Chris Braide is a multi-platinum, two-time Grammy-nominated, Ivor Novello, ASCAP, and BMI award-winning British songwriter, producer, artist and founder of Magical Thinker Records and Magical Thinking Studios. His work has fundamentally shaped the landscape of modern pop. Across multiple decades, he has written and produced some of the most enduring songs of the 21st century, including multiple UK and US #1 hits—anchored by the culturally dominant, multi-billion-streamed global anthem “Unstoppable.”
Characterized by melodic precision, emotional clarity, and a cinematic sense of scale, Braide is a trusted collaborator at the highest level of the music industry. He has written and produced for definitive artists including Beyoncé, Sia, and Lana Del Rey, and collaborated with sonic architects such as Hans Zimmer, Diplo, and David Guetta across major records, film scores, and global releases.
His era-defining partnership with Sia includes the Billboard #1 albums 1000 Forms of Fear (2014) and This Is Acting(2016), both achieving multi-platinum status worldwide. Their monumental hit “Unstoppable” has amassed over 1.9 billion streams, spent over 100 weeks on Billboard’s Adult Contemporary chart, and earned prestigious international BMI and APRA honors. Braide’s extensive catalog of global hits spans genres and generations, featuring landmarks including David Guetta’s “She Wolf (Falling to Pieces)” and “Flames,” Lana Del Rey’s “Million Dollar Man,” Chaka Khan’s “Bring The Party” featuring Lenny Kravitz, and the award-winning “Out There,” co-written with Sia and co-produced with Hans Zimmer for BBC’s Seven Worlds, One Planet.
Alongside his work for other artists, Braide continues to enjoy a critically acclaimed recording career of his own. As one half of Downes Braide Association (DBA), alongside Yes keyboardist Geoff Downes, he has released a succession of acclaimed progressive rock albums, achieving Top 20 positions on the UK Independent Albums Chart. The partnership reflects another dimension of Braide’s musical identity: an artist, singer and multi-instrumentalist whose creative ambitions extend far beyond the confines of contemporary pop.
For all the songwriting accolades, Braide remains, at heart, a record maker. He began his career working on SSL consoles and physically splicing tape, learning the craft of recording long before the modern laptop studio. Decades later, he is still never happier than sitting at the board, producing and mixing—shaping performances, sounds and songs into finished records.
That lifelong devotion to the craft of record-making, together with an increasing desire for genuine creative independence, ultimately led to Magical Thinker Records and Magical Thinking Studios. The label provides Braide with a completely independent home for his recordings, while the studio brings him full circle: a dedicated creative space built around the way he has always preferred to work—writing, recording, producing and mixing without compromise.
Today, working from his own studio in the English countryside, Braide has returned to the principles that first drew him to music: great songs, great performances and the endlessly absorbing process of making records. Magical Thinker Records and Magical Thinking Studios represent the culmination of that journey—a place where the songwriter, producer and artist finally exist under one roof, with complete creative control from the first note to the finished master.