Alicia Augello Cook, better known by her stage name Alicia Keys, is more than a singer. She is a New York Times bestselling author and a fifteen-time Grammy Award winner, classically trained in the piano, and began composing at age twelve. The incomparable Alicia signed with Columbia Records at just fifteen years old as an…
Tom Odell is an English musician who has been active since the early 2010s. Amusingly, he started songwriting before he started singing because of his time in a band that struggled to maintain a lead singer. Eventually, Odell received a record deal because of Lily Allen, thus putting him on the path to stardom. So…
Sam Cooke, commonly referred to as the “King of Soul,” was instrumental in changing the pop and soul scene from the late 1950s until the early 1960s before he passed away. Sam Cooke is famous for songs such as “You Send Me” and “Wonderful World”, which topped the charts at their peak. Sam Cooke’s music…
Khalif Malik Ibn Shaman Brown, whose stage name is Swae Lee, has made a fortune in the music industry. His love for music began as a teenager when he partnered with his brother, Aaquil, whose stage name is Slim Jxmmi, to start a music group. They recorded their first music video, and the two brothers…
Charlie Daniels arrived in Nashville in the late 1960s with hopes of securing steady work as a session musician. As the leader of the Charlie Daniels Band, he pioneered American sound and helped create a genre. His song “Devil Went Down to Georgia” is a pivotal landmark in modern music. But in 1967, the future…
Are there a lot of popular songs out there that have hidden meanings? We’re talking about genuine hidden meanings here and not the kind in horror movies where a record played backward results in a message from the devil himself. These are songs where the songwriter meant something else or the listener interpreted the words…
She may not have been as prolific a songwriter as Bob Dylan or as commercial as Joni Mitchell, but without Joan Baez, the 21st-century folk scene would be a very, very different place. Without her, Dylan would never have left the coffee bars of Greenwich Village. Mitchell, Judy Collins, Emmylou Harris, and countless other female…
The The is an English band that has been around since the late 1970s. Matt Johnson is the one constant member, meaning he is the most important contributor by a considerable margin. This band is a product of the post-punk movement. As such, it retains its predecessors’ anti-establishment attitude but takes inspiration from a broader…
Hootie & the Blowfish was a band that came out of South Carolina, making their debut in 1986. The four-member rock band formed in the city of Columbia, featuring Darius Rucker, Dean Felber, Mark Bryan, and Jim Sonefeld. They became a sensation and held the course for 20 years, taking a break from their rigorous…