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Curated playlist

English rock singers

  • Cat StevensCat Stevens sold more than 100 million records before he walked away from pop music. A 25-year break followed.
  • Kate BushKate Bush's second UK number one came 44 years after her first. That gap beat Tom Jones's record of 42 years.
  • Chris MartinChris Martin, the English singer and pianist born on the 2nd of March 1977, composed a three-minute instrumental called "Electric Thunder" when he was 12 years old. In February 2020, a former fellow pupil found it on a cassette tape.…
  • Melanie CIn 1994, Melanie Jayne Chisholm, known as Melanie C, joined around 400 women answering an advertisement in The Stage magazine. The advertisement came from two managers hoping to form a new girl group. That group became the Spice Girls, and…
  • Christopher LeeSir Christopher Lee was 91 years and 6 months old when his single "Jingle Hell" entered the Billboard Hot Singles Sales chart at number 22. Press attention then pushed it up to number 18, which made him the oldest person to have a top 20…
  • Jeff LynneJeff Lynne helped finish John Lennon's demo "Free as a Bird" for the Beatles. George Harrison asked him to join in 1994.
  • Damon AlbarnDamon Albarn was due to speak at a rally in Hyde Park in February 2003. A million people had taken to the streets of London to protest the coming war in Iraq. He never gave the speech, because he was too emotional. Afterwards he explained…
  • Florence WelchFlorence Welch, the English singer and songwriter, chose the name of her band while the clock was running out. About an hour before her first gig, she still had no name to announce. Her best idea was Florence Robot Is A Machine, which she…
  • MorrisseySteven Patrick Morrissey, known to the world as Morrissey, once led a tour of Manchester for the Oxford Road Show in 1985. Late in that tour he reached the secondary school he had attended. He described it in harsh terms and closed with a…
  • Julian LennonJulian Lennon's nursery school painting inspired a Beatles song. It showed his classmate Lucy O'Donnell among stars.
  • Tony SheridanTony Sheridan is the only non-Beatle to sing lead on a charting Beatles single.

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