Curated playlist
A&M Records artists
- Black Eyed PeasThe Black Eyed Peas topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 26 straight weeks in 2009. No artist had done it longer by then.
- Janet JacksonJanet Jackson was seen at the 1983 American Music Awards wearing a hoop earring with a key attached to it. She has worn variations of that earring in music videos and live shows ever since. The pair she wore between 1987 and 1990 is now on…
- Sex PistolsThe Sex Pistols never made a second studio album. Yet the punk band reshaped British music in about two years.
- James BrownJames Brown pointed out band members' wrong notes with hand signals.
- The PoliceThe Police's first concert lasted only ten minutes. Six years later they played Shea Stadium to 70,000 people.
- Fergie (singer)Fergie, born Stacy Ann Ferguson, sang on a song that held the top spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for 14 straight weeks in 2009. That song, "I Gotta Feeling," stayed at number one longer than any other song that year. By then her records had…
- Queen LatifahQueen Latifah picked her name from a book of Arabic names at age eight. She added the title "Queen" herself.
- Cat StevensCat Stevens sold more than 100 million records before he walked away from pop music. A 25-year break followed.
- Iggy PopIggy Pop, born James Newell Osterberg Jr., built a reputation on rolling around in broken glass while a crowd watched. Admirers eventually called him the "Godfather of Punk". His first band sold few records, yet its songs outlasted much of…
- Sting (musician)Sting, the English musician and actor born Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, once disowned his own first name on camera. In the 1985 documentary Bring On the Night, a journalist addressed him as Gordon. He answered, "My children call me Sting,…
- Shaquille O'NealShaquille O'Neal twice broke steel backboard supports with his dunks. The NBA then redesigned its equipment.
- Joan BaezJoan Baez was singing at a music festival called Bratislavská lýra in Communist Czechoslovakia in May 1989 when someone cut off her microphone. From the stage, she had just greeted members of Charter 77, a dissident human-rights group.…
- Benny BlancoBenny Blanco walked onstage on the 13th of June 2013 at the 44th Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony. The award in his hands was the Hal David Starlight Award, given to young artists who have already made an impression on the music…
- Herb AlpertHerb Alpert is the only musician to top the Hot 100 as both a singer and an instrumentalist.
- Nicole ScherzingerIn August 2003, Nicole Scherzinger walked into the Arista Records office in New York carrying a demo CD of songs she had written herself. She was performing under her Hawaiian family name, Nicole Kea, and she wanted a solo recording…
- Billy PrestonBilly Preston got his name on a Beatles single. The 1969 "Get Back" was credited to "The Beatles with Billy Preston."
- Bryan AdamsIn 1990, Bryan Adams sat down with two collaborators, Robert John "Mutt" Lange and Michael Kamen, and finished a song in a single 45-minute session. The song was "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," and it went on to reach number one in at…
- Quincy JonesQuincy Jones taped a sign to the entrance of a recording studio in 1985, and it read "Check Your Ego at the Door." Behind that door waited most of the major American recording artists of the day. Jones needed every one of them to work as…
- Chris MontezChris Montez once headlined over The Beatles and had never heard of them. They opened his concerts in Britain.
- Adam LevineAdam Levine was twelve years old when he played his first professional gig at The Troubadour. He was so nervous that he played with his back to the audience. Today he is the lead singer, rhythm guitarist and only continuous member of the…