Curated category
Brit Award winners
- The BeatlesThe Beatles formed in Liverpool in 1960, and within four years an estimated 73 million Americans watched four young men from northern England play on a…
- Michael JacksonMichael Joseph Jackson was born on the 29th of August 1958 in Gary, Indiana, the eighth of ten children in an African-American working-class household…
- David BowieDavid Bowie was born David Robert Jones on the 8th of January 1947 in Brixton, London, and he died two days after releasing his final album, on the 10th of…
- ColdplayColdplay are a British rock band who, over roughly two decades, went from pressing 500 copies of a self-financed EP to becoming the first band in history to…
- John LennonAt approximately 5:00 p.m. on the 8th of December 1980, John Lennon autographed a copy of his new album for a man named Mark David Chapman outside his New…
- MadonnaMadonna Louise Ciccone arrived in New York City in 1978 with thirty-five dollars in her pocket. It was the first time she had ever flown on a plane or ridden…
- Lady GagaStefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta was born on the 28th of March, 1986, at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan. She would grow up to sell an estimated 124…
- Taylor SwiftTaylor Alison Swift was born on the 13th of December 1989, in West Reading, Pennsylvania, named after the singer-songwriter James Taylor by parents who chose…
- Queen (band)Queen played their last concert with Freddie Mercury on the 9th of August 1986, in front of more than 120,000 fans at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire.
- EminemEminem walked onto the stage at the 43rd Grammy Awards in 2001 alongside Elton John, a gay icon performing with a rapper whose lyrics had drawn protests from…
- Andrew Lloyd WebberAndrew Lloyd Webber walked into Her Majesty's Theatre on the 11th of February 2012 to mark a milestone that no Broadway show had ever reached: the 10,000th…
- Kanye WestKanye Omari West was born on the 8th of June 1977, in Atlanta, Georgia, and by the time he was done reshaping American music, he had become one of the most…
- Jay-ZJay-Z was born Shawn Corey Carter on the 4th of December 1969, in Brooklyn, New York City, and grew up in the Marcy Houses, a public housing project in the…
- Elton JohnElton John performed "Candle in the Wind 1997" live exactly once: on the 6th of September 1997, at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, in Westminster…
- Katy PerryKaty Perry grew up in a household where the word "luck" was banned because it reminded her mother of Lucifer. Deviled eggs were called "angeled eggs".
- Drake (musician)Aubrey Drake Graham sold more than 170 million music units worldwide before the age of 40. He holds more Billboard Hot 100 records than any other solo male…
- Nirvana (band)Nirvana formed in Aberdeen, Washington, in 1987, and by January 1992 had displaced Michael Jackson's Dangerous from the top of the Billboard album charts.
- Spice GirlsThe Spice Girls were formed in 1994, and within two years they had achieved something no all-female group had done before: landed number one on the charts of…
- Prince (musician)Prince Rogers Nelson arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital in Minneapolis on the 7th of June, 1958, and for the next 57 years he operated at a pitch that most…
- Fleetwood MacFleetwood Mac were a British and American rock band whose name was itself a gambit. Peter Green, the guitarist who formed the group in London in 1967, chose…
- AdeleAdele Laurie Blue Adkins was born on the 5th of May 1988 in Tottenham, London, and by the time she turned 23, she had already done something no solo artist…
- A Tribe Called QuestA Tribe Called Quest was born on the streets of Queens, New York City, in 1985, when two childhood friends from St. Albans started making music over pause…
- George MichaelGeorge Michael died on Christmas Day 2016, at his home in Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. He was 53. His partner, Fadi Fawaz, found him in bed in the early…
- The PoliceThe Police formed in London in 1977, and within six years they would play Shea Stadium to 70,000 people and hold the number one album position in the US for…
- Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney wrote his first song, "I Lost My Little Girl", on a £15 Framus Zenith acoustic guitar he had traded for a nickel-plated trumpet his father…
- Ed SheeranEd Sheeran was eleven years old when he heard Eric Clapton walk on stage at the Queen's Golden Jubilee concert in June 2002 and play the opening riff of…
- GorillazGorillaz are an English virtual band formed in 1998 by musician Damon Albarn and comic artist Jamie Hewlett. Their four members - 2-D, Murdoc Niccals…
- Amy WinehouseAmy Jade Winehouse died on the 23rd of July 2011, at her home in Camden Square, London. She was 27 years old. Her blood alcohol content was recorded at 0.416…
- Justin BieberJustin Drew Bieber was born on the 1st of March 1994 at St. Joseph's Hospital in London, Ontario, and he grew up in Stratford.
- Blur (band)Blur formed in December 1988 when Alex James walked into a rehearsal room and joined Damon Albarn's band. Within a few years, they would be at the centre of…
- Kate BushKate Bush was born on the 30th of July 1958 in Bexleyheath, Kent, and by the time she was nineteen she had done something no woman in pop history had ever…
- TLC (group)TLC formed in Atlanta, Georgia in 1990, and within a few years had become one of the most commercially successful groups in American music history.
- MC HammerStanley Kirk Burrell grew up in a three-bedroom housing project apartment in East Oakland, California, with eight siblings and a mother who worked as a…
- Ariana GrandeAriana Grande-Butera was born on the 26th of June 1993, in Boca Raton, Florida, and by age eight she was singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a Florida…
- Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar Duckworth was five years old when he watched a teenage drug dealer get killed in a drive-by shooting outside his apartment in Compton…
- BjörkBjörk Guðmundsdóttir was born on the 21st of November 1965 in Reykjavík, and by the time she turned 11, she had already released a debut record.
- John WilliamsJohn Williams played two notes for Steven Spielberg, alternating, low and ominous, and Spielberg laughed because he thought it was a joke. The film was Jaws.
- Bee GeesThe Bee Gees were the act that made Barry Gibb the only songwriter in history to have four consecutive number-one hits in the United States, breaking a…
- Depeche ModeDepeche Mode formed in Basildon, Essex in 1980, and within a decade they were filling the Pasadena Rose Bowl with more than 60,000 people.
- Dire StraitsDire Straits formed in Deptford, south east London, in 1977, at a moment when punk rock was the dominant sound on British streets.
- 50 Cent50 Cent was shot nine times at close range outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica, Queens, on the 24th of May 2000.
- Eric ClaptonEric Patrick Clapton was born on the 30th of March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, to a sixteen-year-old mother and a Canadian soldier who had already shipped back…
- George MartinGeorge Martin stood at a mixing desk on the 26th of November 1962, listening to the Beatles run through "Please Please Me" for a third time.
- Kylie MinogueKylie Ann Minogue was born on the 28th of May 1968 at Bethlehem Hospital in Caulfield South, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria.