Curated playlist

Juno Award for International Album of the Year winners

ColdplayColdplay's first release was 500 copies of a self-financed EP. The band later grossed a billion dollars on one tour.
Pink FloydRoger Waters went to the High Court in 1985 to dissolve Pink Floyd. He called the band "a spent force creatively."
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.
EminemEminem performed with Elton John at the 43rd Grammy Awards while GLAAD protested outside.
Black Eyed PeasThe Black Eyed Peas topped the Billboard Hot 100 for 26 straight weeks in 2009. No artist had done it longer by then.
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…
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…
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.…
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…
The PoliceThe Police's first concert lasted only ten minutes. Six years later they played Shea Stadium to 70,000 people.
Yoko OnoYoko Ono hung a magnifying glass atop a white ladder in a London gallery. Climbers read one tiny word: YES.
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.
Celine DionCeline Dion spent her earliest months sleeping in a dresser drawer, because her family could not afford a crib. She was the youngest of 14 children, born on the 30th of March 1968 in Charlemagne, Quebec. Nothing about that crowded, careful…
Kendrick LamarKendrick Lamar won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2018, the first for a piece outside classical and jazz.
Bee GeesA broken record forced the Bee Gees to sing live at a Manchester cinema in 1957.
Paul McCartney and WingsPaul McCartney named Wings after a frightening hospital night in 1971. Both Linda and baby Stella nearly died.
Dire StraitsA London DJ played a rejected Dire Straits demo, and two months later the band had a record deal.
Olivia RodrigoOlivia Rodrigo was a teenager when one of her songs drew more than 15.7 million streams around the world in a single day, on the 11th of January 2021. The next day, the total passed 17 million. Looking back, she described it this way:…
50 Cent50 Cent was shot nine times in 2000, then blacklisted by the music industry. He built his comeback on mixtapes.
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…
Harry StylesHarry Styles ran the Berlin Marathon in 2:59:13, a personal best, while entered under the pseudonym Sted Sarandos. The singer, songwriter and actor, born in 1994, also finished the Tokyo marathon in 2025, completing two of the six World…
SZAIn November 2022, a short teaser video appeared online with an unreleased song called PSA playing underneath. The beeps in the audio were Morse code, and they spelled out SOS, the title of an album fans had been begging for. The singer…
Bryan AdamsIn 1990, Bryan Adams sat down with two collaborators, Robert John "Mutt" Lange and Michael Kamen, and finished a song in a single 45-minute session. The song was "(Everything I Do) I Do It for You," and it went on to reach number one in at…