(Just a small comment out of context of the remaining discussion:)

Maybe not many? It could be that "cultural attention" is limited and there's not much space at the top anyways. In other words: It might be that there's always a few famous artists that get remembered and the rest is forgotten. Same as winning the world cup: There's always a team that wins and it says nothing about the quality in a universal way. At best it says something about quality relative to the competition.

(Not sure I'd fully get behind the argument i composed here. But I found it interesting.)