SPILL ARTIST PORTRAIT BY DANIEL ADAMS: CALVIN HARRIS

THE SPILL MAGAZINE ARTIST PORTRAIT:
CALVIN HARRIS

Adam Richard Wiles (born 17 January 1984), known professionally as Calvin Harris, is a Scottish record producer, DJ, singer, and songwriter. His debut studio album I Created Disco was released in June 2007, and was the precursor to his UK top 10 singles “Acceptable in the 80s” and “The Girls”. In 2009, Harris released his second studio album Ready for the Weekend, which debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and was later certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry within two months of its release. Its lead single “I’m Not Alone” became his first song to top the UK Singles Chart.

Harris rose to international prominence with the release of his third studio album 18 Months in October 2012. Topping the UK charts, the album became his first to chart on the US Billboard 200 chart (where it reached number 19). All eight of the album’s singles, which were “Bounce”, “Feel So Close”, “Let’s Go”, “We’ll Be Coming Back”, “Sweet Nothing”, “Drinking from the Bottle”, “I Need Your Love” and “Thinking About You” reached the top 10 in the UK. At the time, Harris broke the record for the most top 10 songs from one studio album on the UK Singles Chart with nine entries, surpassing Michael Jackson. Harris released his fourth studio album Motion in November 2014. It debuted at number two in the UK and at number five in the US, and became Harris’s second consecutive number one album on the US Dance/Electronic Albums chart. The album’s first three singles “Under Control”, “Summer” and “Blame” all topped the UK chart.

Harris has collaborated with numerous other recording artists. His collaboration with Rihanna “We Found Love” became an international success, giving Harris his first US number one single on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. The two later collaborated on the singles “Where Have You Been” (2012) and “This Is What You Came For” (2016). In October 2014, he became the first artist to place three songs simultaneously on the top 10 of Billboard’s Dance/Electronic Songs chart. He also became the first British solo artist to reach more than one billion streams on Spotify. Harris has received ten Brit Award nominations—three for Best British Male, and four Grammy nominations, winning a Grammy for Best Music Video in 2013. He received the British Academy’s Ivor Novello Award for Songwriter of the Year in 2013 and at the 2015 Billboard Music Awards was named Top Dance/Electronic Artist. Additionally, Harris topped Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid DJs for three consecutive years from 2013 to 2015. One of the most successful musicians in contemporary British popular culture, Harris appeared on Debrett’s 2017 list of the most influential people in the United Kingdom.Harris runs his own record label, Fly Eye Records.

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