Greatest male singerof all time?

Who's the greatest male singer of all time? Nobody leads yet.

Ten matchups, about a minute. Or just tap a photo.

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The table

Rating ± certainty · updates live

PosContenderRatingWin %Week
1
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson
Thriller, best-selling album ever
1,500 ±350 50%
2
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury
Queen's Live Aid set (1985)
1,500 ±350 50%
3
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Among the best-selling solo artists ever
1,500 ±350 50%
4
Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder
25 Grammys
1,500 ±350 50%
5
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Defined the Great American Songbook
1,500 ±350 50%
6
Prince
Prince
Oscar for the Purple Rain score
1,500 ±350 50%
7
Elton John
Elton John
Best-selling single since charts began
1,500 ±350 50%
8
The Weeknd
The Weeknd
Blinding Lights, Billboard's top Hot 100 song
1,500 ±350 50%
9
Ed Sheeran
Ed Sheeran
Shape of You, a Spotify all-timer
1,500 ±350 50%
10
Luciano Pavarotti
Luciano Pavarotti
Best-selling classical album ever
1,500 ±350 50%

Ratings use Glicko, a version of chess's Elo that also tracks how sure we are (the ± figure). Beat a higher-rated rival and you gain more, and the less sure we are about a contender, the more one vote moves them. On the real site the official table is recalculated from all votes every few minutes, so a matchup that gets voted on a lot doesn't count extra. Why a chess rating and not upvotes?

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    Fair play

    Nobody picks matchups by hand. Every visitor gets their own stream, drawn by a matchmaker that spreads votes across the whole field.

    • Least-seen first. Contenders with few matches come up more, so new entries get rated fast.
    • Unsure ratings first. The bigger the ± on a rating, the more often it gets tested.
    • Close contests. Evenly matched pairs tell us more than mismatches.
    • Wildcards and no repeats. One matchup in seven is fully random, and you never see the same pair twice.

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    Who gets shown: 1,000 visitors × 10 matchups

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