Curated playlist
EMI Records artists
- David BowieDavid Bowie died two days after releasing his final album. He planned Blackstar as a parting gift while privately dying.
- Queen (band)A DJ was told not to play Queen's song "Bohemian Rhapsody", then played it fourteen times in one weekend.
- Elton JohnElton John sang "Candle in the Wind 1997" live only once, at Princess Diana's funeral. He wrote it days before.
- Deep PurpleDeep Purple began as a plan for a band that rotated like a carnival roundabout.
- Sex PistolsThe Sex Pistols never made a second studio album. Yet the punk band reshaped British music in about two years.
- Tina TurnerTina Turner crossed a Texas freeway on foot on the 1st of July 1976 with 36 cents and a Mobil credit card in her pocket. She had slipped out of a hotel suite in Dallas after a fight, while her husband slept. Her destination was a nearby…
- 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…
- Kate BushKate Bush's second UK number one came 44 years after her first. That gap beat Tom Jones's record of 42 years.
- 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…
- D'AngeloD'Angelo, born Michael Eugene Archer, released only three studio albums in his lifetime. Rolling Stone still placed him 75th on its 2023 list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. The same magazine ranked his second album, Voodoo, 28th…
- Alice in ChainsAlice in Chains formed in Seattle in 1987 around four musicians: guitarist Jerry Cantrell, drummer Sean Kinney, singer Layne Staley and bassist Mike Starr. They rose alongside Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden, and the world filed them…
- George HarrisonGeorge Harrison mortgaged his home to save Monty Python's Life of Brian. EMI Films had pulled its funding in 1978.
- Paul McCartney and WingsPaul McCartney named Wings after a frightening hospital night in 1971. Both Linda and baby Stella nearly died.
- Freddie MercuryFreddie Mercury, the pianist and lead singer of Queen, once described himself in two halves. "When I'm performing I'm an extrovert, yet inside I'm a completely different man." The showman who held whole stadiums in his hand gave very few…
- Frank ZappaAs a boy, Frank Zappa spread mercury across his bedroom floor with a hammer. His father brought it home from work.
- George MartinGeorge Martin called the Beatles' audition recording a "lousy tape" before he signed them.
- KraftwerkKraftwerk did not own a computer when recording Computer World. The 1981 album was about computers.
- Petula ClarkPetula Clark's photo was plastered on British Army tanks as a good-luck charm. She was a child singer during the Blitz.
- Ice CubeIce Cube, born O'Shea Jackson, started writing raps in ninth grade because a friend challenged him in typewriting class. The friend, nicknamed Kiddo, lost the contest. The class was at George Washington Preparatory High School in Los…
- Olivia Newton-JohnDame Olivia Newton-John sold more than 100 million records, a total that makes her the highest-selling female Australian recording artist of all time. She was born in Cambridge, England, in 1948 and raised in Melbourne. Her career…
- Syd BarrettSyd Barrett walked into Abbey Road Studios on the 5th of June 1975, and the men inside did not know him. He had shaved off his hair and even his eyebrows, and he was overweight. He was 29. The musicians were Pink Floyd, the band he had…