Guided by Voices (GBV) is an American indie rock band formed in 1983 in Dayton, Ohio. It has made frequent personnel changes but always maintained the presence of principal songwriter Robert Pollard. The most well-known lineup of the band consisted of Pollard, his brother Jim, Mitch Mitchell, Tobin Sprout, Kevin Fennell (drums), and bassist Greg Demos. Noted at first for its lo-fi aesthetic and Portastudio four-tracks-to-cassette production methods, Guided by Voices' music was influenced by early post–British Invasion garage rock, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, punk rock and post-punk. The band has had a prolific output, releasing 35 full-length albums along with many other releases, and has garnered a dedicated cult following. Their songs are known for their frequent brevity and for ending abruptly or intertwining with eclectic and homemade sound effects.
Amelia Fiona Jessica "Minnie" Driver is an English actress. She rose to prominence with her break-out role in 1995's Circle of Friends. She went on to star in a wide range of films including the cult classic Grosse Pointe Blank, Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting for which she was nominated for both the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress and a Screen Actors Guild Award, the musical The Phantom of the Opera, Owning Mahowny, and providing the voice of Lady Eboshi in Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke.
Neko Richelle Case is an American singer-songwriter and member of the Canadian indie rock group the New Pornographers. Case has a powerful, untrained contralto voice, which has been described by contemporaries and critics as a "flamethrower," "a powerhouse [which] seems like it might level buildings," "a 120-mph fastball," and a "vocal tornado". Critics also note her idiosyncratic, "cryptic," "imagistic" lyrics, and credit her as a significant figure in the early 21st-century American revival of the tenor guitar. Case's body of work has spanned and drawn on a range of traditions including country, folk, art rock, indie rock, and pop and is frequently described as defying or avoiding easy generic classification.
Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! is an hour-long weekly news radio panel show produced by WBEZ and National Public Radio (NPR) in Chicago, Illinois. On the program, panelists and contestants are quizzed in humorous ways about that week's news. It is distributed by NPR in the United States, internationally on NPR Worldwide and on the Internet via podcast, and typically broadcast on weekends by member stations. The show averages about six million weekly listeners on air and via podcast.
Dolores Mary Eileen O'Riordan was an Irish musician, singer and songwriter. She was best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist for the alternative rock band the Cranberries. One of the most recognizable voices in rock in the 1990s, she was known for her lilting mezzo-soprano voice, signature yodel, emphasized use of keening, and strong Limerick accent.
Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli, known professionally as Tarja Turunen or simply Tarja, is a Finnish heavy metal singer, best known as the former lead vocalist of Nightwish. She is a soprano with a three and a half octave range.
Neville John "Noddy" Holder is an English musician. He was the lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the English band Slade, one of the UK's most successful acts of the 1970s. Known for his unique and powerful voice, Holder co-wrote most of Slade's material with bass guitarist Jim Lea including "Mama Weer All Crazee Now", "Cum On Feel the Noize" and "Merry Xmas Everybody". After leaving Slade in 1992, he diversified into television and radio work, notably starring in the ITV comedy-drama series The Grimleys (1999–2001).
Christopher Andrew "Christy" Moore is an Irish folk singer, songwriter and guitarist. In addition to his significant success as an individual, he is one of the founding members of Planxty and Moving Hearts. His first album, Paddyon the Road was recorded with Dominic Behan in 1969. In 2007, he was named as Ireland's greatest living musician in RTÉ's People of the Year Awards.
Lauren Cecilia Fisher, known professionally as Lauren Laverne, is an English radio DJ, model, television presenter, author and singer. She was the lead singer and additional guitarist in the alternative rock band Kenickie. The group's album At The Club reached the top 10, although her greatest chart success came when she performed vocals on Mint Royale's single "Don't Falter". Laverne has presented numerous television programmes, including 10 O'Clock Live for Channel 4, and The Culture Show and coverage of the Glastonbury Festival for the BBC. She has also written a published novel entitled Candypop: Candy and the Broken Biscuits. She presents the breakfast show on BBC Radio 6 Music, and in 2019 became the host of the long-running radio show Desert Island Discs.
María de la Soledad Teresa O'Brien is an American broadcast journalist and executive producer. Since 2016, O'Brien has been the host for Matter of Fact with Soledad O'Brien, a nationally syndicated weekly talk show produced by Hearst Television. She is chairwoman of Starfish Media Group, a multiplatform media production company and distributor that she founded in 2013. She is also a member of the Peabody Awards board of directors, which is presented by the University of Georgia's Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication.
Starflyer 59 is an American alternative rock band from Riverside, California that was founded in 1993 by Jason Martin, brother of Ronnie Martin of Joy Electric. While Jason Martin has written nearly all of Starflyer 59's songs, the band has included a number of different musicians over the years, including Jeff Cloud, Frank Lenz, and Richard Swift. The band's sound was initially identified as an outgrowth of the shoegaze movement of the early 1990s, but the band's music has gradually evolved to the point of little resemblance to that of its early days.
Matchbook Romance was an American emo band from Poughkeepsie, New York and was formed in 1997. They were signed to Epitaph Records. They released two full-length albums and one EP. Their EP, West for Wishing, released in 2003 was their first recorded album during their time on Epitaph; their full-length debut album, Stories and Alibis, was recorded in the same year.
Rebecca Shoichet is a Canadian voice actress and singer who has voiced in English dubs of Japanese anime and other shows for Ocean Productions in Vancouver. She took over Saffron Henderson's role of Sota Higurashi in Inuyasha after Henderson had moved to Los Angeles to do anime dubbing work in the United States. Other major roles include Mayura Labatt in Mobile Suit Gundam Seed and Nana Osaki in Nana. In animation, she voices Sunset Shimmer and sings for her and Twilight Sparkle in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic series. Outside of voice acting, she has sung in the local bands Mimosa, Side One and Soulstream. She is also active in the theater productions at Vancouver Playhouse.
Irene Kral was an American jazz singer who was born to Czechoslovakian parents in Chicago, Illinois and settled in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. She died from breast cancer in Encino, California.
Daniel John Mark Luke O'Donoghue is an Irish singer-songwriter best known for being the frontman of the Irish rock band The Script and as a coach on the first two series of the television singing talent show The Voice UK. He was earlier a member of the Irish boy band Mytown.
A googol is the large number 10100. In decimal notation, it is written as the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeroes: 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Una Theresa Imogene Healy is an Irish singer. She rose to fame in 2008 as a member of five-piece girl group The Saturdays, who are signed to Fascination and Polydor Records. In 2006, she represented Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest, where she sang with Brian Kennedy on the song "Every Song Is a Cry for Love"; they placed tenth overall. Healy then auditioned for the Saturdays in 2007, after struggling to find success in her native country. Once she had successfully auditioned, she began recording music and releasing a number of hits.
Belinda Magnus, better known as Pauline BlackListen, is an English singer, actress and author.
Nana Maru San Batsu, called Fastest Finger First in English, is a Japanese manga series by Iqura Sugimoto. An anime television series adaptation by TMS Entertainment aired from July 4 to September 19, 2017.
