Troyal Garth Brooks is an American singer and songwriter. His integration of rock and roll elements into the country genre has earned him immense popularity in the United States. Brooks has had great success on the country single and album charts, with multi-platinum recordings and record-breaking live performances, while also crossing over into the mainstream pop arena.
Metallica is an American heavy metal band. The band was formed in 1981 in Los Angeles, California by drummer Lars Ulrich and vocalist/guitarist James Hetfield, and has been based in San Francisco, California for most of its career. The group's fast tempos, instrumentals and aggressive musicianship made them one of the founding "big four" bands of thrash metal, alongside Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer. Metallica's current lineup comprises founding members Hetfield and Ulrich, longtime lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo. Guitarist Dave Mustaine and bassists Ron McGovney, Cliff Burton and Jason Newsted are former members of the band.
Weezer is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1992. Since 2001, the band has consisted of Rivers Cuomo, Patrick Wilson (drums), Brian Bell, and Scott Shriner.
Prince Rogers Nelson was an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, actor and filmmaker. A prominent music figure of the 1980s, Prince was known for his eclectic work, flamboyant stage presence, extravagant fashion sense and use of makeup, and wide vocal range. A multi-instrumentalist, he was considered a guitar virtuoso and was also skilled at playing the drums, percussion, bass, keyboards, and synthesizer. Prince pioneered the Minneapolis sound, which is a subgenre of funk rock with elements of synth-pop and new wave, in the late 1970s.
Coldplay are a British rock band formed in London in 1996. The four members, lead singer and pianist Chris Martin, lead guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman, and drummer Will Champion were at University College London, and came together from 1996 to 1998, during which time the band changed names from Pectoralz, to Starfish, then Coldplay. Creative director and former manager Phil Harvey is often referred to as the fifth member by the band. They recorded and released two EPs: Safety in 1998 and The Blue Room in 1999. The latter was their first release on a major label, after signing to Parlophone.
O'Shea Jackson Sr., known professionally as Ice Cube, is an American rapper, writer and actor.
In the music industry, a single is a type of release, typically a song recording of fewer tracks than an LP record or an album. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, a single is a song that is released separately from an album, although it usually also appears on an album. Typically, these are the songs from albums that are released separately for promotional uses such as digital download or commercial radio airplay and are expected to be the most popular. In other cases a recording released as a single may not appear on an album.
Gwen Renée Stefani is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She is a co-founder and the lead vocalist of the band No Doubt, whose singles include "Just a Girl" and "Don't Speak" from their 1995 breakthrough studio album Tragic Kingdom, as well as "Hey Baby" and "It's My Life" from later albums.
Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., known professionally as Lil Wayne, is an American rapper, singer, record executive and actor. His career began in 1993, at the age of 11, when he was discovered by Bryan "Birdman" Williams and joined Cash Money Records as the youngest member of the label, and half of the duo The B.G.'z, alongside fellow New Orleans-based rapper B.G.. In 1996, Lil Wayne and B.G. joined the southern hip hop group Hot Boys, with Cash Money label-mates Juvenile and Turk. Hot Boys debuted with Get It How U Live!, that same year. Most of the group's success came with their platinum-selling album Guerrilla Warfare (1999) and the 1999 single "Bling Bling". For many years, he was the flagship artist of Cash Money Records, before ending his long-tenured deal with the company in June 2018.
In their native United Kingdom, between 1962 and 1970, the Beatles released 12 studio albums, 13 extended plays (EPs) and 22 singles. However, the band's international discography is complicated, due to different versions of their albums sometimes being released in other countries, particularly during their early years on Capitol Records in North America. The Beatles' discography was originally released on the vinyl format, with full-length long plays (LPs), shorter EPs and singles. Over the years, the collection has also been released on cassette, 8-track, compact disc (CD), and on a USB flash drive in MP3 and 24-bit FLAC format. Although their output has come to include vault items and remixed mash-ups, the Beatles' "core catalogue", recorded in 1962 to 1970, comprises 217 songs, totalling approximately 10 hours of music. Additionally, they released five tracks that are different versions of previously released songs: "Love Me Do", "Revolution", "Get Back", "Across the Universe" and "Let It Be"; two tracks in German: "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" and "Sie Liebt Dich"; and two tracks that are duplicates of songs included on previous albums but also included on the album Yellow Submarine: "Yellow Submarine" and "All You Need Is Love".
The Black Eyed Peas is an American musical group, consisting of rappers will.i.am, apl.de.ap and Taboo. Originally an alternative hip hop group, they subsequently changed their musical sound to pop and dance-pop music. Although the group was founded in Los Angeles in 1995, it was not until the release of their third album, Elephunk, in 2003, that they achieved high record sales. Since that time, the group has sold an estimated 76 million records, making them one of the world's best-selling groups of all time. As of 2011, according to Nielsen SoundScan, the Black Eyed Peas were the second-best-selling artist/group of all time for downloaded tracks, behind Rihanna, with over 42 million sales.
Mary Jane Blige is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. She started her career as a backing singer on Uptown Records in 1989. She has released 13 studio albums, eight of which have achieved multi-platinum worldwide sales. Blige has sold over 80 million records, has won nine Grammy Awards, four American Music Awards, twelve Billboard Music Awards and has also received three Golden Globe Award nominations, including one for her supporting role in the film Mudbound (2017) and another for its second original song "Mighty River" for Mudbound; she also received a nomination for the Academy Awards for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song, becoming the first person nominated for acting and songwriting in the same year.
Enrique Miguel Iglesias Preysler is a Spanish singer, songwriter, actor and record producer. He is widely regarded as the King of Latin Pop. Iglesias started his career in the mid-1990s on an American Spanish-language record label Fonovisa Records under the stage name Enrique Martinez, before switching to his notable surname Iglesias. By the turn of the millennium, after becoming one of the biggest stars in Latin America and the Hispanic market in the United States, he made a successful crossover into the US mainstream market. He signed a multi-album deal with Universal Music Group for US$68 million with Universal Music Latino to release his Spanish albums and Interscope Records to release English albums. In 2010, he parted with Interscope Records and signed with another Universal Music Group label Republic Records to release bilingual albums. In 2015, Iglesias parted ways with Universal Music Group after being there for over a decade. He signed with Sony Music and his subsequent albums to be released by Sony Music Latin in Spanish and RCA Records in English.
A greatest hits album, sometimes called a "best of" album or a catalog album, is a compilation of songs by a particular artist or band. Most often the track list contains previously released recordings with a high degree of notability. However, to increase the appeal, especially to people who already own the original release, it is common to include remixes or alternate takes of popular songs; sometimes even new material will function as bonus tracks. At times, a greatest hits compilation is the original album release for songs that have themselves been released as a single and charted successfully.
An album is a collection of audio recordings issued as a collection on compact disc (CD), vinyl, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century as individual 78-rpm records collected in a bound book resembling a photograph album; this format evolved after 1948 into single vinyl LP records played at 33 1⁄3 rpm. Vinyl LPs are still issued, though album sales in the 21st-century have mostly focused on CD and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used alongside vinyl from the 1970s into the first decade of the 2000s.
The Backstreet Boys are an American vocal group, formed in Orlando, Florida in 1993. The group consists of AJ McLean, Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson, and Brian Littrell.
Thomas Luther "Luke" Bryan is an American country music singer and songwriter. He began his music career writing songs for Travis Tritt and Billy Currington – before signing with Capitol Nashville with his cousin, Chad Christopher Boyd in 2007.
Jermaine Lamar Cole, known professionally as J. Cole, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. Born on a military base in Germany but raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, Cole initially gained recognition as a rapper following the release of his debut mixtape, The Come Up, in early 2007. Intent on further pursuing a solo career as a rapper, he went on to release two additional mixtapes, The Warm Up and Friday Night Lights after signing to Jay-Z's Roc Nation imprint in 2009.
Exo is a South Korean–Chinese boy band based in Seoul, with nine members: Suho, Baekhyun, Chanyeol, D.O., Kai, Sehun, Xiumin, Lay, and Chen. The band was formed by SM Entertainment in 2011 and debuted in 2012. Their music incorporates genres like pop, hip-hop, and R&B, alongside electronic dance music genres like house, trap, and synth-pop. Exo releases and performs music in Korean, Mandarin, and Japanese. The band ranked as one of the top five most influential celebrities on the Forbes Korea Power Celebrity list each year from 2014 to 2018, and have been named "the biggest boy band in the world" and the "kings of K-pop" by the media.
Lauren Ashley Daigle is an American contemporary Christian music singer and songwriter. After being signed to the label Centricity Music, she released her debut album, How Can It Be, in 2015. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard Top Christian Albums chart, has been certified Platinum by the RIAA and produced three No. 1 singles on the Billboard Christian Airplay chart.
