Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco during the 82nd Annual Golden Globes held at The Beverly Hilton on Jan. 5, 2025 in Beverly Hills, California.
Christopher Polk/GG2025/Penske Media
Billboard Women in Music 2025
On the Billboard 200 chart dated April 5, two artists shared the No. 2 spot: Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco, whose friends-to-lovers romance manifested into the sweet couple’s album I Said I Love You First, long after they first started working together as singer and producer a decade prior.
But while the engaged twosome’s opening on the charts was certainly impressive, Gomez and Blanco are far from the first musical couple to craft an LP together. For many, romantic love and musical inspiration have gone hand in hand for decades, with some songwriting pairs starting out in band dynamics that turned romantic, and others deciding to try out music together only after they were in a relationship. There’s iconic duos like Sonny & Cher and Ike & Tina Turner, whose careers and lives as husband and wife were inextricably linked, and of course, there’s power couples such as Jay-Z and Beyoncé orTim McGraw and Faith Hill, where either spouse boasted an illustrious solo music career long before they united on joint albums.
No matter the exact dynamic, it’s easy to see the appeal of making music with a romantic partner. There’s no reason to hold back when it comes to writing lyrics — you probably already know everything about each other — and in many cases, your collaborator is just down the hall if you need them, doubling productivity.
From Selena and Benny to The Carters all the music-making soulmates that came before them, check out 10 albums that were made by couples below.
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Sonny & Cher, Look at Us
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}Released: 1965
Chart Peak: No. 2 on the Billboard 200Before their separation in 1974, former husband-and-wife duo Sonny & Cher released a number of albums together, starting with Look at Us — which featured three-week Hot 100-topper “I Got You Babe.” Their discography also includes 1966’s The Wondrous World of Sonny & Cher, 1967’s In Case You’re in Love, 1972’s All I Ever Need Is You and 1973’s Mama Was a Rock and Roll Singer, Papa Used to Write All Her Songs.
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Ike & Tina Turner, Workin’ Together
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}Released: 1970
Chart Peak: No. 25 on the Billboard 200One of the most famous musical couples of all time, Workin’ Together was just the tip of the iceberg of Ike and Tina Turner’s, well, work together. They released more than two dozen studio albums during their turbulent marriage before Tina filed for divorce in 1974.
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Paul & Linda McCartney, Ram
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}Released: 1971
Chart Peak: No. 2 on the Billboard 200Paul and Linda McCartney only ever worked on one album together, releasing Ram just over a year after the Beatles broke up and two years after the couple tied the knot.
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Richard & Linda Thompson, I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight
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}Released: 1974
Richard and Linda Thompson released six albums together, but the folk-rock classic I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight has endured as the ex-spouses’ most acclaimed project.
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Ashford & Simpson, Is It Still Good to Ya
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}Released: 1978
Chart Peak: No. 20 on the Billboard 200Husband-and-wife-duo Ashford & Simpson — comprised of Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson — made up one of the most prolific songwriting couples music has ever seen, with the pair earning more than a dozen entries on the Billboard 200 during their shared career.
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Yoko Ono & John Lennon, Double Fantasy
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}Released: 1980
Chart Peak: No. 1 (eight weeks) on the Billboard 200John & Yoko released a number of couple’s albums over the years, though Double Fantasy was by far their most successful. The pair’s shared discography also includes Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, Unfinished Music No. 2: Life with the Lions, Wedding Album, Some Time in New York City, Heart Play: Unfinished Dialogue and Milk and Honey.
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X, Wild Gift
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}Released: 1981
Chart Peak: No. 165 on the Billboard 200What’s more punk than love? On Wild Gift, then-newlyweds John Doe and Exene Cervenka mused on their new life together on X’s thrashing second studio album, though the pair would divorce in 1984.
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Tim McGraw & Faith Hill, The Rest of Our Life
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}Released: 2017
Chart Peak: No. 2 on the Billboard 200In only took more than 20 years of marriage, but with the 11 tracks on The Rest of Our Life, one of country music’s favorite couples finally teamed up on their first-ever collaborative album.
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The Carters, Everything Is Love
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}Released: 2018
Chart Peak: No. 2 on the Billboard 200Bey and Jay have worked on a number of songs over the years — including “Crazy in Love,” “Drunk in Love” and “’03 Bonnie & Clyde” — but the married titans of music dropped their first full collaborative album, Everything Is Love, in 2018.
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Selena Gomez & Benny Blanco, I Said I Love You First
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}Released: 2025
Chart Debut: No. 2 on the Billboard 200After years of knowing one another as collaborators, Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco started dating in 2023. A few months after getting engaged in December 2024, the couple dropped their first joint album, I Said I Love You First, in March 2025.
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