Top Ten Indian Male Singers of All Time

Song is an important part of the Indian film. Fans cannot think Indian movie without song. It plays very important role to attract millions of fans to come and watch films on silver screen. Indian music industry has a rich history and it is getting rich day by day. The person who plays vital role behind its popularity is called singer. They are also getting popular with their songs.

Here, I have made a list of top ten male singers of Bollywood. They have been selected based on their popularity, versatility and voice. If you have any information to share then feel free to mention it in the comment section.

Kishore Kumar:

Kishore Kumar is a very household name among the Indian movie lovers. He has got equal success as an actor and playback singer, but received more success for his voice. Very few actors got as much success as like him.

After the release of Aradhana in 1969, he reached at the top of his popularity. Here, he lent his voice in a song titled “Roop Tera Mastana” which became hit. After that, movie lovers saw him ruling the next two decades.

Without having any formal training in music, he touched the hearts of millions of listeners around the world with his golden voice. As a singer, his popularity was increasing in such a way that past greats like Mohammad Rafi found it hard to compete with him.

He had good connection with Rajesh Khanna and Amitabh Bachchan and had the chance to work with almost all lead actors and music directors of his time. With bagging 8 Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer, he holds the record for the most number of Filmfare Awards won for that category. Madhya Pradesh government gave him "Lata Mangeshkar Award" for his contribution to Indian cinema.

Mohammad Rafi:

Mohammad Rafi is one of the greatest playback singers in the history of Indian cinema. There is no one who can be compared with him. He was the dominant figure in the Golden Era of Hindi Cinema. In his 35 years of career from 1945 to 1980, he has sung 7,516 Hindi film songs, 112 non-Hindi film songs, and 328 private (non-film) songs and performed all types of songs.

In his time, he has worked with almost all the music directors and actors. He won National Award and 6 Filmfare Awards. In 1967, Indian government honored him with Padma Shri award.

Mukesh Chand Mathur:

He is widely known as Mukesh to his millions of fans. As his voice was extremely suitable for the tragic films, he was called the king of sad songs. He was deeply influenced by the legendary singers- KL Saigal, Rafi and Kishore, of his time, and he had to struggle hard to come out of their shadows. For his voice, he was compared with KL Saigal.

However, music director, Naushad, helped him to create his own style and to come out of his saigal style. Though he had to go through many ups and downs, his career spanned for three decades and he is still popular today.

Manna Dey:

Born as Prabodh Chandra Dey, he got commonly known by his nick name “Manna Dey”. He has shared equal success in both Bengali Assamese and Hindi films.

Though he performed all types of songs from Pop to folk, he is ranked as one of the best classical singers among all singers of Hindi film music.

His great voice, versatility and command over classical music helped him to be a great singer. He has sung more than 3500 songs over the course of his career.

He was honored with the Padma Shri award in 1971 and the Padma Bhushan in 2005 and the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2007 by the Indian government.

Hemanta Kumar Mukhopadhyay:

Commonly Known as Hemanta Mukherjee, was the legendary singer, music composer, producer and one of the leading supporters of Rabindra Sangeet. He was the doyen of Bengal and Hindi music.

He was trained by Ustad Faiyaz Khan but his guidance was cut short by Ustad’s untimely death. He was blessed with versatility but limited by range. Despite performing a limited number of songs, he is still popular today.

Bhupen Hazarika:

Bhupen Hazarika is blessed with multifaceted talent. He has successful footstep in almost all the cultural arenas, including, writing poetry, lyrics, composing music, singing, acting, journalism and film-making, with highest repute. However, he is mainly known as singer to his fans and a living pioneer of Assam’s film industry in the Northeast.

In his songs, he talked about ordinary people and their sufferings that made him popular among all class of ethnic and religious communities not only in Assam but also in other countries outside India. He was a strong supporter of communism and that is why, fans could find the themes of communal amity, universal justice, empathy and humanity.

Most of his songs were mainly sung and written in the Assamese language by him, but have been translated and sung in many languages, especially in Bengali and Hindi.

In his long career, he won many major awards in India and performed more than 1,500 songs.

Rahul Dev Burman:

The son of singer and Bollywood music composer Sachin Dev Burman and his wife Meera, Rahul Dev Burman, is a gift in the Hindi film industry. He kept very important contribution in the Hindi film industry by revolutionizing the filmi music in Hindi films for which he is credited. His style and techniques are still followed by the composers of today. Besides composing music, he also lent his voice in eighteen movies for which he himself composed the scores.

It is said that he used to get tunes in his dreams. Being advised by his father, he used to get up as soon as he dreamt of a tune and wrote it down.

Kumar Sanu:

For his singing style, Kumar Sanu often compared with an Indian legend singer, Kishore Kumar. However, he came out of Kishore’s shadow and developed his own singing style. In the early 1990s, he reached at the top of his popularity at a time when Gulshan Kumar ruled the music industry. He has given a number of hit song to his fans.

He has been criticized for not having a range or a good voice. He won the Filmfare Best Male Playback Award over five consecutive years. In 2009, he was honored with the Padma Shri award by the Government of India.

Mahendra Kapoor:

Mahendra Kapoor is another Indian playback singer who got huge popularity among fans for his Rafi like voice and ability to sing at higher end of the octave. His career spanned five decades and sang over 25,000 songs in various regional languages. Some of his memorable songs are ‘Chalo ek baar phir se Ajnabi ban jayen hum dono’ in Gumrah, ‘Neele gagan ke taale’ in Hamraaz. But he became identical to the patriotic songs like ‘Mere Desh Ki Dharti', in Manoj Kumar’s film Upkaar.

Indian government honored him with the Padma Shri award in 1972.

KL Saigal:

Kundan Lal Saigal, shortly called as KL Saigal, is a legendary figure in the Indian film industry. The singer-actor is known as the first superstar of the Hindi film industry. He died long times ago but his popularity is still intact. It became possible because of the magic that he had in his voice.