Taylor Swift

With her homespun charm, curly golden locks, and prodigious gift for songwriting, Taylor Swift is one of youngest Nashville newcomers to capture a national audience in years. When she was just 16, Swift’s first big single, “Tim McGraw,” peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard country chart and held a spot in the top 10 for months. On the single’s success, Swift joined the ranks of teenage country queens like Tanya Tucker, Marie Osmond and LeAnn Rimes, who all charted as teenagers. Unlike those young chart-toppers, Swift wrote the song herself. Born in Wyomissing, Penn., in 1989, Swift began playing guitar at 12, and moved outside of Nashville with her family as a teen, and debuted at the Bluebird Cafe famed songwriter showcase. Her self-titled debut album, issued in October 2006, spawned a handful of radio hits such as “Tim McGraw,” “Our Song” and “Picture to Burn,” all of which [...]

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Pink

If cultivating an iconoclast status is a career, then Pink is one serious go-getter. Since her 2000 debut, the husky-voiced singer has overhauled her sound several times, changed her hair color even more often, married motocross star Carey Hart and taken George Bush to task. Then there’s “Stupid Girls,” the 2006 single in which Pink skewered tabloid perennials like Jessica Simpson and Paris Hilton.

She’s abandoned the sugar-coated pop-soul of her first album, but Pink got her start in RnB and hip-hop. Born Alecia Moore, she started dancing and singing backup at club nights in Philadelphia at age 13 and eventually went solo with Can’t Take Me Home. Pink recruited Linda Perry to co-write her second album, 2001’s M!ssundaztood, a collection of soulful pop-rock that spawned the hit “Get the Party Started.” She then collaborated with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong on 2003’s Try This. The album didn’t do well, and Pink took [...]

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Johnny Cash

You might consider Johnny Cash the original gangster. He sang a song about killing a man “just to watch him die” long before young men began to wear big pants and cap their teeth in gold. His trademark baritone growl and disdainful sneer were the crown and scepter he bore as the king of outlaw country music. Cash’s unique sound wasn’t complex by any means. His Southern Gothic-tinged narratives and lighthearted country songs contained similar elements to Woody Guthrie’s simple ditties. However, nobody but Cash could sing those songs with the burning, heartfelt fever that has made him one of the most influential people in country music. Originally, he wanted to make gospel music after finishing up a Korean War tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force. But after releasing his first single on Sun Records (”Cry Cry Cry” backed with “Hey Porter”), it was perfectly clear that he [...]

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Gavin Rossdale

Former singer and frontman for the hugely successful British grunge band Bush, Gavin Rossdale also led the one-off project Institute before going solo with Wanderlust in 2008. Rossdale grew up in London and after graduation bounced around, making a short foray into modeling and then launching a band called Midnight. He moved to L.A. for some time and worked as a production assistant on music videos. After returning to London in 1992, he started up Future Primitive, who later changed their name to Bush in 1994 and became mega-legga stars thanks to the massive success of their debut, Sixteen Stone. For the remainder of the 1990s, Rossdale enjoyed A-list star status, with his scruffy vocals and elegant bachelor good looks making him something of a sex symbol for the grunge era. In 2002, he married Gwen Stefani, another major icon of ’90s culture thanks to her striking blond hair, belly-button [...]

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T.I.

The self-proclaimed king of southern hip-hop, T.I. has built a career off catchy nihilism that banks on both self-determination and dope-boy darkness. The frequently incarcerated Atlanta native is small in stature, ill-tempered and walks with the swagger of Jay-Z, a combination that prompts his critics to dub him hip-hop’s Napoleon. His first offering, 2001’s I’m Serious, didn’t exactly burn up the charts, but it featured production from the Neptunes and displayed a tenderness that subsequent releases would downplay. In many ways, 2003’s Trap Muzik was T.I.’s official unveiling; the irresistible single “Rubber Band Man” served as a raison d’etre of sorts for the star. After doing a bid in prison for cocaine charges, he returned in 2004 with the comparatively cheery Urban Legend. Sometime between the release of that album and 2006’s King, he had begun to challenge 50 Cent and Eminem as the most famous emcee in the world. [...]

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Jonas Brothers

Call them precocious, call them adorable, just don’t call them the second
coming of Hanson. Because this brother trio is here to rock. And they
don’t do three-part harmony. New Jersey brothers Kevin, Joseph and Nicholas
Jonas were 17, 16 and 13, respectively, when they released their debut album
in 2006. They got their start when littlest bro Nicholas, in possession of a
soulful prepubescent voice, finagled a solo record deal with
Daylight/Columbia. When Columbia got wind that there were two other Jonas
brothers who were just as cute and musically inclined, Nick’s solo act
quickly became a trio, with Kevin on guitar and Joe and Nick switching off
on vocals, keyboards and percussion. Their first album was a collection of
hyper, hook-driven pop-punk that got the attention of tweens across America.
And that got the attention of Disney, which stuck them on a bazillion
soundtracks and then released their sophomore effort in 2007, all before
Nick was a sophomore. OK, sorry about [...]

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Green Velvet seen with Professor Genius + DC Larue at Tribeca Grand

Not much to say here.  I got to the Triceba Grand to catch a digital set by Jersey City producer/artist Professor Genius.  He makes blip and bleep house music with lots of gorgeous spacious synths.  Think Vangelis with beats crossed with Giorgio Moroder.  The room was packed the sound was loud and people were drinking and italo-disco dancing their asses off.  I went to catch a glimpse to see how he was making the music, (Ableton live with a keyboard and laptop), then hit the bar for a cosmo when I noticed legendary producer/DJ Green Velvet nodding his head to the music, I was surprised to see him as I understand he had a gig to get to.

Coldplay

Coldplay create sparse, emotional soundscapes, dripping with melancholy. The London-based quartet is singer Chris Martin, guitarist Jonny Buckland, bassist Guy Berryman and drummer Will Champion. Their debut album, Parachutes, was released in late 2000 in the U.S., and they quickly became a sensation. The record went No. 1 in the U.K. charts and won Best Alternative Music Album at the 2002 Grammys. Marked by Martin’s falsetto-happy vocals, songs like “Yellow” and “Shiver” employ stop/start dynamics that allow serene verses to build to a crescendo, centering on the well-trodden theme of love. Sophomore effort A Rush of Blood to the Head took home two Grammys and earned a spot on Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list. Hits “Clocks” and “In My Place” were wistful and romantic, labeled by some as radio-friendly Radiohead. The group’s third album, XandY, became the best-selling album of 2005, and “Speed of Sound” topped [...]

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Radiohead

One of the 1990s’ greatest success stories, Radiohead came to prominence largely on the success of their distorted, ingratiating single “Creep.” Drolly repeating “I’m a creep / I’m a loser” in the pounding wake of arena rock guitars wasn’t going to win them any artistic grants, but those lyrics and bouts with piercing feedback would not be soon forgotten. It wasn’t until The Bends (1995) that Radiohead transcended the formula, crafting the patient, heart-wrenching “Fake Plastic Trees” and the magnetic, sunshine-driven “Black Star.” Thom Yorke’s signature falsetto began to operate in a more deeply emotional capacity at this point. Finally producing to the caliber of their songwriting, Radiohead’s OK Computer demonstrated a staggering attention to detail, probably ranking as one of the greatest commercial artistic successes of the ’90s. Rarely does a record offer masterpieces in varying moods. From the thunderously suspenseful “Airbag” to the moody chime of the blustery [...]

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Weezer

When they first appeared on the commercial pop landscape back in 1994, it wasn’t without a fair amount of derision from the indie rock cognoscenti. After all, these guys were copping the indie rock style, using the same pop culture references and the same hooks, but putting it out on a major label with no grassroots support behind them. They had no “cred,” as it were. Where did Weezer come from anyway? The answer is: nowhere. Rivers Cuomo founded the band as an outlet for his love of Van Halen, Cheap Trick and Kiss just a year before getting signed. The group was quickly thrust into the spotlight following the mad rush of Nirvana’s success, and suddenly “Buddy Holly” and “Undone” were radio hits. The allure of this gaggle of power pop-loving kids with huge amps and no real star appeal wasn’t lost on a generation of geeky punks. In [...]

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