| Name | VH1 |
|---|---|
| Logofile | VH1.svg |
| Logosize | 150px |
| Launch | January 1, 1985 |
| Owner | MTV Networks (Viacom) |
| Headquarters | New York City, United States |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Former names | VH-1: Video Hits OneVH1: Music First |
| Sister names | MTV, VH1 Soul, VH1 Classic |
| Web | VH1.com |
| Format | 480i (SD)1080i (HD) |
| Slogan | Watch and discuss |
| Terr avail | Not Available |
| Sat serv 1 | DirecTV (U.S.) |
| Sat chan 1 | 335 (SD/HD)1335 (VOD) |
| Sat serv 2 | Dish Network (U.S.) |
| Sat chan 2 | 162 (SD/HD) |
| Sat serv 3 | Yes (Israel) |
| Sat chan 3 | 76 |
| Sat serv 4 | Tata Sky (India) |
| Sat chan 4 | 725 |
| Sat serv 5 | Airtel digital TV (India) |
| Sat chan 5 | 386 |
| Sat serv 6 | DSTV (South Africa) |
| Sat chan 6 | 323 |
| Cable serv 1 | Available on many cable systems |
| Cable chan 1 | Check local listings for specific channels |
| Adsl serv 1 | Verizon FiOs |
| Adsl chan 1 | 217 |
VH1 continues to air "Movies That Rock" on a regular basis, expanding to include movies not produced by VH1. The subject matter remains mostly focused on music and musicians.
By the early 2000s, VH1 even began to play mainstream rap musicians. a four-part series on the history of heavy metal, , and The Drug Years, which tells the story of various drug cultures that changed America. Films produced by other studios have also been aired as rockDocs, including Woodstock, , , , Awesome; I Fuckin' Shot That!, a documentary on the Beastie Boys, and most recently Last Days of Left Eye which documented the last month of Lisa Lopes's life from the band TLC and N.W.A.: The World's Most Dangerous Group, featuring the narration of comedian Chris Rock, which chronicled the rise and fall of N.W.A.
VH1 endured criticism for Music Behind Bars, which mainly focuses on musicians in custody. Critics have claimed prisoners, mainly those convicted of murder, should not be entitled to any exposure, especially nationally.
The channel aired Where Are They Now? from 1999 to 2002. It featured former celebrities and their current professional and personal statuses. Each episode was dedicated to a specific genre, ranging from past child stars to Aaron Spelling's notable productions, to controversial news figures.
The network is currently working on four new reality projects, slated to run in spring 2010. They include a makeover series for women, a dating advice show for men, a documentary series about the deaths of several celebrities and a series that follows the lives of people at a ski resort in Vancouver, B.C.
In 2002, VH1 broadcast a ten-part series entitled I Love the '80s. The idea was taken from a BBC series, first broadcast in 2000, in which current entertainers and pop-culture figures offered their take on the trends, events, and personalities of another decade. The success of VH1's I Love the '80s, coupled with the growing nostalgia for ever-more-recent times, led the network to create a parade of similarly-themed programs. These ranged from 2003's I Love the '70s, to further variants like I Love the 80s Strikes Back, I Love the '90s, and . More recently, VH1 premiered I Love the '80s 3-D and , along with the non-decade-based I Love the Holidays and I Love Toys.
The format of these shows has been repeated for the weekly program Best Week Ever. In a sketch on Fox's MADtv envisioning an as-yet fictitious "I Love the 00s" show, VH1 was referred to as "the bitter comics ragging on real celebrities" network.
Life imitated art on June 22 when VH1 premiered I Love the New Millennium focusing on the years 2000-2007.
===Celebreality=== In January 2005 VH1 launched its Celebreality programming block of reality shows featuring celebrities, anchored by The Surreal Life, which mimics MTV's The Real World, instead placing celebrities from the past into a living environment. The word "celebreality" is a portmanteau combining the words "celebrity" and "reality" and is generally used to describe reality TV shows in which celebrities participate as subjects. The term appears to have been coined by Michael Gross, writing for The Toronto Star on May 12, 1991. In his article, entitled "Celebrity's New Face," Mr. Gross used a hyphenated form of the word ("celeb-reality") to describe the tendency of certain contemporary celebrities to downplay the traditional trappings of Hollywood glamour. "You could see the new celeb-reality on display at this year's Oscars," wrote Gross. "It is Kathy Bates and Whoopi Goldberg, not Kim Basinger and Michelle Pfeiffer. It is Jeremy Irons in black tie and the sneakers he says keep his feet on the ground. It is Kevin Costner, fighting small, important battles, winning big, but reacting with modesty and going off to party privately. The new celebrities are human first, famous second."
The next known citation of the word is by Joyce Millman, writing for The New York Times on January 5, 2003. In an article entitled, "Celebreality: The ‘Stars’ Are Elbowing Their Way In," Ms. Millman wrote: "Celebreality, the junk genre du jour, turns the notion of reality TV upside down. Instead of real people acting like celebrities on shows like "Survivor", "Big Brother" and "The Bachelor", celebreality gives us celebrities acting like real people on shows like "The Osbournes", "The Anna Nicole Show" and "Celebrity Boot Camp." I'm using the term "celebrity" loosely here — we're not talking about Russell Crowe, Julia Roberts and Dame Judi Dench eating bugs and scrubbing latrines. No, the celebrities of celebreality are a motlier crew, like, well, Mötley Crüe's Vince Neil, the former rap superstar M. C. Hammer and the wee ex-Michael Jackson ornament Emmanuel ("Webster") Lewis. Those three will be setting up housekeeping together on Thursday in "The Surreal Life" on WB, a celebreality spin on MTV's "Real World." Not to be outdone, ABC sends a Baldwin brother (Stephen), a supermodel (Frederique) and a former "L.A. Law" star (Corbin Bernsen) to Hawaii for "Celebrity Mole Hawaii", beginning Wednesday."
The Vh1 Celebreality block has also aired shows such as:
Since the controversy over the murder-suicide of a contestant from Megan Wants a Millionaire, the channel has toned down it's reality programming.
Although VH1 has drastically reduced its emphasis on music, it does continue to play music videos (just like its sister network, MTV) from 4 a.m. until 11 a.m. ET. The overnight block was called Insomniac Music Theater until August 2005, when it was renamed Nocturnal State. As of the beginning of October 2008, Nocturnal State has been cut down to one hour, and Fresh: New Music has been supplanted by additional hours of Jump Start, thus meaning that VH1 now plays 7 hours of music daily.
As of the beginning of May 2010, VH1 has permanently retire the named Nocturnal State and had temporarily cancelled the 5AM ET hour of Jump Start to make room for more reality show re-airs. Also, VH1's music has leaned more and more Top 40-based over the past year. More recently, the 4 and 5AM ET hours reverted back to music on most days, and all of its music hours are now branded as Jump Start.
Category:English-language television stations in the United States Category:Television channels and stations established in 1985 Category:MTV Networks Category:Music video networks Category:Viacom subsidiaries
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| Name | Soulja Boy Tell 'Em |
|---|---|
| Landscape | no |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | DeAndre Cortez Way |
| Alias | Soulja Boy, S. Beezy, Dre |
| Born | July 28, 1990 Chicago, Illinois |
| Origin | Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| Occupation | Rapper, record producer |
| Genre | Hip hop |
| Years active | 2004–present |
| Label | Stacks on Deck/Interscope |
| Associated acts | Mr. Collipark, Gucci Mane |
| Url | |
| Notable instruments | FL Studio |
In September 2007, his single "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The single was initially self-published on the Internet, and it became a number-one hit in the United States for seven non-consecutive weeks starting in September 2007.
Despite his commercial success, his music has been the subject of ridicule from his peers and critics.
In November 2005, Way posted his songs on the website SoundClick. Following positive reviews on the site, he then established his own web pages on YouTube and MySpace. In March 2007, he recorded "Crank That" and released his first independent album , followed by a low-budget video filmed demonstrating the "Crank That" dance. By the end of May 2007, "Crank That (Soulja Boy)" received its first airplay and Way met with Mr. Collipark to sign a deal with Interscope Records.
On August 12, 2007, the song appeared on the Emmy-award winning HBO series Entourage, and by September 1, it topped the Billboard Hot 100 and Hot RingMasters charts. Way's major label debut album Souljaboytellem.com, which was reportedly recorded using just the demo version of FL Studio, was released in the United States on October 2, peaking at #4 on both the Billboard 200 and Top R&B;/Hip-Hop Albums charts. On December 9, 2007, Way was sued by William Lyons (a.k.a. Souljah Boy of Mo Thugs Family) who claims he first created the stage name "Souljah Boy".
For the 50th Grammy Awards, Way was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Song with "Crank That (Soulja Boy)". He lost to Kanye West's and T-Pain's "Good Life".
Souljaboytellem.com received a favorable review from Allmusic, Several reviewers credited Soulja Boy with spearheading a new trend in hip-hop, while speculating he will likely be a one-hit wonder.
The follow-up to souljaboytellem.com, iSouljaBoyTellem, was released on December 16, 2008, to negative critical reception. The first single from the album, "Bird Walk", peaked at number 40 on the Billboard Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs chart and the top 20 on the Hot Rap Tracks chart. "Kiss Me Thru the Phone", with Sammie, followed, peaking at #3 on the Hot 100 and #1 on the Hot Rap Tracks charts.
The lead single from the album, "POW", was released in January 2009 but failed to garner success and was dubbed a promo single. The official lead single from the album, "Pretty Boy Swag", was released in June 2010. The single has reached number thirty-four on the Billboard Hot 100, number six on the Billboard Hot R&B;/Hip-Hop Songs chart and number five on the Billboard Rap Songs chart. The album's second single was due to be "Digital", then "Speakers Going Hammer", but "Blowing Me Kisses" was released on August 31, 2010 as the second single instead. Soulja Boy was to be part of the Summerbeatz tour held in Australia alongside Flo Rida, Jay Sean and Travie McCoy in November 2010, but in lieu of his current album release date and a new tour, Soulja Society, Soulja Boy had declined the offer.
On October 7, 2009, Way was arrested on one count of obstruction, a misdemeanor, for running from police when he'd been ordered to stop. The rapper was released on $550 bond.
; Studio albums
Category:1990 births Category:Living people Category:2000s rappers Category:2010s rappers Category:African American rappers Category:African American record producers Category:American dance musicians Category:Hip hop record producers Category:Interscope Records artists Category:People from Panola County, Mississippi Category:Rappers from Atlanta, Georgia Category:People from Chicago, Illinois
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| Name | Kanye West |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Kanye Omari West |
| Born | June 08, 1977Atlanta, Georgia, United States |
| Origin | Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Genre | Hip hop |
| Instrument | Vocals, keyboards, sampler, percussion, synthesizer |
| Occupation | Producer, rapper, musician, singer |
| Years active | 1996–present |
| Label | GOOD Music, Roc-A-Fella, Def Jam |
| Associated acts | Go Getters, Child Rebel Soldier, Jay-Z, Common, John Legend, Kid Cudi, Pusha T, Mr Hudson, Pusha T, Big Sean |
| Url |
West released his debut album The College Dropout in 2004, his second album Late Registration in 2005, his third album Graduation in 2007, his fourth album 808s & Heartbreak in 2008, and his fifth album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010. His five albums have received numerous awards, including a cumulative twelve Grammys, All have been very commercially successful, with 808s & Heartbreak becoming his third consecutive #1 album in the U.S. upon release. West also runs his own record label GOOD Music, home to artists such as John Legend, Common and Kid Cudi. West's mascot and trademark is "Dropout Bear," a teddy bear which has appeared on the covers of three of his five albums as well as various single covers and music videos. About.com ranked Kanye West #8 on their "Top 50 Hip-Hop Producers" list. On May 16, 2008, Kanye West was crowned by MTV as the year's #1 "Hottest MC in the Game." On 17 December 2010, Kanye West was voted as the MTV Man of the Year by MTV.
West attended art classes at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, and also enrolled at Chicago State University, but dropped out to focus on his music career.
West got his big break in the year 2000 however when he began to produce for artists on Roc-a-Fella Records. He produced the well received Jay-Z song "This Can't Be Life" off of the album . West would later state that to create the beat for "This Can't Be Life" he sped up the drum beat from Dr. Dre's song "Xxplosive".
After producing for Jay-Z earlier, West’s sound was featured heavily on Jay-Z's critically acclaimed album The Blueprint, released on September 11, 2001. Jay-Z admitted that Roc-A-Fella was initially reluctant to support West as a rapper, claiming that he saw him as a producer first and foremost. Multiple record companies felt he was not as marketable as rappers who portray the "street image" prominent in hip hop culture. West's faith is apparent in many of his songs, such as "Jesus Walks", which became a staple at his benefit performances, such as the Live 8 concert. These songs were featured on West's debut album, The College Dropout, which was released on Roc-A-Fella Records in February 2004, and went on to receive critical acclaim. The album also defined the style for which West would become known, including wordplay and sampling. During 2003 West also co-produced songs for British singer Javine Hylton, even appearing in the music video to Real Things playing the love interest of Javine.
West was involved in a financial dispute over Royce Da 5'9"'s song "Heartbeat", produced by West and released on Build & Destroy: The Lost Sessions. West maintains that Royce never paid for the beat, but recorded to it and released it; hearing him on the beat, the original customers decided not to buy it from West. After the disagreement, West vowed to never work with Royce again. Other Kanye West-produced hit singles during the period The College Dropout was released included "I Changed My Mind" by Keyshia Cole, "Overnight Celebrity" by Twista and "Talk About Our Love" by Brandy. Like its predecessor, the sophomore effort garnered universal acclaim from music critics. Late Registration topped countless critic polls and was revered as the best album of the year by numerous publications, including USA Today, Spin, and Time. Rolling Stone awarded the album the highest position on their end of the year record list and hailed it as a "sweepingly generous, absurdly virtuosic hip-hop classic." The record earned the number one spot on the Village Voice's Pazz & Jop critics' poll of 2005 for the second consecutive year. Late Registration was also a commercial success, selling over 860,000 copies in its first week alone and topping the Billboard 200. Grossing over 2.3 million units sold in the United States alone by year's end, Late Registration was considered by industry observers as the sole majorly successful album release of the fall of 2005, a season that was plagued by steadily declining CD sales. The sophomore album earned eight Grammy Award nominations including Album of the Year and Record of the Year for the song "Gold Digger". The album is certified triple platinum.
On August 22, 2005, the MTV special All Eyes On Kanye West aired, in which West spoke out against homophobia in hip-hop. He claimed that hip-hop has always been about "speaking your mind and about breaking down barriers, but everyone in hip-hop discriminates against gay people." He then reflected on a personal experience. He said that he had a "turning point" when he realized one of his cousins was gay. He said regarding this experience: "This is my cousin. I love him and I've been discriminating against gays." He drew comparison between African Americans' struggle for civil rights and today's gay rights movement. The following year, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, West further expounded his experiences with and views on the relationship between the black and gay communities.
In September 2005, West announced that he would release his Pastelle Clothing line in spring 2006: "Now that I have a Grammy under my belt and Late Registration is finished, I am ready to launch my clothing line next spring." The current status of this project is unknown. In that year, West produced the hit singles "Go" by Common and "Dreams" by The Game.
West was also featured in a new song called "Classic (Better Than I've Ever Been)". It was believed to be a single for, Graduation, because he is featured on the track, but Nike quickly explained that it was for the Nike Air Force 1's anniversary. It was meant only to be an exclusive track for the company.
On March 25, 2007, he and his father Ray West supported World Water Day by having a "Walk for Water" rally. After a two-year break, West has returned to being a fashion columnist in lifestyle magazine Complex. On July 7, 2007, West performed with The Police and John Mayer at the American leg of Live Earth. West hosted the August 17 edition of British comedy- variety show The Friday Night Project.
In July 2007, West changed the release date of Graduation, his third album, from September 18, 2007, to the same release date as 50 Cent's album Curtis, September 11, 2007. 50 Cent later claimed that if Graduation were to sell more records than Curtis, he would stop releasing solo albums. However, 50 Cent would later dispel his comments. The album has been certified double platinum. Guest appearances included T-Pain, Mos Def, and Lil Wayne.
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On August 26, 2007, West appeared as himself on the HBO television show Entourage which he used as a platform to premier his new single "Good Life" during the end credits. On September 9, 2007, West performed at the 2007 MTV Video Music Awards, losing in every category he was nominated for; he gave an angry speech immediately afterward. (see "Controversies" section)
Following the MTV stint, West was nominated in eight Grammy Award categories for the 50th annual Grammy Awards. He won four of them, including Best Rap Album for Graduation and Best Rap Solo Performance for "Stronger" from Graduation. During the four-hour televised Grammy Awards ceremony, West also performed two songs: "Stronger" (with Daft Punk) and "Hey Mama" (in honor of his recently deceased mother).
West kicked off the Glow In The Dark Tour in Seattle at the Key Arena on April 16. The tour was originally scheduled to end in June in Cincinnati but was extended into August. Over the course of the tour West was joined by a varying group of opening acts, including Lupe Fiasco, Rihanna, N.E.R.D., DJ Craze, and Gnarls Barkley. On June 15, West was scheduled to perform a late night set at the Bonnaroo Music Festival. His performance started almost two hours late and ran for half of its alloted time, angering many fans in the audience. West later wrote an outraged entry on his blog, blaming the festival organizers as well as Pearl Jam's preceding set, which ran longer than expected.
On September 7, West debuted a new song "Love Lockdown" at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. "Love Lockdown" features no rapping and only singing using an auto-tune device. This song appears on West's fourth studio album, 808s & Heartbreak. The new album was expected to be released on December 16, but West announced on his blog on September 24, 2008, that he had finished the album and would be releasing it sometime in November, earlier than previously scheduled. In early October, West made a surprise appearance at a T.I. concert in Los Angeles, where he stated that 808s & Heartbreak was scheduled to be released on November 25, though it was actually released on the 24th, and that the second single is "Heartless". The album was another number one album for West, even though the first week numbers fell well short of Graduation with 450,145 sold.
Along with Alicia Keys, Rihanna, Taylor Swift, Leona Lewis, and others, West performed at the American Music Awards ceremony on November 23. That same night he won two AMA awards, including Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Album for Graduation and Favorite Rap/Hip-Hop Male Artist. West performed at the Democratic National Convention in Denver in August 2008, along with Wyclef Jean and N.E.R.D. in support of Barack Obama. On January 20, 2009, Kanye West performed at the Youth Inaugural Ball hosted by MTV for Obama's inauguration.
On February 17, 2009, West was named one of Top 10 Most Stylish Men in America by GQ. The next day, February 18, 2009, West won International Male Solo Artist at The Brit Awards 2009. West was not in attendance but accepted his award with a video speech, saying "Barack is the 'Best Interracial Male' but I'm proud to be the Best International Male in the world.
In April 2009, Kanye West recorded a song called "Hurricane" with 30 Seconds to Mars to appear on their album This Is War, but was not released due to legal issues with both record companies. The song was eventually released on the deluxe version of This Is War, titled "Hurricane 2.0".
West spent the first half of 2010 in Honolulu, Hawaii, working on his new album with the working title "Good Ass Job", later named My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, released on November 22, 2010. West has cited Maya Angelou, Gil Scott-Heron and Nina Simone as his musical inspirations for this album. Outside production is said to come from RZA, Q-Tip, Pete Rock, and DJ Premier. West also had Justin Vernon flown into his studio on Oahu after seemingly expressing interest in sampling one of Bon Iver's songs; Vernon proceeded to feature on a number of new tracks, including "Lost In The World," which features Vernon's vocal line from Woods.
On May 28, the Dwele-assisted first single from the album, entitled "Power", leaked to the Internet. On June 30, the track was officially released via iTunes. The upcoming music video was quoted as being "apocalyptic, in a very personal way" by the director Marco Brambilla.
On September 12, 2010, West performed a new song, "Runaway" featuring Pusha T, at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards. Shortly after the performance, Kanye revealed he was working on a 35 minute short film based around the song. The movie is said to be influenced by film noir and concerns a fallen phoenix whom Kanye falls in love with. The short film debuted consecutively on VH1, MTV, and BET on October 23, 2010.
Watch The Throne, an upcoming collaborative studio album by West and Jay-Z, is scheduled to be released by Def Jam Recordings in 2011. It has been under production since August 2010 as part of West's GOOD Friday initiative of releasing new songs every Friday between August 20 and Christmas 2010. West said through a recent interview with MTV that the album is "going to be very dark and sexy, like couture hip hop. He appeared at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, performing the track "Lost in the World" from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. On January 6, 2011, Kanye announced via Twitter that the first official single from Watch the Throne would be a song called "H.A.M" produced by Lex Luger. The song was released on January 11, 2011.
West was also in a high profile on/off relationship with Amber Rose from 2008 until the summer of 2010.
The funeral and burial for Donda West was held in Oklahoma City on November 20, 2007. West held his first concert following the funeral at The O2 in London on November 22. He dedicated a performance of "Hey Mama", as well as a cover of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'", to his mother, and did so on all other dates of his Glow in the Dark tour.
At a December 2008 press conference in New Zealand, West spoke about his mother's death for the first time. "It was like losing an arm and a leg and trying to walk through that," he told reporters.
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger passed the "Donda West Law," a legislation which makes it mandatory for patients to provide medical clearance for elective cosmetic surgery.
While his use of sampling has lessened over time, West's production continues to feature distinctive and intricate string arrangements. This characteristic arose from him listening to the English trip hop group Portishead, whose 1998 live album Roseland NYC Live, with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra inspired him to incorporate string sections into his hip hop production. Though he was unable to afford live instruments beyond violin riffs provided by Israeli violinist Miri Ben-Ari around the time of his debut album, its subsequent commercial success allowed him to hire his very own eleven-piece string orchestra. For a time, West stood as the sole current pop star to tour with a string section. Both a fan and supporter of indie culture, West uses his official website to promote obscure indie rock bands, posting up music videos and mp3s on a daily basis. This musical affinity is mutual, as West has collaborated with indie artists such as Santigold, Peter Bjorn and John and Lykke Li while his songs have gone on to be covered countless times by myriad rock bands.
On January 22, 2009, during Paris Fashion Week, West introduced his first shoe line designed for Louis Vuitton. The line was released in summer 2009.
Kanye West has appeared and participated in many fundraisers, benefit concerts, and has done community work for Hurricane Katrina relief, the Kanye West Foundation, the Millions More Movement, 100 Black Men of America, a Live Earth concert benefit, World Water Day rally and march, Nike runs, and a MTV special helping young Iraq War veterans who struggle through debt and PTSD a second chance after returning home.
In January 2006, West again sparked controversy when he appeared on the cover of Rolling Stone in the image of Jesus wearing a crown of thorns.
On September 13, 2009, during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards while Taylor Swift was accepting her award for Best Female Video for "You Belong with Me", West went on stage and grabbed the microphone to proclaim that Beyoncé's video for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", nominated for the same award, was "one of the best videos of all time". He was subsequently removed from the remainder of the show for his actions. When Beyoncé later won the award for Best Video of the Year for "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", she called Swift up on stage so that she could finish her acceptance speech. and by President Barack Obama, who called West a "jackass" in an off the record comment. In addition, West's VMA disruption sparked a large influx of Internet photo memes with blogs, forums and "tweets" with the "Let you finish" photo-jokes. He posted two apologies for the outburst on his personal blog; one on the night of the incident and the other the same day he appeared on The Jay Leno Show, on September 14, 2009, where he apologized again. After Swift appeared on The View two days after the outburst, partly to discuss the matter, West called her to apologize personally. Swift said she accepted his apology. In September 2010, West wrote a series of apologetic tweets addressed to Swift including "Beyonce didn't need that. MTV didn't need that and Taylor and her family friends and fans definitely didn't want or need that" and concluding with "I'm sorry Taylor." West also revealed he had written a song for Swift and if she didn't accept the song, he would perform it himself.
On September 11, 2008, West and his road manager/bodyguard Don Crowley were arrested at Los Angeles International Airport and booked on charges of felony vandalism after an altercation with the paparazzi in which West and Crowley broke the photographers' cameras. West was later released from the Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Division station in Culver City on $20,000 bail bond. On September 26, 2008 the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office said it would not file felony counts against West over the incident. Instead the case file was forwarded to the city attorney's office, which charged West with one count of misdemeanor vandalism, one count of grand theft and one count of battery and his manager with three counts of each on March 18, 2009. West's and Crowley's arraignment was delayed from an original date of April 14, 2009. West was arrested again on November 14, 2008 at a hotel near Gateshead after another scuffle involving a photographer outside a nightclub in Newcastle Upon Tyne. He was later released "with no further action", according to a police spokesperson.
; Live albums
; Collaboration albums Watch The Throne (2011) (with Jay-Z)
Category:1977 births Category:1990s singers Category:2000s rappers Category:2010s rappers Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:African American rappers Category:African American singers Category:American bloggers Category:American hip hop record producers Category:American music video directors Category:American pop musicians Category:American record producers Category:Songwriters from Georgia (U.S. state) Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Chicago State University alumni Category:Electro-hop musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Hip hop musicians Category:Hip hop singers Category:Living people Category:Mercury Records artists Category:People from Atlanta, Georgia Category:Rappers from Chicago, Illinois Category:Roc-A-Fella Records artists Category:World Music Awards winners
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Lil Duval |
|---|---|
| Birth place | Jacksonville, Florida, U.S. |
| Medium | Stand-up, film, television |
| Nationality | American |
Roland Powell, also known by the stage name Lil Duval, is an American stand-up comedian. In 2005, he was a semifinalist on BET's comedy competition series Coming to the Stage.
After performing at the Oakland Bay Area Competition in 2001, Powell was approached by Cedric the Entertainer’s road manager and was invited to perform on the Budweiser tour featuring Cedric and four additional comedians. Powell was then invited by Cedric to perform on his television special Cedric the Entertainer: Starting Lineup.
In 2003, he released the underground comedy DVD Dat Boy Funny, which also featured several upcoming comedians featuring colorful sketch pieces and parodies mocking events in pop culture. The following year, Powell became a regular featured performer on three seasons of BET’s ComicView. Powell released his second DVD Put Your Hands on Me in 2005. That same year he appeared in Three 6 Mafia's independent film, , as well as being featured on various skits of the film's soundtrack.
In addition to stand-up comedy, Powell also writes for Ozone magazine. He has also appeared in several music videos including T.I.'s "Rubberband Man", "24's", "Whatever You Like", "What Up, What's Haapnin', Big Kuntry King's "That's Right", and Yung Joc's "It's Goin' Down"."Coffee Shop"
Category:African American actors Category:African American comedians Category:American film actors Category:American stand-up comedians Category:People from Jacksonville, Florida Category:Living people
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| Name | Kelly Clarkson |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Kelly Brianne Clarkson |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Born | April 24, 1982Fort Worth, Texas |
| Origin | Burleson, Texas, United States |
| Genre | Pop rock, pop |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, actress |
| Instrument | Vocals, guitar |
| Years active | 2002–present |
| Label | RCA Records |
| Url | www.KellyOfficial.com |
Clarkson has released four albums to date under RCA Records: her double-platinum debut album Thankful (2003), her multi-platinum second album Breakaway (2004) (which has won two Grammy Awards), My December (2007), and her latest album All I Ever Wanted (2009) (which was nominated for a Grammy Award). Her albums have sold over 10.5 million copies in the United States. Clarkson is the only American Idol contestant to have reached number one in the UK. She claimed number one on March 1, 2009, when "My Life Would Suck Without You" debuted number one on downloads alone. Clarkson is also ranked on the top 200 album sellers of the Nielsen SoundScan era at number 187.
Eleven of Clarkson's singles became Top 20 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Her single, "My Life Would Suck Without You", advanced from No. 97 to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in its first week of release, breaking the record for the largest leap to the top position in chart history.
Clarkson has toured extensively worldwide as a solo act. Performing in other versions of American Idol such as Pop Idol, Swedish Idol, Canadian Idol and Australian Idol. After Clarkson's appearance on the CMT Crossroads and her duet version of "Because of You" (2007) with Reba McEntire, they co-headlined the 2 Worlds 2 Voices Tour (2008). Billboard named Clarkson the "most successful American Idol of all time", factoring in album sales, singles sales, and radio plays. Billboard ranked Clarkson the #14 artist of the 2000-10 decade.
According to Nielsen SoundScan, Clarkson is the highest-selling Idol winner worldwide, with around 36 million singles and 23 million albums sold around the world.
Clarkson's family struggled financially, and after her parents divorced, music became her refuge. Clarkson attended Pauline G Hughes Middle School and Burleson High School. She wanted to become a marine biologist but changed her mind after seeing the movie Jaws. In seventh grade, a teacher (Mrs. Cynthia Glenn) overheard her singing in a hallway and asked her to audition for the school choir; Clarkson told the teacher that she had never received professional vocal training.
In high school, Clarkson performed in musicals such as Annie Get Your Gun, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Brigadoon. She sang at her high school talent show, after which an audience member shared some inspiring words with her: "God has given you this gift. You've got to sing. You're destined to sing." Clarkson continued singing and soon started classical training, hoping that music would be her ticket to a college scholarship.
Upon high school graduation, Clarkson was offered full scholarships to The University of Texas at Austin, University of North Texas, and Berklee, but decided against college because she had "already written so much music and wanted to try it on her own," and she figured "you're never too old to go to college." Choking back tears, Clarkson performed the ballad "A Moment Like This", the song written for the winner of American Idol, which would subsequently appear on her debut album, Thankful. When released as a single in October 2002, it set a record on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart when it rose from number 52 to number one. This achievement was largely due to the impact from Idol as the CD single managed to sell 236,000 copies in its first week of sales in the U.S.; it spent five weeks at number one in Canada.
Lincoln Memorial on September 11, 2002 following her win on American Idol.]] In December 2003, a competition titled World Idol was held at the Pop Idol stage in London, gathering the winners of the first seasons of Idol series around the world. Clarkson was contractually obligated to participate, and placed second behind Norwegian Idol Kurt Nilsen. She performed Aretha Franklin's "(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman". She left immediately after the competition, later explaining to fans that she was not feeling well.
Following the release of "A Moment Like This", Clarkson's full-length debut album Thankful was released in North America by RCA Records on April 15, 2003. It debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200. The album was certified double platinum by the RIAA for sales of two million copies on December 8, 2003 and platinum by the CRIA for sales of 100,000 copies on February 10, 2004. Thankful peaked at number forty-one on the UK albums chart and at number 33 on the Australian albums chart.
Reviews for the album were generally favorable. However, several critics noted that her early achievement was established due to her performances on American Idol. Allmusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album for its vocal ability: "throughout this record, [Clarkson] makes it seem effortless and charming. She can croon, she can belt out a song, she can be sexy and sassy while still being graceful and as wholesome as the girl next door". Rachel Kipp of JS Online criticized Clarkson for not having the same personality on Thankful that she had on American Idol, and wrote: "on American Idol, Clarkson showcased a great voice and an endearing, 'aw-shucks' personality. That personality is missing on Thankful, and there lies the album's greatest fault". Kipp blamed the producers behind the album for not allowing Clarkson to be herself. Clarkson covered Danielle Brisebois' "Just Missed the Train" on the album.
"Miss Independent" was released as the second single from Thankful. It reached the top ten of the U.S. and Canadian singles charts, and earned Clarkson a 2004 Grammy Award nomination for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance". When the single was released in the United Kingdom and Australia, it reached the top ten of the charts. "Low", the third single from Thankful, reached number two in Canada, but it was unable to make the top 40 of the U.S. chart. The final single, "The Trouble with Love Is", was not released in Canada, and it failed to chart in the U.S.. Clarkson attributed the under performance of both releases to poor management and relieved her manager Simon Fuller, who she felt was not completely focused on her career.
Distancing herself from her American Idol image, Clarkson took more creative control with her second studio album Breakaway, and developed a more rock-oriented image. Clarkson co-wrote six of the songs with songwriters such as former Evanescence band members Ben Moody, David Hodges and producer Max Martin; the title track was co-written by punk-pop singer Avril Lavigne.
Breakaway was released by RCA Records on November 30, 2004. The album debuted within the U.S. top five and Canadian top ten, but sales were initially low in comparison to Thankful. The singles from Breakaway were very successful, and the album become only the fourth album in history to stay in the Billboard 200 top 20 for a consecutive year, as well as being certified six times platinum in the U.S. in late 2007 and five times platinum in Canada in May, 2006. In Australia, the album reached number two and spent 52 weeks in the top ten and was certified six times platinum. Breakaway spent 103 weeks on the Billboard 200, and was the tenth best selling album of 2006 in the U.S..
Breakaway received different responses from critics; Rolling Stone commented that "on Kelly Clarkson's second album, ... she embraces her rock side rather than the pop pageantry that put her on top of the American Idol heap". TeenInk noted the strength of her vocals on Breakaway, and praised the change from pop music to contemporary rock: "[Clarkson] retains the incredible power and beauty of her voice while switching to rock". Stylus magazine also enjoyed Clarkson's foray into rock music, however, she was called out because of her American Idol image, which reviewer Charles Merwin believed she had yet to lose. He praised the non-singles and wrote that they "maintain a quality high". Allmusic called the album "a nice, low-key relief". , Australia.|thumb|left]] "Breakaway" served as the original song for (2004) and achieved considerable success across the world; it became Clarkson's third top-ten single in the U.S. and fourth top-ten single in Canada. It reached number ten in Australia, and number 22 in the UK. The second single, "Since U Been Gone", which was produced by Max Martin, became the most successful release from the album. It reached number two in the U.S. and the top five across the world. It also earned Clarkson her first Grammy Award for "Best Female Pop Vocal Performance"; she won a second award for "Best Pop Vocal Album".
The third and fourth single releases, "Behind These Hazel Eyes" and "Because of You", also followed with chart success. The video for "Because of You" won the 2006 MTV Video Music Award for Best Female Video, her second consecutive win in that category (following "Since U Been Gone"). Clarkson was the most-played artist of 2006 on American radio, despite releasing only one single in the entire year, "Walk Away" (the fifth single from Breakaway). She was also the most radio-broadcasted artist of 2006 in Australia and "Because of You" was the third most broadcast song of the same year, despite being released in 2005.
In 2005, Clarkson made a performance during the 2005 NBA All-Star Weekend as part of the festivities leading up to the All-Star Game Later that year, she performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Game 2 of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and Detroit Pistons She also performed that spring as part of the 2005 NCAA Final Four festivities in St. Louis, Missouri.
Clarkson performed during the festivities of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. In mid 2006, Clarkson lent Ford Motor Co. a song titled "Go", written by Clarkson and Rhett Lawrence ("Miss Independent"). The song was used in the company's advertising campaign in 2006, "Bold Moves" and the song, along with its music video, was made available free at Ford's AddictedtoKelly.com website (now defunct).
Clarkson parted with her management, The Firm, in June 2007, amid low radio airplay for "Never Again" and low ticket sales for her then-upcoming tour. Clarkson would then sign with Starstruck Entertainment, run by Narvel Blackstock — the husband of Reba McEntire – on July 2, 2007. The same month, Live Nation announced that the tour—her first nationwide arena tour—had been canceled due to underwhelming ticket sales, to be rescheduled after the release of the My December album at smaller, more intimate concert environments. Clarkson reinstated plans to tour the U.S. during 2007, with a much smaller tour than the one she canceled in June. She began her My December Tour in October 2007 in venues significantly smaller than those previously booked. The August 2007 issue of Blender included a feature on Clarkson and her new album, as well as her music label woes.
My December was released in the U.S. on June 26, 2007. The album debuted at number two in the U.S. with 291,000 albums sold, a slightly higher debut than Clarkson's previous album, Breakaway, which debuted at number three. In Canada, the album was awarded a platinum certification for shipments of more than 100,000 copies. My December was certified platinum in December 2007 by the RIAA. It has sold more than three million copies worldwide.
In April 2007, Clarkson appeared on Idol Gives Back charity show aimed at raising money for tackling poverty, hunger and AIDS in Africa, as well as the Hurrican Katrina appeal. Clarkson noted that she was in a dispute with her record label bosses and executives as to which song to perform on the event; Clarkson refusing to perform her new single "Never Again" viewing it as simple self-promotion through a charitable event. She is quoted as saying,
She opted to perform Patty Griffin's "Up to the Mountain". After the performance, the audience who watched Clarkson perform live gave her a standing ovation. American Idol judge Simon Cowell described her as "incredible", saying, "When you let her [Clarkson] come back on the show it makes everybody else look like an amateur." On July 7, 2007, Clarkson performed on the American leg of Live Earth. Clarkson was the celebrity coach for Canadian Idol during its Top 5 week of the fifth season, aired on the CTV network on August 20, and she performed on the results show the next night. Clarkson also performed at the 2007 NFL opening kickoff where she sang the national anthem and songs from My December. Clarkson also performed in the halftime show for the Dallas Cowboys and New York Jets game on Thanksgiving Day.
In addition to her roles as spokeswoman for the acne treatment Proactiv as well as Vitaminwater, Clarkson partnered with NASCAR for the 2007 season. She appeared in televised advertising spots, performed at pre-race concerts, promoted NASCAR Day, and appeared at the Champions' Banquet in December. In April 2008, Clarkson participated in a Papal Youth Rally at the campus of St. Joseph's Seminary, Dunwoodie in Yonkers, New York performing a mini-concert for those in attendance. This was the Papal Visit of Pope Benedict XVI. She performed Schubert's "Ave Maria" for the Pope later in the day following the Pope's speech. Clarkson, raised a Baptist, was said to be honored by the invitation and appreciative of the rosary given to her and her band by the Pope, who were invited over by the Pope immediately following the performance for the rosary honor.
The first single from All I Ever Wanted, "My Life Would Suck Without You", entered the Billboard Hot 100 at number 97 and rose to number one the following week; this broke the record for the largest leap to the top spot, formerly held by Britney Spears' "Womanizer". It was Clarkson's first number one on the UK singles chart. The album's second single, "I Do Not Hook Up", peaked at number 20 in the U.S., and the third single, "Already Gone", reached number thirteen. The fourth single was "All I Ever Wanted". Clarkson performed as one of many guests for the return of VH1 Divas in September 2009.
Clarkson was announced as one of the VH1 Save the Music Foundation ambassadors for 2009–2010. She began her 32-date All I Ever Wanted tour in October, following a string of summer concerts around the United States. Clarkson toured all over the world with the album, reaching territories such as Europe, South Africa, Oceania and Asia.The fall tour shows were performed in arena/theater type venues, with the summer tour being performed in outdoor amphitheatres. Her Indonesia show was initially sponsored by tobacco company Djarum, but after complaints from some fans and anti-tobacco groups, the promoter removed the sponsor. The tour ended in May 2010 in China.
Building on her country music status, Clarkson and Reba McEntire, who first met after Clarkson won the first season of American Idol, recorded an hour-long CMT Crossroads special at Nashville's famed Ryman Auditorium on February 22, 2007. It aired on CMT and Palladia (then known as MHD) on June 24, 2007. Previously, Clarkson was a performer on CMT's Giants: Reba McEntire. where she sang McEntire's hit song "Why Haven't I Heard From You", introduced Dolly Parton, and later also sang Reba's hit "Does He Love You" with Martina McBride. Clarkson also appeared on an episode of McEntire's sitcom Reba, that aired on January 14, 2007.
At the Academy of Country Music Awards on May 16, 2007, Clarkson and McEntire sang a duet of Clarkson's own 2005 single, "Because of You", which also became the lead single from McEntire's album of all-star duets. The music video for this version of the song later debuted on June 20, 2007. This collaboration with McEntire earned Clarkson a CMA Award nomination for "Musical Event of the Year" in 2007 and a Grammy Award nomination for "Best Country Collaboration With Vocal" in 2008. Additionally, the song was featured on Now That's What I Call Country, which was released in August 2008.
Clarkson was a surprise guest at the 2007 CMA Music Festival in Nashville on June 7, 2007, where she performed "Does He Love You" and "Because of You" with Reba McEntire during the internationally-renowned annual event. The performance of "Because of You" was taped and aired as part of the "CMA Music Festival: Country's Night To Rock" television special that aired on ABC on July 23, 2007.
On January 17, 2008, Clarkson embarked on the 2 Worlds, 2 Voices Tour 2008, a co-headlining tour with Reba McEntire.
On May 18, 2008, Clarkson performed on stage at the Academy of Country Music Awards All-Star Jam with Reba McEntire and Ronnie Dunn of Brooks and Dunn. The All-Star jam is the final event of the week taking place immediately after the awards show. Clarkson was not announced ahead of time for an appearance.
On August 23, 2010, it was announced that Clarkson had recorded a duet called "Don't You Wanna Stay" with country star Jason Aldean for Aldean's upcoming album, My Kinda Party. They performed the song at the 2010 CMA Awards on November 10, 2010.
She played Brenda Lee in the television drama American Dreams and appeared in the sitcom Reba. She also participated in sketch comedy on MADtv (2002) and Saturday Night Live (2005).
Reflecting back on Clarkson's performance during the Idol Gives Back special, Jeff Beck described Clarkson as having a "soul voice" that "demands attention".
After attending a rehearsal for American Idol
Arion Berger of Rolling Stone has said of Clarkson that "her high notes are sweet and pillowy, her growl is bone-shaking and sexy, and her midrange is amazingly confident for a pop posy whose career is tied for eternity to the whims of her American Idol overlords."
Dr. Luke, a songwriter and producer of some of Clarkson's hits stated that "She has powerful lungs. She's like the Lance Armstrong of vocal cords."
Category:1982 births Category:2000s singers Category:2010s singers Category:Actors from Texas Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of Welsh descent Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American female singers Category:American film actors Category:American Idol winners Category:American pop singers Category:American record producers Category:American Christians Category:Baptists from the United States Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Texas Category:People from Fort Worth, Texas Category:RCA Records artists Category:English-language singers
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| Name | A Fine Frenzy |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Alison Sudol |
| Born | December 23, 1984 Seattle, Washington, USA |
| Origin | Los Angeles, California, USA |
| Instrument | Vocals, piano, guitar, percussion |
| Genre | Indie rock, alternative rock |
| Occupation | Singer-songwriter, pianist |
| Years active | 2006–present |
| Label | Virgin, EMI |
| Url | www.afinefrenzy.com |
Alison Sudol (born December 23, 1984), known professionally as A Fine Frenzy (formerly Alison Monro) is an American alternative singer and songwriter and pianist. Her debut album, One Cell in the Sea, was released on July 17, 2007, and peaked at number 91 on the Billboard 200 chart. She has been in the charts in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, and France, among other countries. Her music has been featured on television shows, and on the soundtrack of the film Sleepwalking.
She graduated from high school at the age of 16, and considered herself "nerdy and quiet." Sudol did not "drink or smoke or do anything like that." She stated in an interview, "I was so nervous about going into college like that and super young. I figured I would take two years and try to find out what I was doing with music. And when I was 18, I was just so deep into it that I didn't want to stop."
In March 2007, Sudol appeared at the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference, opening for The Stooges. Shortly after, her debut album, One Cell in the Sea, was released to generally positive reviews. The first single, "Almost Lover", peaked at number 25 on Billboard's Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart. In mid-2007, she secured another opening spot, this time for Rufus Wainwright on his tour. In March and April 2008, Sudol headlined her own tour in the US and Canada, and in April she toured France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland. In September 2008, she was the star act on the opening night of the 'New Pop Festival' organized by the German broadcaster SWR3. She returned to Germany, Austria, and Switzerland on a headline tour in November 2008 and played in the 'Super Bock em Stock' festival in Portugal in December 2008.
Her song "You Picked Me" was featured on iTunes as the "Free Single of the Week" for August 14, 2007, and VH1 featured her as one of their "You Oughta Know" artists. Additionally, in October 2008, "You Picked Me" was chosen as network theme by SIC, a Portuguese television network.
One Cell in the Sea has sold 300,000 copies. In 2008 it was released in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Poland. In each of those countries, the album peaked within the top 30, with the first single, "Almost Lover," reaching number eight in Germany, number ten on the Swiss Charts and number five in Austria.
Sudol's second album, Bomb in a Birdcage, was released September 8, 2009. The first single, "Blow Away", was released on July 17, 2009, followed by two more singles, "Happier" and "Electric Twist".
Sudol announced on her official Twitter that she's excited to start work on her third record, but a date and title have not been confirmed, though presumably slated for a 2011 release.
Sudol's music has been featured multiple times on the television series House. The song "Whisper" was heard during the episode "Joy to the World", and the song "Hope for the Hopeless" has been in three episodes: "Act Your Age", "Human Error", and "Airborne". "Hope for the Hopeless" was also featured in the series premiere of Defying Gravity. The song "Lifesize" was played during the episode "Doppelgangers" of How I Met Your Mother. Also, the song "The Beacon" was used during the episode "Hot and Bothered" of the Canadian police drama Rookie Blue. "Ashes and Wine" was used in the Vampire Diaries episode "Bad Moon Rising". Her music has also been used on the series The Hills. The song 'you picked me' was also played in an episode of 'One tree hill' when they go to rescue mouth from prison
Category:1984 births Category:American singer-songwriters Category:People from Seattle, Washington Category:American pianists Category:American television actors Category:American female singers Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:Living people Category:Musicians from Washington (U.S. state) Category:Musical groups from Los Angeles, California
This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
| Name | Bruce Springsteen |
|---|---|
| Landscape | No |
| Background | solo_singer |
| Alias | The Boss |
| Born | September 23, 1949Long Branch, New JerseyUnited States |
| Instrument | Vocals, guitar, harmonica, piano |
| Genre | Rock, heartland rock, folk rock, roots rock, Americana |
| Occupation | Musician, singer-songwriter |
| Years active | 1972–present |
| Label | Columbia |
| Associated acts | E Street Band, Steel Mill, Miami Horns, The Sessions Band |
| Url | brucespringsteen.net |
| Notable instruments | Fender TelecasterFender EsquireTakamine GuitarsHohner Marine Band Harmonica |
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen (born September 23, 1949), nicknamed "The Boss", is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band. Springsteen is widely known for his brand of Heartland rock, poetic lyrics, and Americana sentiments centered on his native New Jersey.
Springsteen's recordings have included both commercially accessible rock albums and more sombre folk-oriented works. His most successful studio albums, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A., showcase a talent for finding grandeur in the struggles of daily American life; he has sold more than 65 million albums in the United States and 120 million worldwide and he has earned numerous awards for his work, including 20 Grammy Awards, two Golden Globes and an Academy Award.
Raised a Roman Catholic, Springsteen attended the St. Rose of Lima Catholic school in Freehold Borough, where he was at odds with the nuns and rejected the strictures imposed upon him, even though some of his later music reflects a Catholic ethos and included a few rock-influenced, traditional Irish-Catholic hymns.
In ninth grade, he transferred to the public Freehold Regional High School, but did not fit in there, either. Old teachers have said he was a "loner, who wanted nothing more than to play his guitar." He completed high school, but felt so uncomfortable that he skipped his own graduation ceremony. He briefly attended Ocean County College, but dropped out.
Called for induction when he was 18, Springsteen failed his physical examination and did not serve in Vietnam. In an interview in Rolling Stone magazine in 1984, he said, "When I got on the bus to go take my physical, I thought one thing: I ain't goin'." He had suffered a concussion in a motorcycle accident when he was 17, and this together with his "crazy" behaviour at induction and not taking the tests, was enough to get him a 4F.
, New Jersey inspired the themes of ordinary life in Bruce Springsteen's music.]]
In the late 1960s, Springsteen performed briefly in a power trio known as Earth, playing in clubs in New Jersey. Springsteen acquired the nickname "The Boss" during this period as when he played club gigs with a band he took on the task of collecting the band's nightly pay and distributing it amongst his bandmates. Springsteen is not fond of this nickname, due to his dislike of bosses, but seems to have since given it a tacit acceptance. Previously he had the nickname "Doctor". From 1969 through early 1971, Springsteen performed with Steel Mill, which also featured Danny Federici, Vini Lopez, Vinnie Roslin and later Steve Van Zandt and Robbin Thompson. They went on to play the mid-Atlantic college circuit, and also briefly in California. In January 1970 well-known San Francisco Examiner music critic Philip Elwood gave Springsteen credibility in his glowing assessment of Steel Mill: "I have never been so overwhelmed by totally unknown talent." Elwood went on to praise their "cohesive musicality" and, in particular, singled out Springsteen as "a most impressive composer." During this time Springsteen also performed regularly at small clubs in Canton, Massachusetts, Asbury Park and along the Jersey Shore, quickly gathering a cult following. Other acts followed over the next two years, as Springsteen sought to shape a unique and genuine musical and lyrical style: Dr Zoom & the Sonic Boom (early–mid 1971), Sundance Blues Band (mid 1971), and The Bruce Springsteen Band (mid 1971–mid 1972). With the addition of pianist David Sancious, the core of what would later become the E Street Band was formed, with occasional temporary additions such as horn sections, "The Zoomettes" (a group of female backing vocalists for "Dr. Zoom") and Southside Johnny Lyon on harmonica. Musical genres explored included blues, R&B;, jazz, church music, early rock'n'roll, and soul. His prolific songwriting ability, with "More words in some individual songs than other artists had in whole albums," as his future record label would describe it in early publicity campaigns, brought his skill to the attention of several people who were about to change his life: new managers Mike Appel and Jim Cretecos, and legendary Columbia Records talent scout John Hammond, who, under Appel's pressure, auditioned Springsteen in May 1972.
Even after Springsteen gained international acclaim, his New Jersey roots showed through in his music, and he often praised "the great state of New Jersey" in his live shows. Drawing on his extensive local appeal, he routinely sold out consecutive nights in major New Jersey and Philadelphia venues. He also made many surprise appearances at The Stone Pony and other shore nightclubs over the years, becoming the foremost exponent of the Jersey Shore sound.
In September 1973 his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle, was released, again to critical acclaim but no commercial success. Springsteen's songs became grander in form and scope, with the E Street Band providing a less folky, more R&B; vibe and the lyrics often romanticized teenage street life. "4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)" and "Incident on 57th Street" would become fan favorites, and the long, rousing "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" continues to rank among Springsteen's most beloved concert numbers.
In the May 22, 1974, issue of Boston's The Real Paper, music critic Jon Landau wrote after seeing a performance at the Harvard Square Theater, "I saw rock and roll future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen. And on a night when I needed to feel young, he made me feel like I was hearing music for the very first time." Landau subsequently became Springsteen's manager and producer, helping to finish the epic new album, Born to Run. Given an enormous budget in a last-ditch effort at a commercially viable record, Springsteen became bogged down in the recording process while striving for a wall of sound production. But, fed by the release of an early mix of "Born to Run" to progressive rock radio, anticipation built toward the album's release. All in all the album took more than 14 months to record, with six months alone spent on the song "Born To Run." During this time Springsteen battled with anger and frustration over the album, saying he heard "sounds in [his] head" that he could not explain to the others in the studio. It was during these recording sessions that "Miami" Steve Van Zandt would stumble into the studio just in time to help Springsteen organize the horn section on "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" (it is his only written contribution to the album), and eventually led to his joining the E Street Band. Van Zandt had been a long-time friend of Springsteen, as well as a collaborator on earlier musical projects, and understood where he was coming from, which helped him to translate some of the sounds Springsteen was hearing. Still, by the end of the grueling recording sessions, Springsteen was not satisfied, and, upon first hearing the finished album, threw the record into the alley and told Jon Landau he would rather just cut the album live at The Bottom Line, a place he often played.
A legal battle with former manager Mike Appel kept Springsteen out of the studio for nearly a year, during which time he kept the E Street Band together through extensive touring across the U.S. Despite the optimistic fervor with which he often performed, his new songs had taken a more somber tone than much of his previous work. Reaching settlement with Appel in 1977, Springsteen returned to the studio, and the subsequent sessions produced Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978). Musically, this album was a turning point in Springsteen's career. Gone were the raw, rapid-fire lyrics, outsized characters and long, multi-part musical compositions of the first two albums; now the songs were leaner and more carefully drawn and began to reflect Springsteen's growing intellectual and political awareness. The cross-country 1978 tour to promote the album would become legendary for the intensity and length of its shows.
By the late 1970s, Springsteen had earned a reputation in the pop world as a songwriter whose material could provide hits for other bands. Manfred Mann's Earth Band had achieved a U.S. number one pop hit with a heavily rearranged version of Greetings' "Blinded by the Light" in early 1977. Patti Smith reached number 13 with her take on Springsteen's unreleased "Because the Night" (with revised lyrics by Smith) in 1978, while The Pointer Sisters hit number two in 1979 with Springsteen's also unreleased "Fire".
. Drammenshallen, Drammen, Norway, May 5, 1981.]] In September 1979, Springsteen and the E Street Band joined the Musicians United for Safe Energy anti-nuclear power collective at Madison Square Garden for two nights, playing an abbreviated set while premiering two songs from his upcoming album. The subsequent No Nukes live album, as well as the following summer's No Nukes documentary film, represented the first official recordings and footage of Springsteen's fabled live act, as well as Springsteen's first tentative dip into political involvement.
Springsteen continued to consolidate his thematic focus on working-class life with the 20-song double album The River in 1980, which included an intentionally paradoxical range of material from good-time party rockers to emotionally intense ballads, and finally yielded his first hit Top Ten single as a performer, "Hungry Heart". This album marked a shift in Springsteen's music toward a pop-rock sound that was all but missing from any of his earlier work. This is apparent in the stylistic adoption of certain eighties pop-rock hallmarks like the reverberating-tenor drums, very basic percussion/guitar and repetitive lyrics apparent in many of the tracks. The title song pointed to Springsteen's intellectual direction, while a couple of the lesser-known tracks presaged his musical direction. The album sold well, becoming his first topper on the Billboard Pop Albums chart, and a long tour in 1980 and 1981 followed, featuring Springsteen's first extended playing of Europe and ending with a series of multi-night arena stands in major cities in the U.S.
The River was followed in 1982 by the stark solo acoustic Nebraska. Recording sessions had been held to expand on a demo tape Springsteen had made at his home on a simple, low-tech four-track tape deck. However during the recording process Springsteen and producer Landau realized the songs worked better as solo acoustic numbers than full band renditions and the original demo tape was released as the album. Although the recordings of the E Street Band were shelved, other songs from these sessions would later be released, including "Born in the U.S.A." and "Glory Days". According to the Marsh biographies, Springsteen was in a depressed state when he wrote this material, and the result is a brutal depiction of American life. While Nebraska did not sell well, it garnered widespread critical praise (including being named "Album of the Year" by Rolling Stone magazine's critics) and influenced later significant works by other major artists, including U2's album The Joshua Tree. It helped inspire the musical genre known as lo-fi music, becoming a cult favorite among indie-rockers. Springsteen did not tour in conjunction with Nebraska's release.
During the Born in the U.S.A. Tour, Springsteen met actress Julianne Phillips, whom he would marry in 1985.
at the Radrennbahn Weißensee in East Berlin on July 19, 1988.]] The Born in the U.S.A. period represented the height of Springsteen's visibility in popular culture and the broadest audience demographic he would ever reach (aided by the release of Arthur Baker's dance mixes of three of the singles). Live/1975–85, a five-record box set (also on three cassettes or three CDs), was released near the end of 1986 and became the first box set to debut at number 1 on the U.S. album charts. It is one of the most commercially successful live albums of all time, ultimately selling 13 million units in the U.S. Live/1975–85 summed up Springsteen's career to that point and displayed some of the elements that made his shows so powerful to his fans: the switching from mournful dirges to party rockers and back; the communal sense of purpose between artist and audience; the long, intense spoken passages before songs, including those describing Springsteen's difficult relationship with his father; and the instrumental prowess of the E Street Band, such as in the long coda to "Racing in the Street". Despite its popularity, some fans and critics felt the album's song selection could have been better. Springsteen concerts are the subjects of frequent bootleg recording and trading among fans.
During the 1980s, several Springsteen fanzines were launched, including Backstreets magazine, which started in Seattle and continues today as a glossy publication, now in communication with Springsteen's management and official website.
After this commercial peak, Springsteen released the much more sedate and contemplative Tunnel of Love album (1987), a mature reflection on the many faces of love found, lost and squandered, which only selectively used the E Street Band. It presaged the breakup of his marriage to Julianne Phillips and described some of his unhappinesses in the relationship. Reflecting the challenges of love in "Brilliant Disguise", Springsteen sang:
The subsequent Tunnel of Love Express tour shook up fans with changes to the stage layout, favorites dropped from the set list, and horn-based arrangements. During the European leg in 1988, Springsteen's relationship with backup singer Patti Scialfa became public and Phillips and Springsteen filed for divorce in 1988. Later in 1988, Springsteen headlined the worldwide Human Rights Now! tour for Amnesty International. In the fall of 1989 he dissolved the E Street Band, and he and Scialfa relocated to California, marrying in 1991.
An electric band appearance on the acoustic MTV Unplugged television program (later released as In Concert/MTV Plugged) was poorly received and further cemented fan dissatisfaction. Springsteen seemed to realize this a few years hence when he spoke humorously of his late father during his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame acceptance speech: }}
A multiple Grammy Award winner, Springsteen also won an Academy Award in 1994 for his song "Streets of Philadelphia", which appeared on the soundtrack to the film Philadelphia. The song, along with the film, was applauded by many for its sympathetic portrayal of a gay man dying of AIDS. The music video for the song shows Springsteen's actual vocal performance, recorded using a hidden microphone, to a prerecorded instrumental track. This technique was developed on the "Brilliant Disguise" video.
In 1995, after temporarily re-organizing the E Street Band for a few new songs recorded for his first Greatest Hits album (a recording session that was chronicled in the documentary Blood Brothers), he released his second (mostly) solo guitar album, The Ghost of Tom Joad, inspired by John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath, Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, a book by Pulitzer Prize-winners author Dale Maharidge and photographer Michael Williamson. This was generally less well-received than the similar Nebraska, due to the minimal melody, twangy vocals, and political nature of most of the songs, although some praised it for giving voice to immigrants and others who rarely have one in American culture. The lengthy, worldwide, small-venue solo acoustic Ghost of Tom Joad Tour that followed successfully featured many of his older songs in drastically reshaped acoustic form, although Springsteen had to explicitly remind his audiences to be quiet and not to clap during the performances. During the shows Bruce did occasional take request. Rejecting some "popular" songs by saying things like "Not that old thing."Another change from the usual Springsteen concert experience, no alcohol was served at the venues.
Following the tour, Springsteen moved back to New Jersey with his family. In 1998, Springsteen released the sprawling, four-disc box set of out-takes, Tracks. Subsequently, Springsteen would acknowledge that the 1990s were a "lost period" for him: "I didn't do a lot of work. Some people would say I didn't do my best work."
Springsteen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 by Bono of U2, a favor he returned in 2005.
In 1999, Springsteen and the E Street Band officially came together again and went on the extensive Reunion Tour, lasting over a year. Highlights included a record sold-out, 15-show run at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, New Jersey and a ten-night, sold-out engagement at New York City's Madison Square Garden which ended the tour. The final two shows were recorded for an HBO Concert, with corresponding DVD and album releases as . A new song, "American Skin (41 Shots)", about the police shooting of Amadou Diallo which was played at these shows proved controversial.
During the early 2000s, Springsteen became a visible advocate for the revitalization of Asbury Park, and played an annual series of winter holiday concerts there to benefit various local businesses, organizations, and causes. These shows were explicitly intended for the devoted fans, featuring numbers such as the E Street Shuffle outtake "Thundercrack", a rollicking group-participation song that would mystify casual Springsteen fans. He also frequently rehearses for tours in Asbury Park; some of his most devoted followers even go so far as to stand outside the building to hear what fragments they can of the upcoming shows. The song "My City of Ruins" was originally written about Asbury Park, in honor of the attempts to revitalize the city. Looking for an appropriate song for a post-Sept. 11 benefit concert honoring New York City, he selected "My City of Ruins," which was immediately recognized as an emotional highlight of the concert, with its gospel themes and its heartfelt exhortations to "Rise up!" The song became associated with post-9/11 New York, and he chose it to close The Rising album and as an encore on the subsequent tour.
At the Grammy Awards of 2003, Springsteen performed The Clash's "London Calling" along with Elvis Costello, Dave Grohl, and E Street Band member Steven Van Zandt and No Doubt's bassist, Tony Kanal, in tribute to Joe Strummer; Springsteen and the Clash had once been considered multiple-album-dueling rivals at the time of the double The River and the triple Sandinista!. In 2004, Springsteen and the E Street Band participated in the "Vote for Change" tour, along with John Mellencamp, John Fogerty, the Dixie Chicks, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Bright Eyes, the Dave Matthews Band, Jackson Browne, and other musicians. All concerts were to be held in swing states, to benefit the liberalism political organization group America Coming Together and to encourage people to register and vote. A finale was held in Washington, D.C., bringing many of the artists together. Several days later, Springsteen held one more such concert in New Jersey, when polls showed that state surprisingly close. While in past years Springsteen had played benefits for causes in which he believed – against nuclear energy, for Vietnam veterans, Amnesty International, and the Christic Institute – he had always refrained from explicitly endorsing candidates for political office (indeed he had rejected the efforts of Walter Mondale to attract an endorsement during the 1984 Reagan "Born in the U.S.A." flap). This new stance led to criticism and praise from the expected partisan sources. Springsteen's "No Surrender" became the main campaign theme song for John Kerry's unsuccessful presidential campaign; in the last days of the campaign, he performed acoustic versions of the song and some of his other old songs at Kerry rallies.
performance at the Festhalle Frankfurt, June 15, 2005.]] Devils & Dust was released on April 26, 2005, and was recorded without the E Street Band. It is a low-key, mostly acoustic album, in the same vein as Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad although with a little more instrumentation. Some of the material was written almost 10 years earlier during, or shortly after, the Ghost of Tom Joad Tour, a couple of them being performed then but never released. The title track concerns an ordinary soldier's feelings and fears during the Iraq War. Starbucks rejected a co-branding deal for the album, due in part to some sexually explicit content but also because of Springsteen's anti-corporate politics. The album entered the album charts at No. 1 in 10 countries (United States, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and Ireland). Springsteen began the solo Devils & Dust Tour at the same time as the album's release, playing both small and large venues. Attendance was disappointing in a few regions, and everywhere (other than in Europe) tickets were easier to get than in the past. Unlike his mid-1990s solo tour, he performed on piano, electric piano, pump organ, autoharp, ukulele, banjo, electric guitar, and stomping board, as well as acoustic guitar and harmonica, adding variety to the solo sound. (Offstage synthesizer, guitar, and percussion were also used for some songs.) Unearthly renditions of "Reason to Believe", "The Promised Land", and Suicide's "Dream Baby Dream" jolted audiences to attention, while rarities, frequent set list changes, and a willingness to keep trying even through audible piano mistakes kept most of his loyal audiences happy.
In November 2005, Sirius Satellite Radio started a 24-hour, seven-day-a-week radio station on Channel 10 called E Street Radio. This channel featured commercial-free Bruce Springsteen music, including rare tracks, interviews, and daily concerts of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band recorded throughout their career.
performing on their tour at the Fila Forum, Milan, Italy on May 12, 2006.]] In April 2006, Springsteen released , an American roots music project focused around a big folk sound treatment of 15 songs popularized by the radical musical activism of Pete Seeger. It was recorded with a large ensemble of musicians including only Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, and The Miami Horns from past efforts. In contrast to previous albums, this was recorded in only three one-day sessions, and frequently one can hear Springsteen calling out key changes live as the band explores its way through the tracks. The Bruce Springsteen with The Seeger Sessions Band Tour began the same month, featuring the 18-strong ensemble of musicians dubbed The Seeger Sessions Band (and later shortened to The Sessions Band). Seeger Sessions material was heavily featured, as well as a handful of (usually drastically rearranged) Springsteen numbers. The tour proved very popular in Europe, selling out everywhere and receiving some excellent reviews, but newspapers reported that a number of U.S. shows suffered from sparse attendance. By the end of 2006, the Seeger Sessions tour toured Europe twice and toured America for only a short span. , containing selections from three nights of November 2006 shows at The Point Theatre in Dublin, Ireland, was released the following June.
behind him, on the Magic Tour stop at Veterans Memorial Arena, Jacksonville, Florida, August 15, 2008.]] Springsteen's next album, titled Magic, was released on October 2, 2007. Recorded with the E Street Band, it featured 10 new Springsteen songs plus "Long Walk Home", performed once with the Sessions band, and a hidden track (the first included on a Springsteen studio release), "Terry's Song", a tribute to Springsteen's long-time assistant Terry Magovern, who died on July 30, 2007. The first single, "Radio Nowhere", was made available for a free download on August 28. On October 7, Magic debuted at number 1 in Ireland and the UK. Greatest Hits reentered the Irish charts at number 57, and Live in Dublin almost cracked the top 20 in Norway again. Sirius Satellite Radio also restarted E Street Radio on Channel 10 on September 27, 2007, in anticipation of Magic. Radio conglomerate Clear Channel Communications was alleged to have sent an edict to its classic rock stations to not play any songs from the new album, while continuing to play older Springsteen material. However, Clear Channel Adult Alternative (or "AAA") station KBCO did play tracks from the album, undermining the allegations of a corporate blackout. The Springsteen and E Street Band Magic Tour began at the Hartford Civic Center with the album's release and was routed through North America and Europe. Springsteen and the band performed live on NBC's Today Show in advance of the opener. Longtime E Street Band organist Danny Federici left the tour in November 2007 to pursue treatment for melanoma from which he would die in 2008
Springsteen supported Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, announcing his endorsement in April 2008 and going on to appear at several Obama rallies as well as performing several solo acoustic performances in support of Obama's campaign throughout 2008, culminating with a November 2 rally where he debuted "Working On A Dream" in a duet with Scialfa. At an Ohio rally, Springsteen discussed the importance of "truth, transparency and integrity in government, the right of every American to have a job, a living wage, to be educated in a decent school, and a life filled with the dignity of work, the promise and the sanctity of home...But today those freedoms have been damaged and curtailed by eight years of a thoughtless, reckless and morally-adrift administration."
Following Obama's electoral victory on November 4, Springsteen's song "The Rising" was the first song played over the loudspeakers after Obama's victory speech in Chicago's Grant Park. Springsteen was the musical opener for the on January 18, 2009 which was attended by over 400,000. He performed "The Rising" with an all-female choir. Later he performed Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" with Pete Seeger.
On June 18, 2008, Springsteen appeared live from Europe at the Tim Russert tribute at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., to play one of Russert's favorite songs, "Thunder Road." Springsteen dedicated the song to Russert, who was "one of Springsteen's biggest fans."
On January 11, 2009, Springsteen won the Golden Globe Award for Best Song for "The Wrestler", from the Mickey Rourke film by the same name. After receiving a heartfelt letter from Mickey Rourke, Springsteen supplied the song for the film for free.
Springsteen performed at the halftime show at Super Bowl XLIII on February 1, 2009, agreeing to do it after many previous offers A few days before the game, Springsteen gave a rare press conference, where he promised a "twelve-minute party." His 12:45 set, with the E Street Band and the Miami Horns, included abbreviated renditions of "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out"", "Born to Run", "Working on a Dream, and "Glory Days", the latter complete with football references. The set of appearances and promotional activities led Springsteen to say, "This has probably been the busiest month of my life."
Springsteen's Working on a Dream album was released in late January 2009 and the supporting Working on a Dream Tour ran from April 2009 until November 2009. The tour featured few songs from the new album, with instead set lists dominated by classics and selections reflecting the ongoing late-2000s recession. The tour also featured Springsteen playing songs requested by audience members holding up signs as on the final stages of the Magic Tour. and Hard Rock Calling in the UK. Several shows on the tour featured full album presentations of Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, or Born in the U.S.A. The band performed a stretch of five final shows at his homestate Giants Stadium, opening with a new song highlighting the historic stadium, and his Jersey roots, named "Wrecking Ball". The tour ended as scheduled in Buffalo, NY in November 2009 amid speculation that it was the last performance ever by the E Street Band, but during the show Springsteen said it was goodbye “for a little while.” A DVD from the Working of a Dream Tour entitled was released in 2010.
In addition to his own touring, Springsteen made a number of appearances at tribute and benefit concerts during 2009, including The Clearwater Concert, a celebration of Pete Seeger's 90th birthday, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 25th anniversary benefit concert, a benefit for the charity Autism Speaks at Carnegie Hall. On January 22, 2010, he joined many well-known artists to perform on , organized by George Clooney to raise money to help the victims of the 2010 Haiti earthquake.
.]]
In 2009, Springsteen performed in The People Speak a documentary feature film that uses dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries, and speeches of everyday Americans, based on historian Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States".
Springsteen was among the recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual award to figures from the world of arts for their contribution to American culture, in December 2009. President Obama gave a speech in which he talked about how Springsteen has incorporated the life of regular Americans in his expansive pallette of songs and how his concerts are beyond the typical rock-and-roll concerts, how, apart from being high-energy concerts, they are "communions". He ended the remark "while I am the president, he is The Boss". Tributes were paid by several well-known celebrities including Jon Stewart (who described Springsteen's "unprecedented combination of lyrical eloquence, musical mastery and sheer unbridled, unadulterated joy"). A musical tribute featured John Mellencamp Ben Harper and Jennifer Nettles, Rob Mathes band. Melissa Etheridge Eddie Vedder and Sting, The Joyce Garrett Choir
The 2000s ended with Springsteen being named one of eight Artists of the Decade by Rolling Stone magazine and with Springsteen's tours ranking him fourth among artists in total concert grosses for the decade.
In September 2010, a documentary about the making of his 1978 album "Darkness on The Edge of Town" was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town, will be included in a box set reissue of the album, entitled The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story to be released in November 2010. The Documentary, "The Promise: The Making of ‘Darkness on the Edge of Town" aired on HBO on October 7th, 2010. The documentary explored Springsteen's making of the acclaimed album, and his role in the production and development of the tracks.
Bruce Springsteen draws on many musical influences from the reservoir of traditional American popular music, folk, blues and country. From the beginning, rock and roll has been the dominant influence. On his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, New Jersey, the folk-influence is clear to hear. An example of the influence of this music genre to Springsteen's music is his song "This Hard Land" which demonstrates a clear influence of the style of Woody Guthrie.
He expanded the range of his musical compositions on his second album, The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. Elements of Latin American music, jazz, soul, and funk influences can be heard; the song "New York City Serenade" is even reminiscent of the music of George Gershwin. These two records prominently featured pianist David Sancious, who left the band shortly into the recording of Springsteen's third album, Born To Run. This album, however, also emphasized the piano, the responsibility now of Roy Bittan.
Later in his career, Springsteen has focused more on the rock elements of his music. He initially compressed the sound and developed Darkness On The Edge Of Town just as straightforward as concise musical idiom, for the simple riffs and clearly recognizable song structures are dominant. His music has been categorized as heartland rock, a style typified by Springsteen, John Fogerty, Tom Petty, Bob Seger, and John Mellencamp. This music has a lyrical reference to the U.S. everyday and the music is kept rather simple and straightforward. This development culminated with Springsteen's hit album Born in the U.S.A., the title song of which has a constantly repeating, fanfare-like keyboard riff and a pounding drum beat. These sounds fit with Springsteen's voice: it cries to the listener the unsentimental story of a disenchanted angry figure. Even songs that can be argued to be album tracks proved to be singles that enjoyed some chart success, such as "My Hometown" and "I'm on Fire", in which the drum line is formed from subtle hi-hat and rim-clicks-shock (shock at the edge of the snare drum).
In recent years, Springsteen has changed his music further. There are more folk elements up to the gospel to be heard. His last solo album, Devils and Dust, drew rave reviews not only for Springsteen's complex songwriting, but also for his expressive and sensitive singing.
On the album Springsteen performs folk classics with a folk band, rather than his usual E Street Band. On his ensuing tour he also interpreted some of his own rock songs in a folk style.
The 2007 album Magic was a reflection on the old stadium rock attitude and with its lush arrangements was almost designed to be performed at large stadiums, which also succeeded on the corresponding tour.
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Often described as cinematographic in their scope, Springsteen's lyrics frequently explore highly personal themes such as individual committment, dissatisfaction and dismay with life in a context of every day situations.
It has been recognized that there was a shift in his lyrical approach starting with the album "Darkness on the Edge of Town", in which he focused on the emotional struggles of working class life.
Springsteen's music has often contained political themes, and he has publicly campaigned for several causes, including his opposition to the Iraq War and support for the presidential campaigns of Senator John Kerry and President Barack Obama. He is also noted for his support of various relief and rebuilding efforts in New Jersey and elsewhere, and for his response to the September 11 attacks in 2001, on which his album The Rising reflects. A Democrat, his work has often stirred controversy and caused some to identify his music with modern American liberalism.
In 1988, Springsteen headlined the worldwide Human Rights Now! tour for Amnesty International.
Springsteen has been associated with various local food banks, particularly with the New Jersey Food bank for many years. During concerts, he usually breaks the routine to announce his support and later matches the total collection during the concert with his own money. During his Charlotte, North Carolina concert on November 3, 2009, he started with a $10,000 donation for the local food bank to start the collections process - which he again matched later.
He has made substantial financial contributions to various workers' unions both in America and in Europe.
Springsteen married Julianne Phillips (born May 6, 1960) in Lake Oswego, Oregon on May 13, 1985. The marriage helped her acting career flourish, although the two were opposites in background, and his traveling took its toll on their relationship. The final blow came when Bruce began an affair with Patti Scialfa (born July 29, 1953), whom he had dated briefly in 1984 shortly after she joined the band. Phillips and Springsteen separated in the spring of 1988, and on August 30, 1988, Julianne filed for divorce. The Springsteen/Phillips divorce was finalized on March 1, 1989.
After his wife filed for divorce in 1988, Bruce began living with Scialfa. Springsteen received press criticism for the hastiness in which he and Scialfa took up their relationship. In a 1995 interview with The Advocate, Springsteen spoke about the negative publicity the couple subsequently received. "It's a strange society that assumes it has the right to tell people whom they should love and whom they shouldn't. But the truth is, I basically ignored the entire thing as much as I could. I said, "Well, all I know is, this feels real, and maybe I have got a mess going here in some fashion, but that's life." In 1990, Springsteen and Scialfa welcomed their first child, son Evan James. They were expecting their second child, daughter Jessica Rae (born December 30, 1991), when Bruce and Patti married on June 8, 1991. "I went through a divorce, and it was really difficult and painful and I was very frightened about getting married again. So part of me said, Hey, what does it matter? But it does matter. It's very different than just living together. First of all, stepping up publicly- which is what you do: You get your license, you do all the social rituals- is a part of your place in society and in some way part of society's acceptance of you...Patti and I both found that it did mean something."
They have three children: Evan James (b. 1990), Jessica Rae (b. 1991) and Sam Ryan (b. January 5, 1994). The family lives in Rumson, New Jersey, and owns a horse farm in nearby Colts Neck. Springsteen also owns two adjacent homes in Wellington, Florida, a wealthy horse community near West Palm Beach. His eldest son, Evan, atttends Boston College in Chestnut Hill, a village in Newton, Massachusetts. His daughter Jessica Springsteen is a nationally-ranked champion equestrian and attends Duke University.
In November 2000, Springsteen filed legal action against Jeff Burgar which accused him of registering the domain brucespringsteen.com (along with several other celebrity domains) in bad faith to funnel web users to his Celebrity 1000 portal site. Once the legal complaint was filed, Burgar pointed the domain to a Springsteen biography and message board. In February 2001, Springsteen lost his dispute with Burgar. A WIPO panel ruled 2 to 1 in favor of Burgar.
Springsteen has led a relatively quiet and private life for a well-known popular performer and artist. He moved from Los Angeles to New Jersey in the early 1990s specifically to raise a family in a non-paparazzi environment. It has been reported that the press conference regarding the 2009 Super Bowl XLIII half-time show was his first press conference for more than 25 years. However, he has appeared in a few radio interviews, most notably on NPR and BBC. 60 minutes aired his last extensive interview on TV before his tour to support his album, Magic.
Prior to signing his first record deal in 1972, Springsteen was a member of several bands including Steel Mill. In October 1972 he formed a new band for the recording of his debut album Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., which became known as The E Street Band, although the name was not officially introduced until September 1974. The E Street Band performed on all of Springsteen's recorded works from his debut until 1982's Nebraska, a solo album on which Springsteen himself played all the instruments. The full band returned for the next album Born in the USA, but there then followed a period from 1988 to 1999 in which albums were recorded with session musicians. The E Street band were briefly reunited in 1995 for new contributions to the Greatest Hits compilation, and on a more permanent basis from 1999, since which time they have recorded 3 albums together (The Rising, Magic and Working on a Dream) and performed a number of high profile tours.
The 2005 album Devils & Dust was largely a solo recording, with some contribution from session musicians and the 2006 folk rock album was recorded and toured with another band, known as The Sessions Band.
Current members:
{| class="wikitable sortable" |- ! Film !! Year of film release !! Song(s) !! Notes |- | Dead End Street || 1982 || "Point Blank", "Hungry Heart" and "Jungleland" || First use of Springsteen's music in film |- | Light of Day || 1987 || (Just Around the Corner to the) Light of Day || Song written for the film. |- | In Country || 1989 || I'm On Fire || Film also contained many Springsteen references |- | Baby, It's You || 1983 || "It's Hard To Be A Saint In The City", "The E Street Shuffle", "She's The One" and "Adam Raised A Cain". || Film directed by John Sayles who later directed music videos for songs from Born in the U.S.A. and Tunnel of Love. |- | High Fidelity (film) || 2000 || "The River" and Blues Guitar Riff || Played by Springsteen, on-screen during his cameo appearance. |- | The Perfect Storm || 2000 || "Hungry Heart" || |- | The Wedding Singer || 1998 || "Hungry Heart" || |- | Risky Business || 1983 || "Hungry Heart" || |- | Thunderheart|| 1992 || "Badlands" (instrumental version) || |- | Reign Over Me || 2007 || "Drive All Night" and "Out In The Streets" || The album The River was also well mentioned in the movie. |- | Cop Land || 1997 || "Drive All Night" and "Stolen Car"|| Sylvester Stallone's character plays the songs on his turntable. |- | Jerry Maguire || 1996 || "Secret Garden" || |- | The Crossing Guard || 1995 || "Missing" || Song later was released in 2003 on The Essential Bruce Springsteen. |- | 25th Hour || 2002 || "The Fuse" || |- | Philadelphia || 1993 || "Streets of Philadelphia" || Song written for film. Won an Oscar. |- | Dead Man Walking || 1995 || "Dead Man Walkin'" || Song written for film. Nominated for a Oscar. |- | In the Land of Women || 2007 || "Iceman" || |- | The Wrestler || 2008 || "The Wrestler" || Written for film. The song was awarded a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and nominated for the MTV Movie Award as "Best Song From a Movie". |- | The Heartbreak Kid || 2007 || "Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)" || |- | Lucky You || 2007 || "Lucky Town" || |- | Big Daddy || 1999 || "Growin' Up" || Played over a montage near the end of the film. |- | Limbo || 1999 || "Lift Me Up" || A John Sayles film. |- | Honeymoon in Vegas || 1992 || "Viva Las Vegas" || A 1964 song recorded by Elvis Presley. |- | Food, Inc. || 2009 || This Land Is Your Land || Live version, Bruce Springsteen's performance of the Woody Guthrie song |}
In September 2010, a documentary about the making of his 1978 album "Darkness of The Edge of Town" was premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. and named his film Jersey Girl after the Tom Waits song which Springsteen made famous. The song was also used on the soundtrack.
Polar Music Prize in 1997. Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, 1999. Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, 1999. Inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame, 2007. "Born to Run" named "The unofficial youth anthem of New Jersey" by the New Jersey state legislature; something Springsteen always found to be ironic, considering that the song "is about leaving New Jersey". The minor planet 23990, discovered Sept. 4, 1999, by I. P. Griffin at Auckland, New Zealand, was officially named in his honor. Ranked #23 on Rolling Stone magazines 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Ranked #36 on Rolling Stone magazines 2004 list of the 100 Greatest Singers Of All Time. Made Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People Of The Year 2008 list. Won Critic's Choice Award for Best Song with "The Wrestler" in 2009.
For Springsteen's influence on academic writers, see "Library of Hope and Dreams":a comprehensive annotated bibliography of published Springsteen scholarship in English. Note, bibliography is indexed by song, album, author and subject keywords.
Category:1949 births Category:Living people Category:American baritones Category:American folk singers Category:American male singer-songwriters Category:American people of Dutch descent Category:American people of Irish descent Category:American people of Italian descent Category:American rock guitarists Category:American rock singers Category:Best Song Academy Award winning songwriters Category:BRIT Award winners Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Grammy Award winners Category:American musicians of Italian descent Category:Jersey Shore musicians Category:Kennedy Center honorees Category:New Jersey Democrats Category:People from Monmouth County, New Jersey Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees Category:Sony/ATV Music Publishing artists Category:The E Street Band members
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| Name | Alanis Morissette |
|---|---|
| Background | solo_singer |
| Birth name | Alanis Nadine Morissette |
| Born | June 01, 1974 |
| Origin | Ottawa, Ontario, Canada |
| Instrument | Piano, guitar, flute, harmonica, vocals |
| Genre | Alternative rockPop rockPost-grunge |
| Occupation | Singer, songwriter, actress, record producer |
| Voice type | Mezzo-soprano |
| Years active | 1987–present |
| Label | MCA Records Canada, Maverick, Warner Bros. |
| Url | |
| Spouse | Mario "MC Souleye" Treadway |
| Children | Ever Imre Morissette-Treadway (born December 25, 2010) |
In February 2005, Morissette became a naturalized citizen of the United States while maintaining her Canadian citizenship.
In 1992, she released her second album, Now Is the Time, a ballad-driven record that featured less glitzy production than Alanis and contained more thoughtful lyrics. With her two-album deal with MCA Records Canada complete, Morissette was left without a major label contract.
Morissette's success with Jagged Little Pill was credited with leading to the introduction of female singers such as Shakira, Tracy Bonham, Meredith Brooks, Patti Rothberg and, in the early 2000s, Pink and fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne. She was criticized for collaborating with producer and supposed image-maker Ballard, and her previous albums also proved a hindrance for her respectability. Morissette and the album won six Juno Awards in 1996: Album of the Year, Single of the Year ("You Oughta Know"), Female Vocalist of the Year, Songwriter of the Year and Best Rock Album. At the 1996 Grammy Awards, she won Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, Best Rock Song (both for "You Oughta Know"), Best Rock Album and Album of the Year.
Later in 1996, Morissette embarked on an eighteen-month world tour in support of Jagged Little Pill, beginning in small clubs and ending in large venues. Taylor Hawkins, who later joined the Foo Fighters, was the tour's drummer. "Ironic" was nominated for two 1997 Grammy Awards—Record of the Year and Best Music Video, Short Form—and won Single of the Year at the 1997 Juno Awards, where Morissette also won Songwriter of the Year and the International Achievement Award. The video Jagged Little Pill, Live, which was co-directed by Morissette and chronicled the bulk of her tour, won a 1998 Grammy Award for Best Music Video, Long Form.
Following the stressful tour, Morissette started practicing Iyengar Yoga for balancing, and after the last December 1996 show, she headed to India for six weeks, accompanied by her mother, two aunts and two female friends.
Morissette was featured as a guest vocalist on Ringo Starr's cover of "Drift Away" on his 1998 album, Vertical Man, and on the songs "Don't Drink the Water" and "Spoon" on the Dave Matthews Band album Before These Crowded Streets. She recorded the song "Uninvited" for the soundtrack to the 1998 film City of Angels. Although the track was never commercially released as a single, it received widespread radio airplay in the U.S. At the 1999 Grammy Awards, it won in the categories of Best Rock Song and Best Female Rock Vocal Performance, and was nominated for Best Song Written for a Motion Picture, Television or Other Visual Media. Later in 1998, Morissette released her fourth album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, which she wrote and produced with Glen Ballard.
Privately, the label hoped to sell a million copies of the album on initial release; The wordy, personal lyrics on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie alienated many fans, and after the album sold considerably less than Jagged Little Pill, many labelled it an example of the sophomore jinx. However, it received positive reviews, including a four-star review from Rolling Stone. In Canada, it won the Juno Award for Best Album and was certified four times platinum. "Thank U", the album's only major international hit single, was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance; the music video, which featured Morissette nude, generated mild controversy. Morissette herself directed the videos for "Unsent" and "So Pure", which won, respectively, the MuchMusic Video Award for Best Director and the Juno Award for Video of the Year. The "So Pure" video features actor Dash Mihok, with whom Morissette was in a relationship at the time. During summer 1999, Alanis toured with singer/songwriter Tori Amos on the 5 And A Half Weeks Tour in support of Amos' album To Venus And Back.
Under Rug Swept debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, eventually going platinum in Canada and selling one million copies in the U.S. It produced the hit single "Hands Clean", which topped the Canadian Singles Chart and received substantial radio play; for her work on "Hands Clean" and "So Unsexy", Morissette won a Juno Award for Producer of the Year. A second single, "Precious Illusions", was released, but it did not garner significant success outside Canada or U.S. hot AC radio.
Later in 2002, Morissette released the combination package Feast on Scraps, which includes a DVD of live concert and backstage documentary footage directed by her and a CD containing eight previously unreleased songs from the Under Rug Swept recording sessions. Preceded by the single "Simple Together," it sold roughly 70,000 copies in the U.S. and was nominated for a Juno Award for Music DVD of the Year.
Morissette hosted the Juno Awards of 2004 dressed in a bathrobe, which she took off to reveal a flesh-colored bodysuit, a response to the era of censorship in the U.S. caused by Janet Jackson's breast-reveal incident during the Super Bowl XXXVIII halftime show. Two other singles, "Out Is Through" and "Eight Easy Steps", fared considerably worse commercially than "Everything", although a dance mix of "Eight Easy Steps" was a U.S. club hit.
Morissette embarked on a U.S. summer tour with long-time friends and fellow Canadians Barenaked Ladies, working with the non-profit environmental organization Reverb.
To commemorate the tenth anniversary of Jagged Little Pill, Morissette released a studio acoustic version, Jagged Little Pill Acoustic, in June 2005. The album was released exclusively through Starbucks' Hear Music retail concept through their coffee shops for a six-week run. The limited availability led to a dispute between Maverick Records and HMV North America, who retaliated by removing Morissette's other albums from sale for the duration of Starbucks's exclusive six-week sale. As of November, 2010, Jagged Little Pill Acoustic had sold 372,000 copies in the U.S., and a video for "Hand in My Pocket" received rotation on VH1 in America. The accompanying tour ran for two months in mid 2005, with Morissette playing small theatre venues. During the same period, Morissette was inducted into Canada's Walk of Fame.
Morissette opened for The Rolling Stones for a few dates of their A Bigger Bang Tour in the autumn of 2005.
Morissette released the greatest hits album in late 2005. The lead single and only new track, a cover of Seal's "Crazy", was a U.S. adult top 40 and dance hit, but it achieved only minimal chart success elsewhere. A limited edition of The Collection features a DVD including a documentary with videos of two unreleased songs from Morissette's 1996 Can't Not Tour: "King of Intimidation" and "Can't Not." (A reworked version of "Can't Not" had also appeared on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie.) The DVD also includes a ninety-second clip of the unreleased video for the single "Joining You". As of November, 2010, "The Collection" had sold 373,000 copies in the U.S., according to Soundscan.
Alanis performed two songs with Avril Lavigne: Morissette's "Ironic" and Lavigne's "Losing Grip".
At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics closing ceremony, Alanis Morissette performed her 2005 song Wunderkind.
On April 1, 2007, Morissette released a tongue-in-cheek cover of The Black Eyed Peas's selection "My Humps", which she recorded in a slow, mournful voice, accompanied only by a piano. The accompanying YouTube-hosted video, in which she dances provocatively with a group of men and hits the ones who attempt to touch her "lady lumps," had received 16,465,653 views on 15 February 2009. Morissette did not take any interviews for a time to explain the song, and it was theorized that she did it as an April Fools' Day joke. Black Eyed Peas vocalist Stacy "Fergie" Ferguson responded by sending Morissette a buttocks-shaped cake with an approving note. On the verge of the release of her latest album, she finally elaborated on how the video came to be, citing that she became very much emotionally loaded while recording her new songs one after the other and one day she wished she could do a simple song like "My Humps" in a conversation with Guy Sigsworth and the joke just took a life of its own when they started working on it. (The NHL requires arenas to perform both the American and Canadian national anthems at games involving teams from both countries) In early 2008, Morissette participated in a tour with Matchbox Twenty and Mutemath as a special guest.
Morissette's seventh studio album, Flavors of Entanglement, which was produced by Guy Sigsworth, was released in mid 2008. She has stated that in late 2008, she would embark on a North American headlining tour, but in the meantime she would be promoting the album internationally by performing at shows and festivals and making television and radio appearances. The album's first single was "Underneath", a video for which was submitted to the 2007 Elevate Film Festival, the purpose of which festival was to create documentaries, music videos, narratives and shorts regarding subjects to raise the level of human consciousness on the earth. On 3 October 2008, Morissette released the video for her latest single, "Not as We".
Recently, Morissette has contributed to 1 Giant Leap, performing "Arrival" with Zap Mama and she has released an acoustic version of her song "Still" as part of a compilation from Music for Relief in support of the 2010 Haiti earthquake crisis. Morissette has also recorded a cover of the 1984 Willie Nelson and Julio Iglesias hit, "To All the Girls I've Loved Before", re-written as "To All the Boys I've Loved Before". Nelson played rhythm guitar on the recording.
In 1993, she appeared in the film Just One of the Girls starring Corey Haim, which she described as "horrible".
She expanded her acting credentials with the July 2004 release of the Cole Porter biographical film De-Lovely, in which she performed the song "Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)" and had a brief role as an anonymous stage performer. In February 2005, she made a guest appearance on the Canadian television show with Dogma co-star Jason Mewes and director Kevin Smith.
In 2006, she guest starred in an episode of Lifetime's Lovespring International as a homeless woman named Lucinda, three episodes of FX's Nip/Tuck, playing a lesbian named Poppy, and the mockumentary/documentary Pittsburgh as herself.
It was announced on Morissette's website that she will be starring in a film adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel Radio Free Albemuth. Morissette will play Sylvia, an ordinary woman in unexpected remission from lymphoma. She said she was a "big fan" of Dick's books, which she called "poetic and expansively imaginative", and said she "feel[s] blessed to portray Sylvia, and to be part of this story being told in film".
It was announced in May 2009 that Morissette had been cast in at least seven episodes of Weeds, playing Dr. Audra Kitson, a "no-nonsense obstetrician" who treats pregnant main character Nancy Botwin. These episodes aired from June to August 2009.
In early 2010 Morissette returned to the stage, performing a one night engagement in An Oak Tree, an experimental play in Los Angeles. The performance was a sell out. In April 2010 Morissette was confirmed in the cast of Weeds season six, performing again her role as Dr. Audra Kitson.
In 2002, Morissette began dating Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds. The couple announced their engagement in June 2004. In February 2007, representatives for Morissette and Reynolds announced that they had mutually decided to end their engagement. Morissette has stated that her album Flavors of Entanglement was created out of her grief after the break-up, saying that "it was cathartic".
On May 22, 2010, Morissette married rapper Mario “MC Souleye” Treadway in a private ceremony at their Los Angeles home. In August 2010, it was announced that Morissette was pregnant with the couple's first child. Ever Imre Morissette-Treadway, was born on December 25, 2010.
Morissette is a vegan.
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