everywhere.
Do most people think of Dylan as folk? It was a pretty minor part of his career as far as time goes, and I though the late 60s rock stuff was more well known. I could well be wrong here, I’ve been a Dylan fan most of my life and I’ve no idea what an “outsider” would think!
There are countless Beatles tribute bands touring the U.S. (and elsewhere). There was one advertised at Caesar’s in A.C. when we went to see Ringo this past weekend. I could see a Beatles tribute show, with all the costume changes, several times a year without driving more than 20 miles (and some less than a couple of miles). Check out Youtube for a sample. There is a shitload of Beatles imitators.
Hank Williams and Johnny Cash play the most popular on equal terms for Country, I would think. The answer should be Lefty Frizzell, damnit.
Where do people put Jerry Lee Lewis? He should be the most famous something. At least the best something.
I would think it’s impossible to offer an overall. Michael Jackson sold the most stuff… and Johnny Cash was irrelevant for a very long time. Then again, so was Michael Jackson. Dylan should be on there, but again, same problem for him. The Beatles were kind of always popular (though that’s a very serious bias by music industry and critics).
I have no major complaint with any of the names offered. Some seem inarguable in my opinion, like B.B. King and Bob Marley.
Before I finished reading other’s input I thought of Marvin Gaye for the R&B category. Aretha has an equal right to the title but I think it comes down to those two. Sam Cooke in third.
Rock needs many more sub-categories to sort out a winner and based on the dialogue, so does jazz. Louis and Miles are important but Benny Goodman was no slouch and you can’t leave Duke off the list.
I’d take Hank Williams over Johnny Cash. Much of Johnny’s fame came from his ability to cross over into pop. But most popular? Now you’ve got to consider modern pop-country; someone like Reba McEntire or Shania Twain.
I think of Dylan as a blues singer more than a folkie, both at the beginning and end of his career. Those with a strong grasp on Folk, may rank The Weavers first, then Joan Baez. But more people have probably heard a Peter, Paul & Mary song than either of the other two.