MUSICIANS from Hong Kong

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Chinese Musicians of all time. This list of famous Chinese Musicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Leslie Cheung (1956 - 2003)

With an HPI of 63.10, Leslie Cheung is the most famous Chinese Musician.  His biography has been translated into 45 different languages on wikipedia.

Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing (12 September 1956 – 1 April 2003), born Cheung Fat-chung, was a Hong Kong singer and actor. One of the most influential cultural icons in the Chinese world, Cheung was known for his debonair demeanor, flamboyant screen characters, and avant-garde, androgynous stage presence. Throughout his 26-year career, he released over 40 music albums and acted in 56 films. Born in Kowloon, British Hong Kong, Cheung studied in England since the age of 12 until he returned home in 1976. He garnered attention in 1977 when entering RTV's Asian Singing Contest and achieved popularity in 1984 with a hit single "Monica." Cheung is regarded as one of the founding fathers of Cantopop for defining the music genre in the 1980s. He announced his "retirement" from music in 1989 and emigrated to Canada the following year, but returned to Hong Kong in 1994. His reemergence from the musical retirement in the late 1990s, particularly in his 1996 album Red, was marked by sonic experimentation and daring imagery. In addition to music, Cheung achieved pan-Asian fame with such films as A Better Tomorrow (1986) and A Chinese Ghost Story (1987). He won the Best Actor at the 1991 Hong Kong Film Awards for his role in Days of Being Wild (1990), and became world-renowned for his performances in Farewell My Concubine (1993) and Happy Together (1997). On 1 April 2003, Cheung, suffering from clinical depression, committed suicide by jumping off the 24th floor of the Mandarin Oriental hotel, Hong Kong. In 2010, he was voted third of CNN's most iconic musicians of all time, after Michael Jackson and The Beatles.

2. Herman Li (b. 1976)

With an HPI of 42.26, Herman Li is the 2nd most famous Chinese Musician.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Herman Li (Chinese: 李康敏; born 3 October 1976) is a Hong Kong-born British musician. He is one of two lead guitarists and one of the producers and songwriters for the power metal band DragonForce. Li has played with the band based in England since it was formed in 1999 by Li along with Sam Totman, both of whom are also the remaining original members of the band. Before DragonForce he was in the black metal band Demoniac.