Doctor Who vocalists are deemed to be those people who performed original works for the production of Doctor Who, such as Katherine Jenkins or Mark Chambers.

They may be contrasted with:

• Real world musicians whose work appears in Doctor Who, a category for bands and individual musicians whose work is not original to Doctor Who, like Athlete, The Beatles and Britney Spears. Related to this category is:
  • Real world musicians whose work appears in Torchwood
  • Real world musicians whose work appears in Class
• Performers of songs about the Doctor Who universe, people who have performed songs that never appeared in an episode, but which nevertheless had a strong Doctor Who connection. Examples: Jon Pertwee ("Who is the Doctor"), Orbital and their rendition of the Doctor Who theme, The Go-Go's ("I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek").
• Musical groups from the real world is an in-universe category, which organises musical groups who exist in the real world and the DWU. The Beatles are such a group.
• Musicians from the real world are individual musical perormers who exist within the DWU. Frank Sinatra and Britney Spears are such people.