Curated playlist

American alternative rock musicians

River PhoenixRiver Phoenix was an American actor and musician, and at the 92nd Academy Awards his brother Joaquin spoke one of River's lyrics aloud. Accepting the Best Actor prize, Joaquin told the room that River wrote it at 17: "run to the rescue…
Mark RonsonMark Ronson was twelve years old when he pestered Jann Wenner, the founder of Rolling Stone, until the magazine gave him an internship. By his own description he was a music nerd, and the persistence paid off. Decades later he had won ten…
Olivia RodrigoOlivia Rodrigo was a teenager when one of her songs drew more than 15.7 million streams around the world in a single day, on the 11th of January 2021. The next day, the total passed 17 million. Looking back, she described it this way:…
Kid RockKid Rock, born Robert James Ritchie in Romeo, Michigan, was 17 when he signed with Jive Records. Years later, his album Devil Without a Cause sold 14 million copies. Both facts belong to one career, and little else about that career is…
Trent ReznorTrent Reznor once worked at Right Track Studio in Cleveland as an assistant engineer and janitor. Studio owner Bart Koster remembered his employee this way: "He is so focused in everything he does. When that guy waxed the floor, it looked…
Kurt CobainKurt Cobain turned 14 on the 20th of February 1981, and his uncle put a choice in front of him. He could have a bicycle or a used guitar. Kurt took the guitar. Soon afterward he was attempting Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," then…
Flea (musician)Flea, the bassist born Michael Peter Balzary, once played so hard that he wore a hole through his thumb. Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins first saw him perform in 1984 and remembered him crying out in pain between songs. Someone kept…
Anthony KiedisAnthony Kiedis was born on the 1st of November 1962, and as a young man he walked on stage with a band that existed to play one song, one time. The group called itself Tony Flow and the Miraculously Majestic Masters of Mayhem. Its only…
Courtney LoveCourtney Love walked on stage at the Reading Festival on the 26th of August 1994 as the singer of Hole. It was her first public performance since the death of her husband, the Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain. MTV called the set "by turns…
Chris CornellChris Cornell was born Christopher John Boyle, and the voice he grew into covered nearly four octaves, from C2 to A5. Critic Jon Pareles of The New York Times wrote that as the voice climbed, it could meet hard-rock turbulence with, at the…
David ByrneDavid Byrne was turned away from his middle school choir, which judged him "off-key and too withdrawn". That boy grew up to be an American musician, writer, visual artist and filmmaker. Over his career he has received an Academy Award, a…
Eddie VedderEddie Vedder was born Edward Louis Severson III on the 23rd of December 1964 in Evanston, Illinois. The surname the world knows him by was not the one he was born with. He grew up to become the lead vocalist, primary lyricist and one of…
Kid CudiKid Cudi was born Scott Ramon Seguro Mescudi in Cleveland on the 30th of January 1984. One day, while he was working at the BAPE store in New York, Kanye West came in and bought a few jackets. Cudi had forgotten to remove a security sensor…
MGKMGK, born Colson Baker and known for years as Machine Gun Kelly, took his original stage name from a gangster. The nickname belonged to George Kelly Barnes, a criminal of the Prohibition era. The man who borrowed it became a rapper,…
Taylor MomsenTaylor Momsen was on stage in Seville, Spain, on the 31st of May 2024 when a bat bit her. She was performing with her band, the Pretty Reckless, at the time. The bite meant she had to take vaccinations for rabies. Momsen is an American…