These Are the Most Iconic Musical Duos in History

Many of the music industry’s biggest stars make it on their own, thanks to their individual talents for music and showmanship. In some cases, however, two is better than one.

Musical duos come in many different forms. In some cases, already successful entertainers find that they work well with each other, and embark on partnerships that sometimes last years. Other duos are only ever popular as a team, and fall out of public favor when they separate. Some are simply flashes in the pan — one-off collaborations that can result in riches for all involved. These are the top musical collaborations that hit No. 1 on the charts.

The most iconic duos cover all different types of musical partnerships. Some are married couples whose music depicts their love. Others are friends who seem to simply like making music together. And some, we later find out, never really liked each other much at all.

24/7 Tempo has identified the most iconic musical duos of all time. Each of the twosomes included had at least one substantial hit song on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart.

To determine the most iconic musical duos of all time, 24/7 Tempo looked at every artist who released a song that charted on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart. We then identified those songs that were performed by duos — two musicians both performing as a primary artist. The duos were ranked by overall Billboard performance — rank of singles and length of time spent on the Hot 100 chart — before editorial discretion (and knowledge of specific artists) was brought into play, deleting certain musicians that didn’t seem sufficiently iconic and adding some that we deemed essential.