Most Popular Musical Duos of All Time

Country duo Big Kenny and John Rich were not part of the Nashville mainstream, though they had written songs for Gretchen Wilson and Martina McBride – but they broke through on their own with the single “Lost in This Moment.”which climbed to No. 36 in 2007.

Kenny Loggins and Jim Messina were a soft-rock duo who sold 16 million records and were the most successful duo of the early 1970s. Their biggest hit was “Thinking Of You.” Loggins went on to have a strong solo career, penning songs for the movies “Footloose” and “Top Gun.”

Donald and Richard Addrisi, the sons of an acrobat act, became known as songwriters, penning hits like the Association hit “Never My Love.” As performers themselves, they started as Everly Brothers-style rock ‘n’ rollers before moving on to more of a teen-pop style. Their most popular song, “Slow Dancin’ Don’t Turn Me On,” peaked at No. 20 in 1977.

Led by Trent Reznor, Nine Inch Nails became a significant 1990s musical act with its brand of industrial rock. “Closer” was the group’s biggest hit, reaching No. 41 for a week. Reznor also carved out a niche as a producer for soundtracks for films such as Oliver Stone’s controversial “Natural Born Killers,” which featured a previously unreleased NIN song called “Burn,” and the David Lynch movie “Lost Highway.”

Thompson Square is the husband-and-wife country duo of Keifer Thompson and Shawna Thompson. The act fuses classic styles into a country-pop mixture. Their most successful song, “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not,” went to No. 32 in 2011.

Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson were successful Motown songwriters, penning songs for Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, and Glady Knight and the Pips. Ashford & Simpson’s best success as performers came in 1984 with “Solid.”

The puckish duo of Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte first became successful around Boulder, Colorado (their name comes from Boulder’s – and Denver’s – 303 area code), by combining high-energy dance anthems that incorporated rap and rock. Their top-charting song was “Don’t Trust Me” (2008).

Brooklyn-born brothers Santo and Johnny Farina reached the apex of the Billboard Hot 100 in 1959 with the atmospheric instrumental “Sleep Walk.” They had a more modest hit with a follow-up, “Tear Drop,” but further success eluded them in the United States and they had a more fruitful career abroad

The electronic dance music pair, Andrew Taggart and Alex Pall, have had winning collaborations with Halsey and Coldplay that produced five top-10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. As an individual act, The Chainsmokers’ greatest success has been “Paris,” which reached No. 6 in 2017.

One of the 1960s’ one-hit wonders stories, Nino Tempo & April Stevens were born Nino & Carol LoTempio. They gravitated toward big band music before shifting into easy-listening and adult pop. Their lone No. 1, “Deep Purple,” was recorded in 15 minutes, according to the music website AllMusic.

An R&B duo often compared to Sam & Dave, the Purifys’ blended harmonies helped them post a major hit with 1966’s “I’m Your Puppet,” which ascended to the Top Ten on both the pop and R&B charts.

This British synth pop duo consisting of Andy Bell and Vince Clarke (one of the founders of Depeche Mode) reeled off a slew of infectious hits beginning in the mid-’80s. Their song “Always” reached No. 20 in 1994.

Chad Stuart & Jeremy Clyde rode the wave of the British rock invasion of America to success in the early 1960s. They made frequent appearances on teen-oriented TV music shows and appeared on television sit-coms such as “The Patty Duke Show.” They are famous for their 1964 single “A Summer Song.”

Guitarist Richard Drummie and vocalist Peter Cox formed the British dance-pop duo Go West in 1982. Their single “King Of Wishful Thinking” was boosted by its appearance in the runaway movie hit “Pretty Woman” in 1990.

Sam Moore & Dave Prater embodied soul music of the 1960s with a passion that infused in their music. They are best known for “Soul Man,” which reached No. 2 in 1967. The song found new life when “the Blues Brothers” (John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd) performed in 1978 and released it as a single the following year.

Ike & Tina Turner brought a white-hot energy to their hybrid of soul and rock onstage, and they had a combustible relationship out of the spotlight. They are best known for their high-voltage cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Proud Mary,” which reached No. 4 in 1971.

Thirteen-year-old rappers Chris “Daddy Mack” Smith and Chris “Mack Daddy” Kelly became the pop sensations Kris Kross in 1992. They were discovered at an Atlanta mall a year earlier by producer Jermaine Dupri, who had them wear their clothes backwards to help brand the duo’s name. Their single “Jump” sampled the Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back” and soared to No. 1 on the Hot 100. The dissolved when Kelly died of an apparent drug overdose in 2013.

Silk Sonic is a collaboration between Bruno Mars and Anderson .Paak performing R&B and soul. The act debuted in 2021. Their single “Leave the Door Open” topped the Hot 100 that April.

Rae Sremmurd are brothers Swae Lee (Khalif Brown) and Slim Jxmmi (Aaquil Brown) who perform party rap. Their biggest hit as solo performers was “No Type,” which reached No. 16 in 2014.

Pianomen Arthur Ferrante and Louis Teicher were one of the best-selling easy-listening acts of the 1960s, offering light arrangements of recognizable classical pieces, movie soundtrack themes, and show tunes. By the 1960s, they were putting out instrumental albums that appealed to mainstream audiences. They had top-10 hits with “Theme from ‘The Apartment’,” and the “West Side Story” song “Tonight,” but their greatest success was their arrangement of the movie theme “Exodus” in 1960.

The London-based new wave group Wang Chung achieved greater success in the U.S. than the U.K. After their single “Dance Hall Days” received strong play on FM radio and MTV in America, Wang Chung scored its biggest hit “Everybody Have Fun Tonight.”

This inventive synth-pop duo (Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe) kept its hand on the pulse of music trends. Their legendary video of the hit “West End Girls” was basically a walking tour of London in the early 1980s. That song went to No. 1 for a week and has been the pair’s biggest hit. Other top-10 successes included “It’s a Sin” and their cover of Willie Nelson’s “Always on My Mind.”

England Dan (Dan Seals) and John Ford Coley were mellow rockers who were part of the singer-songwriter era of the 1970s. After playing on several Seals & Crofts albums, they struck out on their own. Their single “I’d Really Love To See You Tonight” reached No. 2 in 1976.

Milli Vanilli were the duo of Rob Pilatus and Fabrice Morvan, former break-dancers who tried to capitalize on the dance-pop trend of the 1980s. When it was discovered that they had lip-synced their songs, they became the first performers to ever have a Grammy stripped from them. The title of their biggest hit, “Girl You Know It’s True,” is somewhat ironic.

Peter Asher and Gordon Waller were a British duo who landed on American shores during the British rock invasion in the early 1960s, similar in style and comportment to another British pair, Chad and Jeremy. Asher was the older brother of Jane Asher, Paul McCartney’s girlfriend in the early 1960s. McCartney wrote the duo’s biggest hit, “A World Without Love.”

Tears For Fears are an ambitious synth-pop act, composed of Brits Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith. With a name inspired by the writings of once-trendy psychologist Arthur Janov, they proved adept at churning out hits and their videos became MTV favorites. They’ve had four top-10 singles and two Hot 100 No. 1s – “Shout” and “Everybody Wants To Rule The World,” both of which came out in 1985.

The Alan Parsons Project was a high-concept, prog-rock collaboration of Alan Parsons (who worked with the Beatles and Pink Floyd) and Eric Woolfson, with a rotating group of session musicians. Some of their works used themes from books from Edgar Allan Poe and Isaac Asimov. Their most popular album was titled “Eye In The Sky,” whose title track reached No. 3 in 1982.

The original Peaches & Herb were Francine Hurd Barker and Herb Fame (other singers subsequently took over the role of Peaches). They scored some hits in the late 1960s, then went through an 11-year drought that ended with the disco-era hit “Shake Your Groove Thing.” That same year they posted their greatest success, the slow-dance classic “Reunited.”

Folk-rock duo Sonny Bono and Cher, who eventually were married, had a string of hits such as “I Got You Babe,” and were hosts of a highly rated television variety show in the 1960s. Among their hits was 1971’s “All I Ever Need Is You.”

Cedric and Joel Hailey, who record as the R&B duo K-Ci & JoJo, grew up as gospel singers in a church choir in North Carolina. Along with another pair of brothers, they also made up the chart-topping ’90s group Jodeci. Their greatest duo success was “All My Life,” in 1998.

Wham! was composed of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley. They became England’s most prolific duo of the 1980s, with hooky songs like “Wake Me up Before You Go Go” and anthems such as “Freedom.” They’ve had seven top-10 songs on the Hot 100, the biggest of which is “Last Christmas,” originally recorded in 1984 heard in constant rotation during the holiday season, which climbed to No. 4 the week after Christmas this year.

Country singer-songwriters Jennifer Nettles and Kristian Bush found almost instant success as performers with their debut album, “Twice the Speed of Life,” which went multi-platinum. Critics and fans alike appreciated their sophisticated, textured lyrics. They’ve had limited crossover success, but their biggest Hot 100 hit, “Stuck Like Glue,” ascended to No. 17 in 2010.

MTV made stars out of many British acts, and Eurythmics, a synth-pop duo composed of powerful gender-bending vocalist Annie Lennox and instrumentalist and producer Dave Stewart, was one of them. The pair had three top-10 hits on the Hot 100, including “Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)” in 1983.

The sound of country duo Montgomery Gentry (Eddie Montgomery and Troy Gentry) paid homage to the spirit of redneck rebels like Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band, and Charlie Daniels. Their greatest Hot 100 success was “She Couldn’t Change Me,” in 2001.

The bluesy, new-agey, jazzy sound of duo Walter Becker and Donald Fagan built a following among college and young adult audiences in the 1970s and 1980s. Even though they eschewed live performing between 1974 and 1993, their popularity grew as singles and albums received frequent airplay on FM radio. Their biggest hit, “Hey Nineteen,” about a hipster who encounters an irreconcilable age difference with a potential lover, rose to No. 10 in 1980.

Twenty one pilots, whose core duo is Tyler Joseph and Josh Dun, built a regional following in Ohio with their blend of rock, hip-hop, punk, and reggae. The group has had three singles crack the top 10 – “Ride,” “Heathens,” and “Stressed Out” – the latter of which went to No. 2 in 2015.

Songwriters Dan Smyers from Pennsylvania and Shay Mooney from Arkansas chased their music dreams to Nashville where they met and helped recraft the country sound in the 21st century. Their single “Tequila” rose to No. 21 in 2018.

Outkast are Atlanta natives André Benjamin (Dré) and Antwan Patton (Big Boi). They’ve taken rap in a different direction – less aggressive, with more positive lyrics and complex arrangements. They’ve topped the Hot 100 three times, most successfully with “Hey Ya!” in 2003.

Few duos say 1970s more than the married couple Captain (Daryl Dragon) & Tennille (Toni Tennille), whose breezy style stood in contrast to the era’s pulsating disco beat. Between 1975 and 1979, the duo cranked out seven top-10 hits, and two No. 1’s – “Love Will Keep Us Together” and “Do That To Me One More Time,” the latter of which topped the charts in 1979.

The indefatigable country duo of Leon Eric “Kix” Brooks and Ronnie Gene Dunn have fused country harmonies, pop, rock, and honky tonk, rising to superstardom and helping shape the modern Nashville sound. They’ve rolled up 20 chart-toppers on the Hot Country Songs list, though crossover success has been elusive. The song that’s risen the highest for them on the Hot 100 is “Ain’t Nothing ‘Bout You,” which climbed to No. 25 in 2001.

Roxette, featuring vocalist Marie Fredriksson and multi-instrumentalist Per Gessle, rode its infectious dance-oriented pop/rock to international stardom in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Four of their singles topped the Billboard Hot 100 as they became Sweden’s biggest pop act since ABBA. One of the chart-toppers, “It Must Have Been Love,” reached No. 1 in 1990.

Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard are bro-country music stars. Their single “Cruise,” a paean to the freedom of the open road, received massive airplay in 2013 and became a huge crossover hit – and at least temporarily the biggest country single of all time. A remix by rapper Nelly made the top 10, but the group’s biggest hit without a collaborator was “H.O.L.Y.” in 2016.

The Righteous Brothers, Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield, weren’t brothers, but the blend of Medley’s baritone and Hatfield’s falsetto created a memorable blue-eyed soul sound in the early 1960s. Their collaboration with Phil Spector and his wall-of-sound production technique produced the smash “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’.” Their greatest hit, however, was their 1965 version of “Unchained Melody,” which had already hit the top 10 three times by different artists when it first came out in 1955. Technically speaking, the 1965 hit was the work of only one Righteous Brother: Each man had agreed to sing one song solo on their album “Just Once in My Life,” and this one was Medley’s.

The folk-rock duo whose music most memorably helped capture the 1960s zeitgeist, the team of Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel provided five songs for the counterculture classic film “The Graduate,” including the chart-toppers “Mrs. Robinson” and “The Sound of Silence.” A No. 1 that is not heard in the movie, “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” was the pair’s biggest hit, summiting the Hot 100 in 1970.

The Australian pop tandem of Daniel Jones and Darren Hayes has posted two No. 1s on the Hot 100 – “Truly Madly Deeply” and “I Knew I Loved You.” The former song is the duo’s most successful, appearing on the Hot 100 for 52 weeks in 1997 and 1998.

The Australian soft-rock duo of Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell enjoyed success with chart-making love songs in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Their debut album “Lost in Love,” sold more than 2 million copies and birthed the hit singles “Lost in Love,” “All Out of Love,” and “Every Woman in the World.” “All Out of Love” was the pair’s biggest hit, rising to No. 2 in 1980.

Don and Phil Everly were key players in the burgeoning genre of rock ‘n’ roll in the 1950s, and their tight two-part harmonies and echoes of Appalachian music laid the groundwork for the country-rock movement of the late ’60s and early ’70s. They had a string of hits beginning in the late 1950s, among them “Bye Bye Love,” “Wake Up Little Susie,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” and “When Will I Be Loved,” but “Bird Dog” was their biggest success, reaching No. 2 in 1958.

Richard and Karen Carpenter were often dismissed for their saccharine pop sound, but there is no discounting Karen’s powerful voice or the success of the siblings in the 1970s. According to Billboard, they were the top-charting American act of the decade. Among their No. 1’s was the cheerfully optimistic “Top Of The World” in 1973

Out of the Pacific Northwest came sisters Ann and Nancy Wilson, who created anthem-themed music that received much airplay in the 1980s. The pair scored two No. 1’s in “Alone” and “These Dreams,” and had nine top-10 hits. Their most successful song in terms of longevity was 1985’s “Never,” which was on the Hot 100 for 24 weeks.

Darryl Hall and John Oates, practitioners of blue-eyed soul, are the 19th greatest all-time act on the Billboard Hot 100, scoring six No. 1 singles and 16 top-10 hits, including “Kiss on My List,” “You Make My Dreams,” “Private Eyes,” and “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do).” Their biggest hit single was “Maneater” in 1982.