With her omnivorous musical tastes and cheeky attitude, London-based pop singer/songwriter Lily Allen made a name for herself almost as soon as she released her demos on the Internet. The daughter of comedian Keith Allen, Lily spent most of her childhood bouncing from one school to another -- in fact, she attended 13 different schools between the ages of five and 15. This constant moving meant she didn't have much of a chance to make lasting friendships, so Allen entertained herself with books and, especially, music: she listened to everything from T. Rex, the Specials, and the Slits to the Happy Mondays and drum'n'bass, and even ran away to see the Glastonbury Festival when she was 14. After she left school a year later, she realized that music was the only career for her. Allen concentrated on her songwriting and singing, developing a style that was equally sweet and bratty; late in 2005, she set up a MySpace page and posted demos of her songs, as both individual tracks and as part of two limited-edition "mixtapes" that also featured tracks by Dizzee Rascal, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Ludacris. The critical acclaim for her work fueled Allen's publicity, leading to tens of thousands of friends on MySpace, airplay on BBC Radio One, and a record deal with Regal/Parlophone before the end of 2005.
Views: 774
Tom Petty, born October 20, 1950, is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. He is the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and was a founding member of the late 1980s supergroup Traveling Wilburys and Mudcrutch. He has also performed under the pseudonyms of Charlie T. Wilbury, Jr. and Muddy Wilbury.
He has recorded a number of hit singles with the Heartbreakers and as a solo artist, many of which remain heavily played on adult contemporary and classic rock radio. His music, notably his hits, has become popular among younger generations as he continues to host sold-out shows. Throughout his career, Petty and his collaborators have sold 60 million albums.
Views: 465
Creed is an American rock band from Tallahassee, Florida, that became popular in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The band disbanded in 2004 after three multi-platinum albums, selling 26 million records in the United States and an estimated 35 million records worldwide.
The band consists of lead vocalist Scott Stapp, guitarist and backing vocalist Mark Tremonti, drummer Scott Phillips and bassist Brian Marshall. They released two studio albums: My Own Prison (1997), Human Clay (1999) before Marshall left in 2000 to be replaced by touring bassist Brett Hestla. Afterwards came Weathered (2001) with Mark Tremonti handling bass before the band disbanded in 2004. Tremonti, Phillips and Marshall went on to found Alter Bridge while Stapp followed a solo career. After months of speculation, the original members of Creed reunited in 2009 for a tour and a new album called Full Circle.
Views: 427
With slick production, commercially minded songcraft, and a tabloid-grabbing bassist, Chicago's Fall Out Boy rose to the forefront of emo-pop in the mid-2000s. The band's four members first came together in suburban Wilmette, a bedroom community just 14 miles north of the Windy City, around 2001. Vocalist/guitarist Patrick Stump, bassist/lyricist Pete Wentz, drummer Andrew Hurley, and guitarist Joe Trohman had all been in and out of various units connected to Chicago's underground hardcore scene. Most notably, Hurley drummed for Racetraitor, the furiously political metalcore outfit whose brief output was both a rallying point and sticking point within the hardcore community. As Fall Out Boy, the quartet used the unbridled intensity of hardcore as a foundation for melody-drenched pop-punk, with a heavy debt to the emo scene. They debuted with a self-released demo in 2001, following it up in May 2002 with a split LP (issued on the Uprising label) that also featured Project Rocket, for which Hurley also drummed. The band remained with the label for the release of a mini-LP, Fall Out Boy's Evening Out with Your Girl, but a bidding war of sorts was already in full swing.
Views: 287
Formed from the ashes of stoner rock icons Kyuss, Queens of the Stone Age reunited the group's singer/guitarist Josh Homme, drummer Alfredo Hernandez, and bassist Nick Oliveri along with new guitarist/keyboardist Dave Catching. The project's origins date back to Homme, who in the wake of Kyuss' 1995 demise relocated to Seattle to tour with the Screaming Trees; he soon began working with a revolving lineup of musicians including the Trees' Van Conner, Soundgarden's Matt Cameron, and Dinosaur Jr.'s Mike Johnson, recording a series of 7"s originally issued under the name Gamma Ray. After rechristening the group Queens of the Stone Age, Homme recruited Hernandez to begin work on their self-titled debut LP, issued in late 1998 on Loosegroove; after the album was completed, Oliveri left the Dwarves to rejoin his former bandmates, with the subsequent addition of Catching rounding out the roster. In addition to extensive touring, Homme put together a series of albums for the indie label Man's Ruin; the various volumes of the Desert Sessions feature Homme's collaborations with a loose-knit, revolving-door lineup of likeminded musicians, some from bands like Soundgarden, Fu Manchu, and Monster Magnet.
Views: 213
Michael Jackson was unquestionably the biggest pop star of the '80s, and certainly one of the most popular recording artists of all time. In his prime, Jackson was an unstoppable juggernaut, possessed of all the tools to dominate the charts seemingly at will: an instantly identifiable voice, eye-popping dance moves, stunning musical versatility, and loads of sheer star power. His 1982 blockbuster Thriller became the biggest-selling album of all time (probably his best-known accomplishment), and he was the first black artist to find stardom on MTV, breaking down innumerable boundaries both for his race and for music video as an art form. Yet as Jackson's career began, very gradually, to descend from the dizzying heights of his peak years, most of the media's attention focused on his increasingly bizarre eccentricities; he was often depicted as an arrested man-child, completely sheltered from adult reality by a life spent in show business. The snickering turned to scandal in 1993, when Jackson was accused of molesting a 13-year-old boy; although he categorically denied the charges, his out-of-court settlement failed to restore his tarnished image. He never quite escaped the stigma of those allegations, and while he continued to sell records at superstar-like levels, he didn't release them with enough frequency (or, many critics thought, inspiration) to once again become better known for his music than his private life. Whether as a pop icon or a tabloid caricature, Jackson always remained bigger than life.
Views: 140
Building on the rapping style of eccentrics Kool Keith and Del tha Funkee Homosapien, Def Jux headliner Aesop Rock became one of the hottest MCs in the post-millennial underground. After a pair of self-released LPs (Appleseed, Music for Earthworms), he recorded Float for Mush in 2000. The former Ian Bavitz then issued a pair of singles -- "Coma" and "Boom Box" -- for another underground rap label paragon, Definitive Jux. His second full-length, 2001's Labor Days, earned positive reviews and featured production from El-P and Blockhead. The Daylight EP kept his name in the papers, and his Def Jux follow-up, Bazooka Tooth, was released in September 2003. A seven-track EP, Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives, followed in early 2005. In early 2007 Aesop Rock composed a 45-minute piece for Nike's Original Run series, a continuous track meant to be listened to while jogging (other artists included LCD Soundsystem and the Crystal Method), and by September his much-anticipated full-length, None Shall Pass, which included guest appearances from El-P and John Darnielle (from the Mountain Goats), came out.
Views: 136
Combining jagged, roaring guitars and stop-start dynamics with melodic pop hooks, intertwining male-female harmonies and evocative, cryptic lyrics, the Pixies were one of the most influential American alternative rock bands of the late '80s. The Pixies weren't accomplished musicians -- Black Francis wailed and bashed out chords while Joey Santiago's lead guitar squealed out spirals of noise. But the bandmembers were inventive, rabid rock fans who turned conventions inside out, melding punk and indie guitar rock, classic pop, surf rock, and stadium-sized riffs with singer/guitarist Black Francis' bizarre, fragmented lyrics about space, religion, sex, mutilation, and pop culture; while the meaning of his lyrics may have been impenetrable, the music was direct and forceful.
Views: 124
Katy was a former Christian artist who ditched the sacred sounds of CCM for a secular mix of sass and spunk, Katy Perry combines the cheeky, club-ready pop music of Lily Allen with the commercial pop/rock of Avril Lavigne and Alanis Morissette. Born on October 25, 1984, in Santa Barbara, CA, she grew up in a Christian household as the daughter of two pastors. Though she was not allowed to listen to secular music as a child, Perry later found herself captivated by Alanis Morissette and Freddie Mercury, having discovered Queen's music during a slumber party. Religious music remained at the forefront, however, and Perry released a self-titled Christian album in 2001 under the name Katy Hudson. She would later abandon the genre in favor of a pop career.
At age 17, the burgeoning songwriter began working with hitmaker Glen Ballard, who had produced and co-written Alanis Morissette's chart-topping Jagged Little Pill in 1995. Several years later, she teamed up with the Matrix, a Grammy-nominated production/songwriting team whose résumé includes collaborations with Avril Lavigne, Shakira, and Korn. Tired of producing music for other artists, the Matrix had plans to record their own album with Perry serving as one of the group's two singers. The project was ultimately shelved, but not before Perry appeared in a 2004 write-up by Blender magazine, who hailed her as "The Next Big Thing!"
With the Matrix's unreleased album sitting in the vaults at Sony Records, Perry went back to the drawing board and ultimately signed with Columbia in 2007. Her debut single, "UR So Gay," generated some online buzz with its mischievous lyrics and accompanying music video. However, "I Kissed a Girl" proved to be her true breakthrough single, topping the charts in 20 countries and pushing its accompanying album, 2008's One of the Boys, into the Top Ten in America. Perry supported her debut by joining the Warped Tour that summer and appearing in an episode of The Young and the Restless. Meanwhile, "Hot N Cold" became her second number one hit.
Views: 118
A protégé of Dr. Dre, rapper Eminem emerged in 1999 as one of the most controversial rappers to ever grace the genre. Using his biting wit and incredible skills to vent on everything from his unhappy childhood to his contempt for the mainstream media, his success became the biggest crossover success the genre had seen since Dre's solo debut seven years earlier. The controversy over his lyrics was the best publicity any musician could afford, and being the first Caucasian rapper to make a significant impact in years may have given him a platform not afforded to equally talented African-American rappers. A gifted producer as well, his talents always seemed overshadowed by his media presence, which was a mix between misunderstood genius and misogynistic homophobe. Both may be true, but his message spoke to legions of disaffected youth who had few role models in the rap world who could relate to the white lower-class experience.
Views: 117
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