Duncan Sheik

Establishing himself in the mid-'90s as a singer/songwriter with a knack for literate adult pop songs with hazy surfaces and a touch of alt-rock grit, Duncan Sheik had a Top 20 hit with the song "Barely Breathing" from his 1996 eponymous debut. He had three more albums land on the Billboard 200 by the end of the next decade, including his fourth, 2002's Patrick Leonard-produced Daylight. Sheik's career turned toward Broadway with the success of 2006's Spring Awakening, which won him the Tony for Best Original Score and a Grammy for Best Musical Show Album. He continued to juggle adult-alternative albums, film scores, and musical theater in the years to follow, issuing his eighth solo album, Legerdemain, in 2015 and moving his musical American Psycho to Broadway in 2016. Following off-Broadway excursions including 2019's The Secret Life of Bees, he issued the studio album Claptrap in 2022.