From Elton John at the piano to Stormzy at Glastonbury and Madonna snogging Britney: 41 era-defining music photos

Icons, rock stars – and divas behaving badly: these pictures of musicians struck a chord all over the world

It’s unclear which artist first uttered the phrase, “It’s all concerning the music” – a fast Google search reveals it being deployed by indie bands, techno DJs, heavy metallers and, winningly, the Icelandic entrant in the 2024 Eurovision music contest – however whoever it was was mendacity. Pop music in its multifarious types isn't all concerning the music, nor has it ever been. It was all the time inexorably linked with visual imagery (within the 1920s, nation star Jimmie Rodgers underlined his working-man authenticity by being photographed in his brakeman’s overalls years after he give up engaged on the railroads; the mystique of Billie Vacation or Charlie Parker was no less than partly defined by William Gottlieb’s photographs in jazz magazine DownBeat), however there’s little question the connection was supercharged by rock’n’roll’s arrival. America was much less shocked by what Elvis Presley seemed like than how he appeared: the relatively lengthy hair, the clothes that borrowed as heavily from Black tradition as his music, the actions critics in comparison with a burlesque dancer or an animal. Over in suburban north London, a schoolboy referred to as Reg Dwight gawped at a photograph of Elvis lengthy before he heard him sing. “In comparison with individuals in Pinner… he may as properly have been brilliant inexperienced with antennae,” he recalled. Take a look at any photograph of Elton John (as Reg would turn into) within the 1970s – together with the Terry O’Neill shot here – and it’s tempting to say you possibly can inform that rock’n’roll arrived in his world image-first.

Meanwhile, at their press conferences within the early 60s, the Beatles spent more time fielding questions about their haircuts than their music. Prior to the drug busts or the terrifying events at Altamont captured here, the outrage brought on by the Rolling Stones revolved largely around their look. The same was true of Jimi Hendrix, who didn’t set his guitar on hearth because it improved its sound, but as a result of he understood that the pictures carried virtually as much weight because the music.