Genres that debuted or were popular in this decade:
Musicians
- The Andrews Sisters
- Louis Armstrong
- Gene Autry
- Béla Bartók. Composed his masterpiece "Concerto For Orchestra" and then died in 1945.
- Lead Belly
- Irving Berlin
- Annie Get Your Gun (1946)
- Leonard Bernstein
- On the Town (1944)
- John Cage
- Cab Calloway
- Ray Charles. Debuted in the 1940s. First chart hit in 1953.
- Nat King Cole
- Aaron Copland
- Bing Crosby
- Merry Christmas (1945)
- Miles Davis. Debuted in the 1940s.
- Eric Dolphy
- Duke Ellington
- Eddie Fisher. Started his career crooning with bands in 1946–48.
- Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill
- Lady in the Dark (1941)
- Woody Guthrie
- Dust Bowl Ballads (1940)
- Edgar Yipsel "Yip" Harburg and Burton Lane
- Finian's Rainbow (1947)
- Billie Holiday
- Howlin' Wolf
- The Ink Spots
- Spike Jones
- B.B. King. Started in this decade with his first 2 singles released in 1949.
- Erich Wolfgang Korngold
- Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe
- Brigadoon (1947)
- Johnny Marks
- Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1948/1949)
- Glenn Miller
- Charles Mingus
- Ogden Nash and Kurt Weill
- One Touch of Venus (1943)
- Alfred Newman
- Lionel Newman
- Charlie Parker
- Les Paul. The original electric guitar hero pioneered studio overdubbing upon his return from World War II, reaching stardom both solo and with wife Mary Ford.
- Édith Piaf
- Cole Porter
- Kiss Me Kate (1948)
- Tito Puente
- Sergei Rachmaninoff
- Django Reinhardt
- Rodgers and Hammerstein
- Oklahoma!! (1943)
- Carousel (1945)
- South Pacific (1949)
- Ravi Shankar
- Dinah Shore
- Dmitri Shostakovich
- Frank Sinatra
- Igor Stravinsky
- Jule Styne and Leo Robin
- Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949 theatre adaptation)
- Sun Ra
- Art Tatum
- Edgard Varèse
- Sarah Vaughan
- Fats Waller continued playing and recording music until his death in 1941.
- Muddy Waters
- Hank Williams
- Kurt Weill
- Roy Rogers
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Celia Cruz
Songs
