Who are the most important artists that aren't from the major English speaking countries?

By the "major English speaking countries", I mean the USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. (Now yes, English is very common in plenty of other countries, but I didn't know how to otherwise phrase the question!)

I guess I'm sort of phrasing this in terms of the western world, as in, the artists that are important and have made a big impact in the aforementioned countries.

I'd argue that France and Sweden have maybe provided the most significant artists outside of those territories, but Germany would be up there too, and in more modern times the impact of South Korean and Japanese pop music can't be understated. Classical obviously throws in a whole load of other names, too.

Anyway, I'll get the major pop one out of the way in the opening post:

 

Another from Sweden:



Even though they didn't define a decade or hit the heights that ABBA did, I feel like they had quite a substantial impact in the '90s that can't be set aside today.

 

Scorps

 

Charles Aznavour

 

Shakira
Avicii
Daft Punk

 

Some other modern day bigger names to pick out:

Rihanna (Barbados)
David Guetta (France)
BTS (South Korea)

And in terms of older artists:

Johnny Hallyday (France)
Bob Marley (Jamaica)
Ravi Shankar (India)

 

Jorge Ben, Caetano Veloso, Gal Costa (Brazil)

 

JS Bach
Jobim
Morricone
Legrand

 

Kraftwerk

 

Neue Deutsche Welle and Deutschrock gave us, most notably, Falco, Nena and Nina Hagen.

 

I saw Youssou N'Dour on the Amnesty tour back in 1988. He is from Senegal and sang in Senegalese though he sang in English on the ensemble "Chimes Of Freedom". My understanding was he was a major figure in Africa and he certainly had a unique and beautiful voice.

 

Julio Iglesias.

 

Obviously this guy.
I knew it would never happen but i always wished that Motorhead would've done a cover of this great tune! I'm being serious!
If you listen to it on headphones very loudly, you can imagine Lemmy and the boys doing a great version of the song.

 

Yes, sadly

 

You still have Rosalía.

 

AR Rahman from India. I think he won an Oscar and was also featured on Pussycat Dolls song iirc .

 

Mana from Mexico

 

Well, technically, they featured on his song:



It's from Slumdog Millionaire which was also the source of the Oscar.

Another multicultural collaboration from that era is Sérgio Mendes' collaboration with The Black Eyed Peas.

 

Also, Enrique Inglesias (Spain). From Wiki:

Enrique Iglesias has sold over 170 million records (albums and singles combined) worldwide, making him one of the best-selling Spanish speaking artists ever.[5]Iglesias has scored over 150 number-one songs across all of the Billboard charts. He has had five Billboard Hot 100 top five singles, including two number-ones, and holds the record for producing 27 number-one Spanish-language singles on the Billboard's Hot Latin Tracks. He also holds the record for most number-one hits and the longest-running number-one hit on that chart.[6] Iglesias also has 14 number-ones on Billboard's Dance charts, more than any other male artist.[7]In December 2016, Billboard magazine named him the 14th most successful and top male dance club artist of all time.[8]

 

Ozzy.

No way English is his first language.

 

The biggest hype I can remember

 

I didn't know that...

 

Sadly, too