Elton John in the context of "Ellie Goulding"

Magic Radio is a British digital radio station owned and operated by Bauer Media Audio UK. The station is available on 105.4 FM in London, 106.5 FM in Bristol and across the UK on DAB Digital Radio, via Bauer's Rayo platform, and on Smart speakers. It plays "adult contemporary" such as Elton John, Madonna, Ed Sheeran, Whitney Houston, UB40, Simply Red, and more.

It had previously been a part of a network of Magic stations broadcast on FM in London and on MW across northern England and began broadcasting across the UK via the Digital One multiplex in January 2015. On 5 January 2015, Magic Radio launched nationally on DAB and all other Magic stations were dissolved to form the Bauer City 2 network.

Sound City Studios is a recording studio in Los Angeles, California, United States, known as one of the most successful in popular music. The complex opened in 1969 in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles. The facility had previously been a production factory of the English musical instrument manufacturer Vox. Throughout the late twentieth century, the studio became known for its signature sound, especially in recording drums and live performances of rock bands.

Hundreds of rock artists spanning five decades have recorded at Sound City, including Grateful Dead, Johnny Cash, Neil Young, Fleetwood Mac, Elton John, U2, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bob Dylan, Guns N' Roses, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Tool, Slayer, Rage Against the Machine, Death Cab for Cutie, and Fall Out Boy. Over one hundred albums recorded at Sound City have achieved gold and platinum certifications.

Giovanni Giorgio Moroder (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni ˈdʒordʒo moˈrɔːder], born 26 April 1940) is an Italian composer and record producer. Dubbed the "Father of Disco", Moroder is credited with pioneering Euro disco and electronic dance music. His work with synthesizers had a significant influence on several music genres such as hi-NRG, Italo disco, synth-pop, new wave, house, and techno music.

While in Munich in the 1970s, Moroder started Oasis Records, later a subdivision of Casablanca Records. He is the founder of the former Musicland Studios in Munich, a recording studio used by many artists including the Rolling Stones, Electric Light Orchestra, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Queen, and Elton John. He produced singles for Donna Summer during the mid-to-late 1970s disco era, including "Love to Love You Baby", "I Feel Love", "Last Dance", "MacArthur Park", "Hot Stuff", "Bad Girls", "Dim All the Lights", "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)", and "On the Radio". During this period, he also released many albums, including the synthesizer-driven From Here to Eternity (1977) and E=MC (1979).

The Lion King is a 1994 American animated musical drama film directed by Roger Allers and Rob Minkoff, produced by Don Hahn, and written by Irene Mecchi, Jonathan Roberts, and Linda Woolverton. It was produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and features an ensemble voice cast consisting of Matthew Broderick, James Earl Jones, Jeremy Irons, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Moira Kelly, Niketa Calame, Nathan Lane, Ernie Sabella, Whoopi Goldberg, Cheech Marin, Rowan Atkinson, and Robert Guillaume. The story follows a young lion prince named Simba, who is exiled from his kingdom after his father Mufasa is murdered by his uncle Scar to seize the throne. As he grows up, Simba must decide whether to return home to confront Scar and reclaim his place as king.

The Lion King was conceived during conversations among various Disney executives, to whom several writers submitted early treatments. Original director George Scribner had envisioned The Lion King as a nature documentary-style film, with Allers joining as co-director after having worked in the story departments of several successful animated Disney films. The Lion King's plot draws inspiration from several sources, notably William Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Woolverton, screenwriter for Disney's Beauty and the Beast (1991), drafted early versions of The Lion King's script, which Mecchi and Roberts were hired to revise once Woolverton left to prioritize other projects. Scribner departed due to disagreements over the studio's decision to reimagine the film as a musical, with original songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, and Minkoff was hired to replace him in April 1992. Throughout production, the creative team visited Kenya for research and inspiration.

The Oxford Union Society is a debating society in the city of Oxford, England, whose membership is drawn primarily from the University of Oxford. Founded in 1823, it is one of Britain's oldest university unions and is widely considered as one of the world's most prestigious private students' societies. The Oxford Union exists independently from the university and is distinct from the Oxford University Student Union.

The Oxford Union has a tradition of hosting some of the world's most prominent individuals across politics, academia, and popular culture ranging from Albert Einstein and Elton John to Sir Winston Churchill, Ronald Reagan, Queen Elizabeth II and Mahathir Mohamad. Many former Presidents of the Union have gone on to hold high office in the UK and the Commonwealth including William Gladstone, Ted Heath, Boris Johnson, and Benazir Bhutto.

The Lion King is a 2019 American musical drama film that is a photorealistically animated remake of the traditionally-animated 1994 film. Directed by Jon Favreau, written by Jeff Nathanson, and produced by Walt Disney Pictures and Fairview Entertainment, the film stars the voices of Donald Glover, Seth Rogen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Alfre Woodard, Billy Eichner, John Kani, John Oliver, Florence Kasumba, Eric André, Keegan-Michael Key, JD McCrary, Shahadi Wright Joseph, with Beyoncé Knowles-Carter, and James Earl Jones (reprising his voice role as Mufasa for the final time). The story follows a young lion prince named Simba, who is exiled from his kingdom after his father Mufasa is murdered by his uncle Scar to seize the throne. As he grows up, Simba must decide whether to return home to confront Scar and reclaim his place as king.

Plans for a remake of 1994's The Lion King were confirmed in September 2016 following box office successes for Disney remakes such as The Jungle Book (2016). Favreau was inspired by certain roles of characters in the Broadway adaptation and developed upon elements of the original film's story. Much of the main cast signed on in early 2017, and principal photography began in mid-2017 on a blue screen stage in Los Angeles. The virtual reality tools utilized in The Jungle Book's cinematography were used to a greater degree during the filming of The Lion King. Composers Hans Zimmer, Elton John, and lyricist Tim Rice returned to compose the score alongside Knowles-Carter, who assisted John in the reworking of the soundtrack and wrote a new song for the film, "Spirit", which she also performed. With a production budget of $250–260 million, the film is one of the most expensive films ever made, as well as the most expensive Disney remake.

Curtis Roy Boettcher (January 7, 1944 – June 14, 1987), sometimes credited as Curt Boetcher or Curt Becher, was an American singer, songwriter, arranger, musician, and record producer from Wisconsin. He was a pivotal figure in what is now termed "sunshine pop", working with the Association, the Millennium, Sagittarius, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Tommy Roe, Bobby Jameson, Elton John, Gene Clark, Emitt Rhodes, Tandyn Almer, the Beach Boys, and others.

The New York Times wrote of Boettcher: "If his life had gone just a bit differently, [he] might have been another Brian Wilson. ... As it stands, Boettcher — a pop-music producer whose heyday was the late '60s — now survives in rock history mostly as a liner-note credit. He could have been, but never was. Yet he enjoys a godlike status among a select group of music fans, for whom obscurity is more enticing than fame."

Jean-Luc Ponty (born 29 September 1942) is a French jazz and jazz fusion violinist and composer. He is considered a pioneer of jazz-rock, particularly for his use of the electric violin starting in the 1970s. He rose to prominence for his collaborations with popular musical artists Frank Zappa and Elton John. In addition to his solo work, he has performed with symphony orchestras in France, the United States, Canada, and Japan.

Giovanni Maria "Gianni" Versace (Italian: [dʒoˈvanni maˈriːa ˈdʒanni verˈsaːtʃe]; 2 December 1946 – 15 July 1997) was an Italian fashion designer and businessman. He was the founder of Versace, an international luxury-fashion house that produces accessories, fragrances, make-up, home furnishings and clothes. He also designed costumes for theatre and films. As a friend of Eric Clapton, Princess Diana, Whitney Houston, Naomi Campbell, Kate Moss, Madonna, Elton John, Tupac Shakur, Joan Collins and many other celebrities, he was one of the first designers to link fashion to the music world. He and his partner Antonio D'Amico were regulars on the international party scene. The place where he was born and raised, Reggio di Calabria, greatly influenced his career.

On 15 July 1997, he was murdered outside his Miami Beach mansion, Casa Casuarina, by serial killer Andrew Cunanan.

The Band was a Canadian-American rock band formed in Toronto, Ontario. It consisted of Canadians Rick Danko (bass, guitar, vocals, fiddle), Garth Hudson (organ, keyboards, accordion, saxophone), Richard Manuel (piano, drums, vocals) and Robbie Robertson (guitar, piano, percussion) and American Levon Helm (drums, vocals, mandolin, guitar, bass). The Band's music combined elements of Americana, folk, rock, R&B, jazz and country, which influenced artists including George Harrison, Elton John, the Grateful Dead, Eric Clapton, Wilco, and King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.

Between 1958 and 1963, the group were known as the Hawks and were the backing band for rockabilly singer Ronnie Hawkins, based in Toronto, Ontario. In the mid-1960s, they gained recognition for backing Bob Dylan on his 1966 concert tour as Dylan's first electric band. After leaving Dylan and changing their name to "The Band", they released their 1968 debut album, Music from Big Pink, and its succeeding album, 1969's The Band, to critical acclaim and commercial success. Pink Floyd's Roger Waters deemed it the "second-most influential record in the history of rock and roll", and music journalist Al Aronowitz called it "country soul ... a sound never heard before". The Band's most popular songs include "The Weight" (1968), "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" (1969), and "Up on Cripple Creek" (1969). The Band later released Stage Fright (1970), Cahoots (1971), the live album Rock of Ages (1972), the covers album Moondog Matinee (1973), and Northern Lights – Southern Cross (1975).

The Lion King is a stage musical with a book by Roger Allers and Irene Mecchi based on the 1994 Walt Disney Animation Studios' film of the same name. Directed by Julie Taymor, the musical features actors in animal costumes as well as giant, hollow puppets. The show is produced by Disney Theatrical Productions and features songs from the original film by Elton John and Tim Rice, while the majority of new songs were contributed by Lebo M, Mark Mancina, Jay Rifkin, Tsidii Le Loka, Taymor, and Hans Zimmer.

The musical debuted on July 8, 1997, in Minneapolis, Minnesota at the Orpheum Theatre and was an instant success before premiering on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theater on October 15, 1997, in many previews with the official opening on November 13, 1997. On June 13, 2006, the Broadway production moved to the Minskoff Theatre to make way for the musical version of Mary Poppins, where it is still running after more than 10,000 performances. It is Broadway's third longest-running show in history and the highest grossing Broadway production of all time, having grossed more than $1.9 billion.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" is a charity song written in 1984 by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise money for the 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia. It was first recorded by Band Aid, a supergroup assembled by Geldof and Ure consisting of popular British and Irish musicians, in a single day at Sarm West Studios in Notting Hill, London, in November 1984.

"Do They Know It's Christmas?" was released in the UK on 7 December 1984. It entered the UK singles chart at number one, where it remained for five weeks, becoming Christmas number one. It sold a million copies in the first week, making it the fastest-selling single in UK chart history until Elton John's "Candle in the Wind 1997". UK sales passed three million by 1985. The song also reached number one in 13 other countries. In the US, it fell short of the top ten in the Billboard Hot 100, but sold an estimated 2.5 million copies by 1985. It had sold 11.7 million copies worldwide by 1989 and 3.8 million in the UK by 2017.

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon Rice (born 10 November 1944) is an English songwriter. He is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote, among other shows, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, and Evita; Chess (with Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA); Aida (with Elton John); and, for Disney, Aladdin (with Alan Menken), The Lion King (with Elton John), and the stage adaptation of Beauty and the Beast (with Menken). He also wrote lyrics for the Alan Menken musical King David, and for DreamWorks Animation's The Road to El Dorado (with John).

Rice was knighted by Elizabeth II for services to music in 1994. He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, is a 1999 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and is the 2023 recipient of its Johnny Mercer Award, is a Disney Legend recipient, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors. In addition to his awards in the UK, he is one of twenty-one artists to have won an Emmy, Oscar, Grammy, and Tony in the US.

Lennon–McCartney was the songwriting partnership between the English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942) of the Beatles. It is widely considered one of the greatest, best known, and most successful musical collaborations ever by records sold, with the Beatles selling more than 600 million records worldwide as of 2004. Between 5 October 1962 and 8 May 1970, the partnership published approximately 180 jointly credited songs, of which the vast majority were recorded by the Beatles, forming the bulk of their catalogue.

Unlike many songwriting partnerships that comprise a separate composer and lyricist, such as George and Ira Gershwin, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, John Kander and Fred Ebb, or Elton John and Bernie Taupin, both Lennon and McCartney wrote music and lyrics. Sometimes, especially early on, they would collaborate extensively when writing songs, working "eyeball to eyeball" as Lennon phrased it. During the latter half of their partnership, it became more common for either of them to write most of a song on their own with minimal input from the other, and sometimes none at all. By an agreement made before the Beatles became famous, Lennon and McCartney were credited equally with songs that either one of them wrote while their partnership lasted.