Bryan Adams

With his powerfully raspy voice and T-shirt and blue jeans classic rock swagger, Bryan Adams is a pop icon who has scored hit after hit, attaining global fame in the 1980s. A rising star in his native Canada beginning in the late '70s, he first made headway with his 1983 album Cuts Like a Knife. However, it was 1984's Reckless that turned him into an international sensation thanks to the hits "Run to You," "Heaven," and "Summer of '69." From that point on, Adams sold out arenas (much like his contemporaries Bruce Springsteen and John Mellencamp) and broke chart records, as with his 1991 power ballad "Everything I Do (I Do It for You)." He continued this success with 1994's "All for Love" and 1995's "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman," and remained a formidable presence on the American charts with albums like 1991's Waking Up the Neighbours and 1996's 18 Til I Die. Adams has also retained a loyal audience in the U.K. and Canada, where he's scored Top Ten albums like 2008's 11, 2015's Get Up, and 2019's Juno Award-winning Shine a Light. He remained busy into the 2020s, issuing 2022's uplifting So Happy It Hurts and releasing singles like 2023's "You're Awesome" and the Tenille Townes duet "The Thing That Wrecks You."

The son of an English diplomat, Bryan Adams was born in Kingston, Ontario, in 1959 and spent much of his childhood traveling Europe. His family set down roots in North Vancouver, British Columbia, in 1973, around which time he began seriously pursuing music, quickly getting into the thick of Vancouver's scene. Adams quit school and wound up as a replacement for Nick Gilder in the glam rock band Sweeney Todd, singing lead on the band's second album, If Wishes Were Horses..., when he was just 15. Not long after its 1977 release, Adams left the group and began his long, fruitful collaboration with Jim Vallance, then the drummer of Prism, who wanted to try his hand at songwriting. The pair clicked and they soon assembled a demo tape for Adams, a tape that earned the singer a contract with A&M Records in 1978. Two years later, Adams' eponymous debut appeared in Canada, where it sold respectably. A year later, his second album, the Bob Clearmountain-produced You Want It, You Got It, got Adams some play on album rock radio stations, a development that led to Adams and Vallance co-writing two songs with Gene Simmons for Kiss' 1982 LP Creatures of the Night.

Things broke wide open for Adams in 1983 thanks to Cuts Like a Knife, an affair that had a big, powerful album rock sound and the pop hooks that would make him a star. The former could be heard on the singles "Cuts Like a Knife" and "This Time," while the latter was in bloom on the ballad "Straight from the Heart," the song that became Adams' first American Top Ten hit. It all paved the way for Reckless, the 1984 album that turned Adams into a superstar. Reckless had the right songs -- particularly the brooding minor-key "Run to You," the skyscraping power ballad "Heaven," and the nostalgic heartland rocker "Summer of '69," but also the Tina Turner duet "It's Only Love," "Somebody," and "One Night Love Affair," all released as singles -- meaning that over half the album was released as singles in true Thriller fashion -- at the right time, all given videos that earned heavy rotation on MTV. As Adams supported the album with an international tour that lasted nearly two years, he surfaced in other ways: opening Live Aid in America; co-writing Canada's Ethiopian famine relief charity single "Tears Are Not Enough," and working steadily with Vallance on tunes for a number of other artists, including Loverboy, Roger Daltrey, Neil Diamond, Bonnie Raitt, and Glass Tiger, whose Adams/Vallance-written song "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" featured Adams on backing vocals.

Adams succeeded Reckless with 1987's streamlined Into the Fire, which went platinum and boasted the Top Ten singles "Heat of the Night" and "Hearts on Fire." He collaborated with Vallance on Joe Cocker's 1989 hit "When the Night Comes," which was co-written with Diane Warren, but for his next album, Adams teamed up with producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange, who had recently helmed Def Leppard 's 1987 blockbuster Hysteria. Despite its rabble-rousing title, September 1991's Waking Up the Neighbours wasn't a big rock & roll album, something its smash hit "Everything I Do (I Do It for You)" made plain. Written as the theme for the Kevin Costner film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the power ballad -- co-written by Adams, Lange, and the film's composer, Michael Kamen -- was Adams' biggest hit, spending seven weeks at the top of the U.S. Billboard charts, an impressive stretch overshadowed only by its astonishing 16-week run at the top of the British charts, a feat that smashed all U.K. records. The single reached number one in eight other countries and was certified platinum or multi-platinum in six countries. In the wake of this remarkable success, Waking Up the Neighbours became Adams' second-biggest album, spawning the Top Ten hit "Can't Stop This Thing We Started" in addition to three other singles, "There Will Never Be Another Tonight," "Do I Have to Say the Words," and "Thought I'd Died and Gone to Heaven."

Upon the conclusion of the two-year Waking Up the Neighbours tour, Adams released his first hits collection, So Far So Good, in time for the 1993 Christmas season; its new song, the power ballad "Please Forgive Me," was another Top Ten hit. Not on the album was "All for Love," a song Adams co-wrote with Lange and Kamen and sang with Rod Stewart and Sting for the film The Three Musketeers; like "Everything I Do (I Do It for You)" before it, the song turned into a multi-platinum international hit and topped the U.S. charts in early 1994. As Adams worked on his next album with Lange, "Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman" -- another Adams/Lange/Kamen movie tie-in power ballad, this time from the 1995 Marlon Brando/Johnny Depp romantic comedy Don Juan DeMarco -- topped the charts in five countries including the U.S. and Canada. His next album, 1996's 18 Til I Die, performed especially well in England, Canada, and Europe, thanks to the singles "The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You" and "Let's Make a Night to Remember." It also reached the Top 40 of the Billboard 200 in America, where it eventually went platinum. Toward the end of his tour for the album, Adams performed on MTV Unplugged in September 1997, releasing an album of the occasion in December.

For 1998's On a Day Like Today, Adams worked with a trio of high-profile producers in Bob Rock, Phil Thornalley, and Phil Western. One of his hardest-rocking efforts, the album was a double-platinum success in Canada and also fared well in the U.K., thanks in part to his duet with the Spice Girls' Melanie C on "When You're Gone." Another hits compilation, The Best of Me, appeared in 1999.

Adams spent the first years of the 2000s working steadily as a photographer, landing spreads in such major publications as Vanity Fair and Esquire. He published his first collection of photos, Made in Canada, in 1999, followed by Haven in 2000. Another collection, American Women, appeared in 2005. Musically, he resurfaced on Chicane's 2000 dance hit "Don't Give Up" and collaborated with Hans Zimmer for the score to the 2002 animated feature Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron; from that soundtrack, Adams had an adult contemporary hit in "Here I Am." He released his first new album of the decade, Room Service, in 2004 Recorded and written in part while Adams was on tour, it was certified platinum in Canada and gold in the U.K. The double-disc hits collection Anthology appeared in 2005, reaching number two in Canada and number four in the U.K. In 2006, he received a Golden Globe nomination for "Never Gonna Break My Faith," the song he wrote -- and Mary J. Blige and Aretha Franklin performed -- for Emilio Estevez's film Bobby.

Two years later, Adams released his 11th album, aptly titled 11, which found him reunited with producer "Mutt" Lange on two tracks and co-writing several songs with Vallance. Reaching number one in Canada, it secured Adams a Juno Award nomination for Artist of the Year. In the U.K., it was certified silver; in America, it was his best-charting studio album since 1996. It also paved the way for another North American tour, this one featuring stripped-down acoustic renditions of his biggest hits. The shows stretched into 2010, during which time Adams continued to work as a photographer. Later that year, he released Bare Bones, a live album taken from his acoustic tour. Tracks of My Years, which paired covers of songs by Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, the Beach Boys, and other artists; the original track "She Knows Me," appeared in 2014, topping the chart and earning gold certification in Canada. Adams teamed up with Jeff Lynne for 2015's all-new Get Up, which reached number two and was certified silver in the U.K. That year, he performed with Ellie Goulding and Chris Isaak at the AFL Grand Final.

In 2016, Adams and Vallance began work on the songs for Pretty Woman: The Musical, a project the singer/songwriter had tried to get off the ground for nearly a decade. While writing the show's music and lyrics, Adams issued a pair of archival releases. Appearing in October 2016, the concert video Wembley Live 1996 captured his performance at the stadium during the 18 Til I Die tour. The following November saw the release of Ultimate, a hits collection that also included the new songs "Please Stay" and "Ultimate Love." Adams embarked on the Ultimate tour in 2018, playing shows in India, Australia, and New Zealand as well as Europe, the U.K., the U.S., and Canada. That year, he also performed a duet of "Summer of '69" with Taylor Swift on the Toronto date of her reputation tour.

In March 2019, Adams released his 14th album, Shine a Light. The record featured Jennifer Lopez on the track "That's How Strong Our Love Is," while the title-track single was co-written with Ed Sheeran. The set debuted at number one on the Canadian Albums Chart and took home the Juno Award for Best Adult Contemporary Album, while it became Adams' tenth Top Ten hit in the U.K. That November, he issued The Christmas EP and released a duet version of "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" with Robbie Williams. In June 2020, Adams supported the Black Lives Matter movement with a previously unreleased solo version of "Never Gonna Break My Faith." Later that year, he contributed to the BBC Radio 2 Allstars' Children in Need charity single "Stop Crying Your Heart Out."

2022 proved to be a banner year for Adams: That March saw the release of his "Mutt" Lange-produced 15th studio album, So Happy It Hurts. A celebratory set of songs that featured Adams playing most of the instrumental parts, it was a Top Five hit in Germany and the U.K. and appeared on the U.S. Top Album Sales Chart. The title track was nominated for the Best Rock Performance category at the 2023 Grammy Awards. Adams also issued a digital-only collection of his versions of the songs he wrote for Pretty Woman: The Musical and offered new interpretations of previously recorded songs on the self-released Classic and Classic, Pt. II. In 2023, Adams teamed up with country-rocker Tenille Townes on the single "The Thing That Wrecks You" and released several songs of his own, including the anti-war "What If There Were No Sides," and "Sometimes You Lose Before You Win" and "You're Awesome," both from the soundtrack of the Comedy Central movie Office Race. ~ Matt Collar & Stephen Thomas Erlewine