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. The band currently consists of Rivers Cuomo, Patrick Wilson (drums), Brian Bell, and Scott Shriner.
Robert Sylvester Kelly is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and former professional basketball player. A native of Chicago, Kelly began performing during the late 1980s and debuted in 1992 with the group Public Announcement. In 1993, Kelly went solo with the album 12 Play. He is known for various songs including "Bump N' Grind", "Your Body's Callin'", "I Believe I Can Fly", "Gotham City", "Ignition (Remix)", "If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time", "The World's Greatest", "I'm a Flirt (Remix)", and the hip-hopera "Trapped in the Closet". In 1998, Kelly won three Grammy Awards for "I Believe I Can Fly".
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.
David Ryan Adams is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and poet. He is best known for his solo career, during which he has released sixteen albums, and as a former member of rock/alternative country band Whiskeytown, with whom he recorded three studio albums.
Dwayne Michael Carter Jr., known professionally as Lil Wayne, is an American rapper and singer. In 1993, at the age of 11, 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.
Cheap Trick is an American rock band from Rockford, Illinois, formed in 1973. The band consists of vocalist Robin Zander, guitarist Rick Nielsen, bassist Tom Petersson, and drummer Bun E. Carlos.
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".
Bryan Guy Adams is a Canadian singer, songwriter, record producer, guitarist, photographer, philanthropist and activist.
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, ten 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.
Pharrell Lanscilo Williams is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and fashion designer. Williams and Chad Hugo comprise the record production duo The Neptunes, producing hip hop and R&B music. He is the lead vocalist of the band N*E*R*D, that he formed with Hugo and childhood friend, Shay Haley. He released his first solo single, "Frontin'", in 2003 and followed up with his debut solo album, In My Mind, in 2006. His second album, Girl, was released in March 2014 and included the commercially successful single, "Happy". As part of the Neptunes, Williams has produced numerous singles for various recording artists.
Blake Tollison Shelton is an American country singer, songwriter and television personality. In 2001, he made his debut with the single "Austin". The lead-off single from his self-titled debut album, "Austin" spent five weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart. The now Platinum-certified debut album also produced two more top 20 entries. Although the album was released on Giant Records Nashville, he was transferred to Warner Bros. Records Nashville after Giant closed in late 2001.
Arctic Monkeys are an English rock band formed in 2002 in High Green, a suburb of Sheffield. The band consists of Alex Turner, Matt Helders, Jamie Cook and Nick O'Malley. Former band member Andy Nicholson left the band in 2006 shortly after their debut album was released.
Faheem Rasheed Najm, better known by his stage name T-Pain, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. His debut album, Rappa Ternt Sanga, was released in 2005. In 2007, T-Pain released his second album Epiphany, which reached number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. His third album, Thr33 Ringz, was released in 2008. T-Pain has also released a string of hit singles, including "I'm Sprung", "I'm 'n Luv ", "Buy U a Drank ", "Bartender", "Can't Believe It", "5 O'Clock" and more. T-Pain has earned two Grammy Awards, alongside artists Kanye West and Jamie Foxx respectively.
The Prodigy are an English electronic music band from Braintree, Essex, formed in 1990 by keyboardist and songwriter Liam Howlett. The first line-up of the band also included MC and vocalist Maxim, former dancer and vocalist Keith Flint, dancer and live keyboardist Leeroy Thornhill, and dancer and vocalist Sharky. Along with the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy has been credited as pioneers of the breakbeat-influenced genre big beat, which achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s.
Tauheed Epps, known professionally as 2 Chainz, is an American rapper, media personality and basketball player. Born and raised in College Park, Georgia, he initially gained recognition for being one-half of the Southern hip hop duo Playaz Circle, alongside his longtime friend and fellow rapper Earl "Dolla Boy" Conyers. The duo was signed to fellow Georgia-based rapper Ludacris' Disturbing tha Peace label, and are best known for their debut single "Duffle Bag Boy".
A compilation album comprises tracks, which may be previously released or unreleased, usually from several separate recordings by either one or several performers. If by one artist, then generally the tracks were not originally intended for release together as a single work, but may be collected together as a greatest hits album or box set. If from several performers, there may be a theme, topic, time period, or genre which links the tracks, or they may have been intended for release as a single work—such as a tribute album. When the tracks are by the same recording artist, the album may be referred to as a retrospective album or an anthology.
