List of Famous Bands from Ontario

Reference
Updated June 9, 2017 24.6K views480 items

List of Ontario bands, listed by their level of fame. This Ontario musicians list includes both bands and solo artists. All famous Ontario bands are included, as well as many Ontario musicians of underground status. This list of Ontario musical artists includes information like what genre the artist falls under, what albums they've put out and more. If you want to know more about these famous Ontario bands you can click on their names to learn more about them. Bands from every genre are listed here, including rock, pop, hip-hop/rap, jazz, and more.

List features bands like Avril Lavigne and Neil Young.

If you're wondering, "What bands are from Ontario?" or "What is a list of Ontario bands?" then this list will answer your questions. {#nodes}
Ranked by
  • Avril Lavigne

    Avril Lavigne

    Pop punk, Pop music, Rock music
    • Albums: Let Go, My Happy Ending, Don't Tell Me, When You're Gone, Forbidden Rose
    Avril Ramona Lavigne (born September 27, 1984) is a Canadian singer, songwriter and actress. She has released six studio albums and received eight Grammy Award nominations. At age 16, Lavigne signed a two-album recording contract with Arista Records. Her debut studio album, Let Go (2002), is the best-selling album of the 21st century by a Canadian artist. It yielded the singles "Complicated" and "Sk8er Boi", which emphasized a skate punk persona and earned her the title "Pop Punk Queen" from music publications. She is considered a key musician in the development of pop punk music, since she paved the way for female-driven, punk-influenced pop music in the early 2000s. Her second studio album, Under My Skin (2004), became Lavigne's first album to reach the top of the Billboard 200 chart in the United States, going on to sell 10 million copies worldwide.
  • Neil Young

    Neil Young

    Rock music, Experimental rock, Grunge
    • Albums: Harvest, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere, After the Gold Rush, Tonight's the Night, On the Beach
    Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. After embarking on a music career in the 1960s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he formed Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and others. Young had released two solo albums and three as a member of Buffalo Springfield by the time he joined Crosby, Stills & Nash in 1969. From his early solo albums and those with his backing band Crazy Horse, Young has recorded a steady stream of studio and live albums, sometimes warring with his recording company along the way. Young's guitar work, deeply personal lyrics and signature tenor singing voice define his long career. Young also plays piano and harmonica on many albums, which frequently combine folk, rock, country and other musical styles. His often distorted electric guitar playing, especially with Crazy Horse, earned him the nickname "Godfather of Grunge" and led to his 1995 album Mirror Ball with Pearl Jam. More recently Young has been backed by Promise of the Real. Young directed (or co-directed) films using the pseudonym Bernard Shakey, including Journey Through the Past (1973), Rust Never Sleeps (1979), Human Highway (1982), Greendale (2003), and CSNY/Déjà Vu (2008). He also contributed to the soundtracks of the films Philadelphia (1993) and Dead Man (1995). Young has received several Grammy and Juno awards. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him twice: as a solo artist in 1995 and in 1997 as a member of Buffalo Springfield. In 2000, Rolling Stone named Young the 34th greatest rock 'n roll artist. He has lived in California since the 1960s but retains Canadian citizenship. He was awarded the Order of Manitoba on July 14, 2006, and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada on December 30, 2009.
  • Rush

    Rush

    Progressive metal, Rock music, Heavy metal
    • Albums: Moving Pictures, 2112, Hemispheres, Permanent Waves, Fly by Night
    Rush was a Canadian rock band consisting of Geddy Lee (bass, vocals, keyboards), Alex Lifeson (guitars), and Neil Peart (drums, percussion). Formed in 1968, the band went through several configurations until arriving at its longest and classic line-up when Peart replaced original drummer John Rutsey in July 1974, two weeks before the group's first tour of the United States. Rush is known for its musicianship, complex compositions, and eclectic lyrical motifs drawing heavily on science fiction, fantasy, and philosophy. The band's musical style has changed several times over the years, from a blues-inspired hard rock beginning, later moving into progressive rock, and including a period marked by heavy use of synthesizers. In the early 1990s, Rush returned to a guitar-driven hard rock sound, which continued for the rest of their career. Rush announced plans to cease large-scale touring at the end of 2015. After nearly three years of an uncertain future, Lifeson reluctantly announced in January 2018 that the band was not going to continue.According to the RIAA, Rush ranks 88th with sales of 25 million units in the U.S. Although total worldwide album sales are not calculated by any single entity, several industry sources estimated Rush's total worldwide album sales at over 40 million units as of 2017. The group has been awarded 24 gold, 14 platinum, and 3 multi-platinum albums.Rush has received nominations for seven Grammy Awards. The band has won several Juno Awards, won an International Achievement Award at the 2009 SOCAN Awards, was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. Over their careers, the members of Rush have been acknowledged as some of the most proficient players on their respective instruments, with each band member winning numerous awards in magazine readers' polls.
  • Alanis Morissette

    Alanis Morissette

    Pop music, Rock music, Experimental rock
    • Albums: Jagged Little Pill, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, Under Rug Swept, Underneath, Jagged Little Pill Acoustic
    Alanis Morissette
  • Shania Twain

    Shania Twain

    Country pop, Pop music, Rock music
    • Albums: Come On Over, Up!, The Woman in Me, Man! I Feel Like a Woman!, Greatest Hits
    Shania Twain, OC (; born Eilleen Regina Edwards; August 28, 1965) is a Canadian singer, songwriter and actress. She has sold over 100 million records, making her the best-selling female artist in country music history and among the best-selling music artists of all time. Her success garnered her several honorific titles including the "Queen of Country Pop".Raised in Timmins, Ontario, Twain pursued singing and songwriting from a young age before signing with Mercury Nashville Records in the early 1990s. Her self-titled debut studio album saw little commercial success upon release in 1993. After collaborating with producer and later husband Robert John "Mutt" Lange, Twain rose to fame with her second studio album, The Woman in Me (1995), which brought her widespread success. It sold 20 million copies worldwide, spawned widely successful singles such as "Any Man of Mine", and earned her a Grammy Award. Her third studio album, Come On Over (1997), became the best-selling studio album of all time by a female act in any genre and the best-selling country album, selling nearly 40 million copies worldwide. Come On Over produced twelve singles, including "You're Still the One", "From This Moment On" and "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!", and earned Twain four Grammy Awards. Her fourth studio album, Up! (2002), was also certified Diamond in the United States. In 2004, Twain entered a hiatus, revealing years later that diagnoses with Lyme disease and dysphonia led to a severely weakened singing voice. In 2011, she chronicled her vocal rehabilitation on the OWN miniseries Why Not? with Shania Twain, released her first single in six years, "Today Is Your Day", and published an autobiography, From This Moment On. Twain returned to performing the following year with an exclusive concert residency at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Shania: Still the One, which ran until 2014. In 2015, she launched the North American Rock This Country Tour, which was billed as her farewell tour. Twain released her first studio album in 15 years in 2017, Now, and embarked on the Shania Now Tour in 2018. Twain has received five Grammy Awards, 27 BMI Songwriter Awards, stars on Canada's Walk of Fame and the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and an induction into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame. According to the RIAA she is the only female artist in history to have three (consecutive) albums certified Diamond by the RIAA. and is the sixth best-selling female artist is the United States. Altogether, Twain is ranked as the 10th best-selling artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era.
  • Bryan Adams

    Bryan Adams

    Adult contemporary music, Pop music, Heartland rock
    • Albums: Reckless, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, 11, Bryan Adams, Room Service
    Bryan Guy Adams (born 5 November 1959) is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer, guitarist, photographer, philanthropist and activist. He rose to fame in Canada and the United States with his 1983 album Cuts Like a Knife and turned into a global star with his 1984 album Reckless, which produced some of his best known songs, including "Run to You", "Summer of '69" and his first number one, "Heaven". In 1991, he released the album Waking Up the Neighbours, which included the song "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You". The song became a worldwide hit and reached number 1 in many countries, including a new record of 16 consecutive weeks in the United Kingdom. Adams also had the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles "All for Love" and "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?"For his contributions to music, Adams has garnered many awards and nominations, including 20 Juno Awards among 56 nominations, 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written Specifically for a Motion Picture or Television in 1992. He has also won MTV, ASCAP, American Music awards, three Ivor Novello Awards for song composition and has been nominated five times for Golden Globe Awards and three times for Academy Awards for his songwriting for films. Adams was awarded the Order of Canada and the Order of British Columbia for contributions to popular music and philanthropic work via his own foundation, which helps improve education for people around the world. Adams was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March 2011 and Canada's Walk of Fame, Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame in 1998, and in April 2006 he was inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame at Canada's Juno Awards. In 2008, Adams was ranked 38th on the list of all-time top artists in the Billboard Hot 100 50th Anniversary Charts. On 13 January 2010, he received the Allan Waters Humanitarian Award for his part in numerous charitable concerts and campaigns during his career, and on 1 May 2010 was given the Governor General's Performing Arts Award for his 30 years of contributions to the arts.Following the release of his Ultimate collection in 2017 which included two new songs "Please Stay" and "Ultimate Love", and then co-writing his first Broadway musical Pretty Woman: The Musical in 2018, Adams released his 14th album Shine A Light on 1 March 2019, followed by a Shine a Light world tour for the entire year.