The Eurovision Song Contest stage.
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The UK has now chalked up a record 16 second place finishes. But what would it take to go one better and win the whole thing?
Greatest pop songwriting team ever?
United States Library of Congress
For a decade after they met as teenagers, Lennon-McCartney was the most potent songwriting partnership in pop music.
Ethereal talent: Kate Bush.
Stephen Luff/Wikimedia Commons
Kate Bush follows Joan Armatrading as the second female singer-songwriter to receive this honour in 2020.
Blues virtuoso Peter Green in 1970.
Nick Contador via Mikimedia Commons
A virtuoso guitarist and songwriter, Green’s career was blighted by drug-amplified mental health problems.
What if The Beatles hasn’t been talent-spotted at The Cavern Club in Liverpool?
littlenySTOCK via Shutterstock
Chances are your favourite band started out learning the trade at a pub or small club. Venues like this are under threat like never before.
Ode to Joy or 17 Million F*** Offs? The people chose Beethoven.
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An epic battle between the EU anthem and a pro-Brexit pop song was narrowly won by Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.
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Regarded as one of The Beatles finest albums, Abbey Road is the last time all four band members were in the studio together.
The UK’s Michael Rice at the opening of the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest.
EPA-EFE/Abir Sultan
After the UK flopped in the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest, there’s an appetite for another kind of Brexit. But this wouldn’t be a good idea.
Scott Walker, pop star and composer, taken in 1967.
PA/PA Wire/PA Images
Possessed of one of the most distinctive voices in pop music, Scott Walker’s avant-garde aesthetic and skill as a composer made him an enduring and influential artist over more than 40 years.
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Fifty years after its release, the Beatles’ White Album continues to inspire and provoke creativity.
Five become four: the Spice Girls announce their 2019 tour.
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The girl group is hoping that hordes of 1990s ‘tweens’ will buy into their reunion.
Will England be serenading its football heroes in 2018?
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England’s on-field performances have been matched by some fairly forgettable songs over the years.
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Researchers analysed 30 years of British pop charts and found a trend towards sadness – but the days of judging music purely on stylistic measures is long gone.
David A Ellis
The Liverpool comic scored with the third-highest selling single of the 1960s.
NME
John McCready recalls his glory days with the hip young gunslingers at the UK’s leading music paper.
EPA-EFE/Nigel Roddis
The UK singer-songwriter’s single was the most downloaded song of 2017 and the video has been viewed 3.2 billion times.
Montecruz Foto via Flickr
The Fall’s frontman was the ultimate pop outsider who never lost his working-class Manchester roots.