Lata Mangeshkar is only Indian on Rolling Stone's 200 Greatest Singers of All Time list

Featuring over 7,000 playback songs in the Indian film industry, Mangeshkar lent her voice to leading actresses over decades. Over the years, Mangeshkar received three National Film Awards, 15 Bengal Film Journalists' Association Awards, four Filmfare Best Female Playback Awards, two Filmfare Special Awards, a Filmfare Lifetime Achievement Award, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the Bharat Ratna and the Padma Vibhushan.

The magazine wrote that the singer had inspired many others not just in India but other contemporary artists “from Britney Spears’s ‘Toxic’ (which sampled the 1981 Lata duet “Tere Mere Beech Mein”) to electronic jams by Madlib and Four Tet (who made a section of Lata’s exquisite “Main Teri Chhoti Bahna Hoon” the centrepiece of his 2015 ‘Morning Side’).”

The magazine compiled its list by instituting a complicated voting process, which included inputs from well-known musicians as well as the Rolling Stone staff and key contributors. At the top of the list is American singer-songwriter Aretha Franklin, who has often been called the ‘Queen of Soul music’.

The top five are R&B singer Whitney Houston, soul music star Sam Cooke, Billie Holiday and pop contemporary icon, Mariah Carey. Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, Beyoncé, Otis Redding, and Al Green complete the top 10.