Curated playlist

Brit Award winners

The BeatlesIn 1964, an estimated 73 million Americans watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show.
Michael JacksonMichael Jackson bought a music catalog with most of the Beatles's material in 1985. He paid 47.5 million dollars.
David BowieDavid Bowie died two days after releasing his final album. He planned Blackstar as a parting gift while privately dying.
ColdplayColdplay's first release was 500 copies of a self-financed EP. The band later grossed a billion dollars on one tour.
U2U2, the Irish rock band, began with a note pinned to a school notice board in Dublin in 1976. Larry Mullen Jr., then a 14-year-old pupil at Mount Temple Comprehensive School, was looking for musicians for a new band. The first practice…
John LennonJohn Lennon was ordered to leave the United States in 1973. His anti-war activities had alarmed President Nixon.
MadonnaMadonna arrived in New York in 1978 with thirty-five dollars. It was her first plane ride and first taxi.
Lady GagaLady Gaga's name may have come from a phone typo. Producer Rob Fusari said autocorrect turned "Radio Ga Ga" into "Lady".
Taylor SwiftEvery record label in Nashville turned Taylor Swift away when she was 11. She kept going and began writing songs.
Queen (band)A DJ was told not to play Queen's song "Bohemian Rhapsody", then played it fourteen times in one weekend.
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.
Kanye WestKanye West recorded "Through the Wire" with his jaw still wired shut. A 2002 car accident had shattered it.
Jay-ZNo major label would sign Jay-Z, so he sold burned CDs out of his car.
Elton JohnElton John sang "Candle in the Wind 1997" live only once, at Princess Diana's funeral. He wrote it days before.
Katy PerryKaty Perry grew up in a home where the word "luck" was banned. Her pastor mother said it reminded her of Lucifer.
Whitney HoustonWhitney Houston sold more than 220 million records and carried a nickname that needed no first name: "the Voice". She was born in 1963 and died in 2012. In between, she became one of the most awarded performers in history. In 2023, Rolling…
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…
Drake (musician)Drake's 2006 mixtape Room for Improvement sold roughly 6,000 copies and earned him $304.04.
The White StripesThe White Stripes, a rock duo from Detroit, Michigan, gave their first concert at a bar called the Gold Dollar on Bastille Day in 1997. Meg White had started learning the drums just two months earlier, and she struggled to keep the tempo…
BeyoncéOn the 13th of December 2013, Beyoncé released a complete album on the iTunes Store with no warning and no promotion. Within six days it had sold one million digital copies, a record for any album on iTunes at the time. The artist behind…
Bruno MarsBruno Mars was five years old when he wet himself on a Honolulu stage in the middle of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love." His parents wondered whether they were making a mistake by putting him in front of crowds. He never…
Nirvana (band)In January 1992, Nirvana knocked Michael Jackson's Dangerous off the top of the Billboard album charts.
Spice GirlsThe Spice Girls fired their manager the morning they won an MTV award. They then ran their own tour.
Green DayGreen Day is an American rock band whose own lead singer once called its name "the worst band name in the world." Billie Joe Armstrong said so in 2001. The name came from Bay Area slang for an entire day given over to smoking marijuana.…
Prince (musician)Prince once changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol to protest his record label.
Fleetwood MacPeter Green picked the name Fleetwood Mac to lure bassist John McVie into his new band. McVie first refused.
AdeleA friend posted Adele's three-song class demo on Myspace, and a record label phoned.
RihannaRobyn Rihanna Fenty, known worldwide as Rihanna, once waited in Jay-Z's office while lawyers finished drawing up a six-album contract with Def Jam Recordings. The music executive Antonio "L.A." Reid had told Jay-Z not to let the teenager…
Justin TimberlakeJustin Timberlake was 11 years old when he appeared on the television show Star Search and sang country songs under the name Justin Randall. The boy from Memphis, Tennessee would one day be dubbed the Prince of Pop. Billboard would name…
A Tribe Called QuestA Tribe Called Quest decided to make a last album in secret on the night Paris was attacked.
George MichaelGeorge Michael refused to appear in his own music videos, so five supermodels lip-synced in his place.
Paul SimonPaul Simon, the American singer-songwriter and guitarist, nearly gave one of his best-known songs the wrong name. While writing music for the film The Graduate, he toyed with calling a new song "Mrs. Roosevelt." Art Garfunkel passed the…
The PoliceThe Police's first concert lasted only ten minutes. Six years later they played Shea Stadium to 70,000 people.
Paul McCartneyPaul McCartney traded a trumpet for a guitar and wrote his first song on it. His father had given him the trumpet.
Oasis (band)Oasis, the rock band from Manchester, once drew applications for 2.5 million tickets to a pair of shows at Knebworth. Only 250,000 tickets were actually sold, which meant the band could in theory have filled twenty nights. Instead they…
Ed SheeranEd Sheeran bought a thirty-pound guitar two days after hearing Eric Clapton. He was eleven years old.
GorillazGorillaz performed at the Grammy Awards, though no band member ever existed. The four are cartoon characters.
Amy WinehouseAmy Winehouse won five Grammys singing by satellite from London at 3 a.m. Her visa was not processed in time.
Pharrell WilliamsPharrell Williams, the American musician, songwriter, record producer and fashion designer, was once behind a startling share of the songs on the radio. An August 2003 survey cited by The Age found that his production duo, the Neptunes,…
Red Hot Chili PeppersThe Red Hot Chili Peppers played their first show on the 16th of December 1982, at the Grandia Room, a club on Hollywood Boulevard, in front of roughly 30 people. They did not yet have that name. The poster billed them as Tony Flow and the…
Justin BieberScooter Braun found Justin Bieber by clicking a YouTube video by accident. He had been searching for a different singer.
Tyler, the CreatorAt the age of seven, Tyler Gregory Okonma, known professionally as Tyler, the Creator, was already making albums that did not exist. He pulled the covers out of CD cases and made new ones for imaginary records, each with a tracklist and…
Blur (band)Blur's 1995 chart battle with Oasis became a story on national news. Both bands released singles on the same day.
Kate BushKate Bush's second UK number one came 44 years after her first. That gap beat Tom Jones's record of 42 years.
Daft PunkDaft Punk ended with a short video and no explanation. On the 22nd of February 2021, the French electronic duo posted a clip called Epilogue to their YouTube channel. In it, one robot explodes while the other walks away into the sunset. A…
The WhoThe Who played the Valley, the home ground of Charlton Athletic, on the 31st of May 1976. The Guinness Book of Records listed that show as the world's loudest concert, at over 120 dB. The English rock band had formed in London in 1964. Its…
Peter GabrielOn the 19th of June 1971, Peter Gabriel took a running jump off a stage and expected the audience to catch him. They moved aside instead. He landed on the floor and broke his ankle, then performed the next several Genesis shows with a…
TLC (group)The group TLC filed for bankruptcy in 1995 at the height of its fame. Each member was clearing under $50,000 a year.
MC HammerMC Hammer started out as an 11-year-old selling baseballs in a parking lot. The Oakland A's owner hired him on the spot.