One Direction

One Direction (commonly abbreviated as 1D) are an English-Irish pop boy band based in London, composed of Niall Horan, Liam Payne, Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, and previously, Zayn Malik until his departure from the band on 25 March 2015. The group signed with Simon Cowell's record label Syco Records after forming and finishing third in the seventh series of the British televised singing competition The X Factor in 2010. Propelled to international success by social media, One Direction's four albums, Up All Night (2011), Take Me Home (2012), Midnight Memories (2013) and Four (2014) topped charts in most major markets, and generated hit singles including "What Makes You Beautiful", "Live While We're Young", and "Story of My Life". Their fifth studio album, Made in the A.M., was released in November 2015.

Their achievements include five Brit Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, eleven MTV Europe Music Awards, seven American Music Awards (including Artist of the Year in 2014 and 2015), and nineteen Teen Choice Awards out of nineteen nominations, among many others. According to Nick Gatfield, the chairman and chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment UK, One Direction represented a $50 million business empire by June 2012. They were proclaimed 2012's "Top New Artist" by Billboard. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, by April 2013, they had an estimated personal combined wealth of £25 million ($41.2m) making them the second-wealthiest musicians in the UK under 30 years of age. In 2014, Forbes listed them the second-highest earning celebrities under 30, with the group earning an estimated $75 million from June 2013 to June 2014. In June 2015, Forbes listed their earnings at $130 million for the previous twelve months, and ranked them the fourth highest earning celebrities in the world.

Katy Perry

Katheryn Elizabeth "Katy" Hudson (born October 25, 1984), known professionally as Katy Perry, is an American singer, songwriter, and actress. After singing in church during her childhood, she pursued a career in gospel music as a teenager. Perry signed with Red Hill Records and released her debut studio album Katy Hudson in 2001, which was commercially unsuccessful. She moved to Los Angeles the following year to venture into secular music after Red Hill ceased operations. After being dropped by The Island Def Jam Music Group and Columbia Records, Perry signed a recording contract with Capitol Records in April 2007.

Perry rose to fame in 2008 with the release of the singles "I Kissed a Girl" – which sparked controversy for its homosexual themes – and "Hot n Cold" from her second album, a pop rock record titled One of the Boys. Her third album, Teenage Dream (2010), ventured into disco, and contained the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart-topping singles "California Gurls", "Teenage Dream", "Firework", "E.T.", and "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" as well as the number-three single "The One That Got Away". The album became the first by a female artist to produce five number-one Billboard Hot 100 songs, and the second overall after Michael Jackson's album Bad. In March 2012, she reissued the album as Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection, which produced the songs "Part of Me" and "Wide Awake".

Teenage Fanclub

Teenage Fanclub are a Scottish alternative rock band formed in Bellshill in 1989. The band comprises Norman Blake (vocals, guitar), Raymond McGinley (vocals, lead guitar), Gerard Love (vocals, bass) and Francis MacDonald (drums), with songwriting duties shared equally among Blake, McGinley and Love. In concert, the band usually alternate among the three songwriters (who all sing lead vocals on their own songs) giving equal playing time to each one's songs.

Although often pegged as alternative rock, the group have incorporated a wide variety of elements from various music styles in their songs.

Teenage Fanclub have had a succession of drummers, including Francis MacDonald, Brendan O’Hare and Paul Quinn, who was later replaced by the returning Francis MacDonald. Keyboardist Finlay MacDonald (no relation) has also been a member.

As of July 2010, the band have released nine studio albums and two compilation albums.

History

Teenage Fanclub emerged from the Glasgow C86 scene. Their sound is reminiscent of West Coast bands like the Beach Boys and the Byrds, and their seventies counterparts Big Star. Originally a noisy and chaotic band, their first album A Catholic Education, released in 1990 on Paperhouse, is largely atypical of their later sound, with the possible exception of "Everything Flows". The King, their next album, received critical reviews; it consisted of a number of self-confessedly shambolic guitar thrashes and a cover of Madonna's "Like a Virgin".

Teenage Dirtbag

"Teenage Dirtbag" is a song and debut single by American pop rock group Wheatus. It was released in July 2000 as the lead single from their eponymous debut album. The song was written by lead singer Brendan B. Brown and was inspired by a childhood experience of his.

The song was massively successful in Australia, spending four weeks at number 1, being certified 3× Platinum and becoming the second best-selling single of the year. It also reached number 2 in Germany and the United Kingdom, where it was certified Platinum in 2013. It has sold 5 million copies worldwide as of 2014.

Background

"Teenage Dirtbag" is about a childhood experience that Wheatus frontman Brendan B. Brown had. In an interview with Tone Deaf: "It came from the summer of 1984 on Long Island, when I was 10 years old. That summer in the woods behind my house, there was a Satanic, drug-induced ritual teen homicide that went down; and the kid who did it was called Ricky Kasso, and he was arrested wearing an AC/DC T-shirt. That made all the papers, and the television, obviously; and here I was, 10 years old, walking around with a case full of AC/DC and Iron Maiden and Metallica [songs] – and all the parents and the teachers and the cops thought I was some kind of Satan worshipper. So that's the backdrop for that song." Brown also added that the song's sing-a-long chorus remains an act of defiance: "so when I sing: 'I'm just a teenage dirtbag', I'm effectively saying: 'Yeah, fuck you if you don't like it. Just because I like AC/DC doesn't mean I'm a devil worshipper, and you're an idiot. That's where it comes from."

Adolescence

Adolescence (from Latin adolescere, meaning "to grow up") is a transitional stage of physical and psychological human development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority). The period of adolescence is most closely associated with the teenage years, though its physical, psychological and cultural expressions may begin earlier and end later. For example, although puberty has been historically associated with the onset of adolescent development, it now typically begins prior to the teenage years and there has been a normative shift of it occurring in preadolescence, particularly in females (see precocious puberty). Physical growth, as distinct from puberty (particularly in males), and cognitive development generally seen in adolescence, can also extend into the early twenties. Thus chronological age provides only a rough marker of adolescence, and scholars have found it difficult to agree upon a precise definition of adolescence.