Press "Enter" to skip to content

8 Musicians Tell Us About Their Dream Collaborations

Eight of the biggest names in music reveal who they’d like to work with most.

1. Erykah Badu

“Paul Simon on harmonica. Carly Simon on harmonica. Joe Simon on harmonica. Studio filled halfway with water. Six-week-long song. I sing about trivets. You get the picture.”

2. Björk

“I hate to play into expectations, but it’s always been a dream of mine to work with a cactus floating in Windex.”

3. Neil Peart

“Any of those little drummer boys you see in Civil War photos. It would be an honor.”

4. Kanye West

“In my ideal concert collaboration, the stage is pitch black, and when the lights rise, me and Mick Jagger are slowly being lowered from the ceiling, and he’s throwing holiday M&Ms into my mouth the whole way down—just banking every single one. We finally get to the stage. I pick up my mic. He picks up a guitar and snaps it open: It’s a novelty container for holiday M&Ms. The crowd goes wild, and he throws those M&Ms into my mouth until he runs out, at which point I will have gotten heavy enough to crash through the stage, never to be seen again.”

5. Lana Del Rey

“The Portland Trail Blazers. Whenever I watch them play, I mute the TV and imitate the squeaks of their sneakers with my mouth. I’d love to try that live.”

6. Aretha Franklin

“Clone me and keep me alive until it’s ready to sing with me.”

7. Axl Rose

“Louis Armstrong. I would absolutely love to just crawl into his trumpet and let his hot air blow me apart, ending my life in a flurry of powerful horn mixed with ash from my body and scraps from my bandana.”

8. Adele

“I’d love to get my hands on a castrato.”