Most Tamil movie songs are sung by singers who sing not only in the Tamil language but also in other south Indian languages namely Telegu, Malayalam and Kannada. Most of these singers maybe mainstream Bollywood singers, that is singing Hindi movie songs or south Indian music industry singers who also sing in Hindi movies. Most Tamil singers today are those who sing for the Tamil movies. These singers like Hariharan, SP Balasubramanium are very popular not just in the Tamil movies but in the Hindi music industry as well.

Most Carnatic singers perform in Tamil language along with Telegu and Sanskrit. Popular female Carnatic singers are MS Subbulakshmi, Bombay Sisters, Nithyasree Mahadevan, D.K. Pattammal, Sulamangalam Sisters, K.B. Sundarambal, N.C. Vasanthakokilam, and M. L.Vasanthakumari. The leading male singers are M.Balamuralikrishna, G. N. Balasubramanian, Chembai Vaidyanatha Iyer, Sirkali Govindarajan, S.G.Kittapa, Hariharan, Madurai Mani Iyer, Madurai Somasundaram, Maharajapuram Santhanam, Rajkumar Bharathi, Semmengudi Srinivasa Iyer, Madurai T.N. Seshagopalan, P.Unnikrishnan, and K.J.Yesudas.

Famous female Tamil movie singers include KS Chitra, Mahalaxmi Iyer, P Susheela who has won 5 national awards, S Janaki the winner of 7 Tamil Nadu state awards, Sailaja, Sadhna Sargam, Vani Jayaram and Vasundhara Das to name a few. Bollywood female singers popular in the Tamil music industry are Shreya Ghoshal, Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar.

Popular male Tamil movie singers are Hariharan who is also an acclaimed ghazal singer, Jayachandran, Karthik, KK who is very popular in Bollywood too, KJ Yesudas who is also a Carnatic classical singer, Madhu Balakrishnan, Mano, Sreenivas, SP Balasubramanium probably the most famous Tamil singer who has won 6 national awards and 3 state awards etc. His mp3 are widely available online for free download.