25 Duos in Rock History

Throughout the history of music, duos have delivered some truly timeless material.

Imagine the musical landscape without the gorgeous songwriting of Simon & Garfunkel. Think of the way generations of musicians have been influenced by Steely Dan. And would the ‘80s have sounded so anthemic without Tears for Fears or Hall & Oates?

Duos have been instrumental in some of rock’s biggest musical evolutions, from the folk invasion of the ‘60s and ‘70s (Crosby & Nash) to the post-punk revival of the early 2000s (The White Stripes).

The resumes of these artists and many others were analyzed by UCR’s writers as we looked to determine the 25 Greatest Duos in Rock History.

READ MORE: 50 Greatest Solo Acts in Rock History

For this exercise, we only focused on acts who released material as a duo. So musician pairs whose work has been done inside larger bands – like John Lennon and Paul McCartney in the Beatles or Mick Jagger and Keith Richards in the Rolling Stones – were excluded from the debate.

Similarly, artists like Jimmy Page and Robert Plant – who have released material together, but are best known for their work in Led Zeppelin – were only judged on their output as a duo.

After all the votes were tallied, we were left with an impressive and diverse list of acts. Some enjoyed long careers spanning decades, while others enjoyed a brief buyst of creativity before going away quickly.

Here are the 25 Greatest Duos in Rock History.

Rock’s Greatest Duos