Curated playlist
Best Original Song Academy Award–winning songwriters
- Bob DylanAt a 1966 Manchester concert, Bob Dylan told his band to play loud after a heckler called him Judas.
- Lady GagaLady Gaga's name may have come from a phone typo. Producer Rob Fusari said autocorrect turned "Radio Ga Ga" into "Lady".
- EminemEminem performed with Elton John at the 43rd Grammy Awards while GLAAD protested outside.
- Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera closed on Broadway in 2023 after 13,981 performances.
- Elton JohnElton John sang "Candle in the Wind 1997" live only once, at Princess Diana's funeral. He wrote it days before.
- Bruce SpringsteenBruce Springsteen threw the first acetate of his own album Born to Run into the swimming pool of his hotel in 1975. The record was being mastered while the band toured, and he was furious at what he heard. He briefly considered scrapping…
- AdeleA friend posted Adele's three-song class demo on Myspace, and a record label phoned.
- 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…
- Phil CollinsPhil Collins is the only artist who performed at both Live Aid concerts on the 13th of July 1985. He crossed between London and Philadelphia by helicopters and a Concorde to do it. Born Philip David Charles Collins, he went on to sell an…
- Billie EilishBillie Eilish was 18 years old when she left the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards in 2020 holding all four of the ceremony's general field prizes. Only one person had done that before her, and no woman had. Not long before, she had been a…
- EjaeEjae, born Kim Eun-jae and known professionally under a name stylized in all capital letters, co-wrote and co-performed a song that reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. That song, "Golden," from the film KPop Demon Hunters, later…
- Carly SimonCarly Simon, an American singer, songwriter and author, recorded a line that strangers still sing back at her: "You're so vain, I bet you think this song is about you." Listeners have argued about the target of that accusation ever since.…
- Barbra StreisandBarbra Streisand once filed a lawsuit that sent a crowd of strangers to look at a single photograph. In 2003 she claimed that a website documenting coastal erosion had invaded her privacy. Among its more than 12,000 images, one happened to…