Lifehouse is an American alternative band from Los Angeles, California, formed in 1999. In 2000, Lifehouse entered the recording studio to record their first major label release. Five of the twelve tracks from Diff’s Lucky Day were remixed and released on No Name Face. Because of frontman Jason Wade’s charisma and talent, DreamWorks Records focused their sights solely on him, and by the time the debut album was released on October 31, 2000, Wade and Andrade were the only remaining founding members. Shortly after recording the first album, Rick Woolstenhulme Jr. replaced Jon Palmer on drums. On Halloween of 2000, Lifehouse released their debut album entitled No Name Face. It spawned several singles which include "Hanging by a Moment", "Sick Cycle Carousel" and "Everything". The song "Everything" was also used in both the pilot and first-season finale episodes of the future hit WB drama, Smallville, and would go on to be placed on the series’ first soundtrack . This began the long-standing affair between the band and the series, as Lifehouse would go on to have seven songs played during the series’ first four seasons, ending with a live performance in the fourth-season prom episode, and landing yet another song on Smallville. Lifehouse has since produced three more albums; Stanley Climbfall in 2002, Lifehouse in 2005 and Who We Are in 2007.
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Elton John is the stage name of Reginald Kenneth Dwight. He was born on March 25, 1947 in London, England. Elton John started playing the piano at the age of three, and within a year, his mother heard him picking out Winifred Atwell’s "The Skater’s Waltz" by ear. He showed great musical aptitude at school, including the ability to compose melodies, and gained some notoriety by playing like Jerry Lee Lewis at school functions. At the age of 11, he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. Elton John released his debut album, Empty Sky in 1969. In his four-decade career, John has sold over 200 million records. He has more than 50 Top 40 hits including seven consecutive No. 1 U.S. albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits. He has won five Grammy awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a Tony Award. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him #49 on their list of the 100 greatest artists of all time. Elton John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. In 2008, Billboard magazine released a list of the top 100 most-frequently-charting artists in the history of the Billboard Hot 100. Elton John was listed at number three, behind only Madonna and The Beatles.
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Born in Huntington, Long Island on March 27,1990, Mariah Carey is an internationally celebrated singer, songwriter and actress. She is the youngest child of Patricia Hickey, a formerly trained opera singer, and Alfred Carey, an aeronautical engineer. Mariah Carey began her career while she was still in High School, working as a demo sing for a local recording studio. After school she moved to New York city where she became a back up singer for Brenda K. Starr. Than in 1988, Mariah Carey received her first big break. She met Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola at a party and he signed her to a recording contract after listening to her demo tape. Then in 1990, Mariah Cary released her debut album, Mariah Carey. Although it met a lukewarm reception upon release it eventually went on to spawn four hit singles and become certified in 1999 as platinum nine times over. Her sophomore album Emotions was released in September 1991. To date it has sold over 10 million units. 1993 was a seminal year for Mariah Carey as she released her third album Music Box and married her mentor Tommy Mottola. The album helped her achieve her first number one hit single in the U.K ., Without You and propelled her to Worldwide stardom. From 1993-1997 she released three more albums, Merry Christmas, Daydream and Butterfly. It was in 1997 that she split from her husband and was divorced the subsequent year. After the separation she hired a new publicist and manager and remade her her image. She than went on to release the album Butterfly which debuted at number one at sold over a quarter million copies it’s first week. Butterfly is the album that is often seen as her transitional record, one that solidified her position in the ranks of R&B music. She has since released five more albums and has won five Grammy Awards and over thirty-five nominations.
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Soulja Boy was born DeAndre Ramone Way on July 28, 1990 in Chicago, Illinois. At the age of 6 his family moved to Atlanta, Georgia and Soulja Boy became interested in rap music. At the age of 14, he relocated to Batesville, Mississippi with his father, who provided a recording studio for Soulja Boy to explore his musical ambitions. In November 2005, he posted his songs on the website SoundClick. In March 2007, he recorded "Crank That" and released his first independent album "Unsigned & Still Major: Da Album Before da Album". By the end of May 2007, "Crank That" received its first airplay and Soulja Boy met with Mr. Collipark of Collipark Records to sign a deal with Interscope Records. On July 13, 2007 he released his debut studio album, Souljaboytellem.com. In its first week, Souljaboytellem.com debuted at number 4 on the Billboard 200 with 117,262 copies sold in the first week. To date it has sold over 900,000 copies. Soulja Boy followed up that success with two subsequent albums in 2008 and 2009. These were titled, iSouljaBoyTellem and The DeAndre Way, respectively. In 2008, Soulja Boy was nominated for a Grammy for Best Rap Song for the single Crank That (Soulja Boy).
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Santana was formed in 1966 in San Francisco. The band is known for helping make Latin rock famous in the rest of the world. The first members were Carlos Santana on lead guitar, Tom Fraser on rhythm guitar, Mike Carabello on percussion, Rod Harper on drums & percussion, Gus Rodriguez on bass guitar and Gregg Rolie on lead vocals & keyboards. In the following years the members of the group changed frequently for a number of reasons, and from 1971 to 1972 there was a brief separation between the group and Carlos Santana. In 1969, they released their self titled debut. The album was destined to be a major release, given a headstart by the band’s seminal performance at the Woodstock Festival in August the previous month. The single "Evil Ways", taken from the album, was a Top 10 hit. The album was the first of Santana’s two self-titled albums, the other being their third album in 1971. Santana has since released thirty more studio albums. In 1998, the group was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, with Carlos Santana, Jose Chepito Areas, David Brown, Mike Carabello, Gregg Rolie and Michael Shrieve being honored.
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Josh Groban was born February 27, 1981 in Los Angeles, California. He was born to a Jewish father and a Norwegian mother. His father converted to Christianity upon marriage, and Josh Groban was raised an Episcopalian. In late 1998, the 17-year-old Groban was introduced by his vocal coach to Grammy-winning producer/arranger David Foster. Groban worked for Foster as a rehearsal singer on a series of high-profile events, including the 1999 Grammy Awards - where, as a stand-in for Andrea Bocelli, he rehearsed Foster’s "The Prayer" with Celine Dion - and the January 1999 inauguration of Gray Davis as governor of California. Josh Groban left Carnegie Mellon school after only four months into his first semester when he was offered a recording contract at Warner Brothers Records. In 2001, he released his self titled debut album. The track "You’re Still You" charted at #10 on the Adult Contemporary chart, and "To Where You Are" charted at #1 on that chart as well. Josh Groban then went on to release his sophomore studio album, Closer. The album debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, selling about 375,000 copies in its first week. He has since released three more albums which include "Awake" in 2006, "Noel" in 2007 and "A Collection" in 2008. In December 2008, Groban appeared on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He performed a duet with Only Men Aloud! at the Royal Variety Show at the London Palladium for the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.
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Born in New York city to Richard and Kathy Hilton on February17.1981, Paris Hilton is most notably recognized for her 2004 sex tape scandal and her briefly lived television series The Simple Life. Her great grandfather was the founder of the Hilton Hotel chain. She is officially a socialite but has worked as a model, actress, author and musician. She has appeared in advertising campaigns by Tommy Hilfiger Christian Dior and Guess. She has also appeared in several minor acting roles which include Raising Helen, Nine Lives, The Hillz and the 2005 horror flick House Of Wax. She dipped her toes in the publishing world in 2004 by writing and releasing her autobiography titled, "Confessions of an Heiress: A Tongue-in-Chic Peek Behind the Pose". Reportadly she received a $100,000 advance payment. It has since made it to the New York Times Bestseller List. In August of 2006 she cemented her place in music history by releasing her freshman album simply entitled Paris. There were 4 singles spawned from it which included, Stars Are Blind, Turn It Up, Screwed and Nothing In This World.The album managed to make it to number six on the Billboard 200 for a week but it’s overall sales performance has been very poor.
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Cassie is an American singer, model and dancer that was born on August 26, 1986 in New London, Connecticut. She graduated from The Williams School, a preparatory school in New London, Connecticut. When she completed high school in 2004, she announced that she would pursue her career in modeling and singing, effectively skipping college. After high school, she moved to New York City and continued modeling, as well attending classes at the Broadway Dance Center. Cassie was later introduced to Sean "P-Diddy" Combs by a make-up artist from one of her modeling assignments which helped her to get a shot at a music career. On August 8, 2006 she released her first studio album entitled Cassie. The album debuted at number four on the U.S. Billboard 200 with over one hundred thousand copies sold in its first week. It stayed in the top twenty for two weeks, in the top forty for three weeks and on the chart for twelve weeks. As of spring of 2008, the album has sold over three hundred thousand copies. Cassie followed up the success of her debut album with the release of her second studio album Electro Love in 2009. The title of the album is taken from one of it’s songs of the same name.
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A gifted musician since the age of 8 years old, Lil Wayne, otherwise known as Dwayne Michael Carter, is an American rapper who originally gained fame as a member of the rap group Hot Boys. He was born in the New Orleans neighborhood known as Hollygrove where he enrolled in the gifted program of Lafayette Elementary School. At the age of 11 he met Bryan Williams the owner of Cash Money Records and a talented rapper in his own right. Bryan Williams, after listening to the freestyle raps that Lil Wayne left on his answering machine, would eventually mentor the young talent and include him in the distributed songs of Cash Money. In 1997, Get it How U Live was the first album released by Hot Boys. Then in 1999 Lil Wayne released his solo album, The Block Is Hot. But, it wasn’t until his 2004 release entitled Tha Carter that he would gain worldwide notoriety. That work would later be followed by his 2005 release Tha Carter II, which in turn was followed by 2008’s Tha Carter III. Tha Carter III earned Lil Wayne various nods from the industry including 8 grammy nominations. In July of 2009 Lil Wayne is scheduled to release a rock album entitled Rebirth.
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Aaliyah was born on January 16, 1979 in Brooklyn, New York. Her birth name is Aaliyah Dana Haughton and she is the youngest child of Diane and Michael Haughton. When she was five years old, her family moved to Detroit, Michigan, where she was raised along with her older brother, Rashad. She attended a Catholic school, Gesu Elementary, where she received a part in the stage play Annie in first grade and from that point on, she was determined to become an entertainer. Aaliyah’s uncle, Barry Hankerson, was an entertainment lawyer who was previously married to Gladys Knight. As a child, Aaliyah traveled with Gladys Knight and worked with an agent in New York to audition for commercials. At the age of nine she would go on to appear on the variety show Star Search. After Barry Hankerson signed a distribution deal with Jive Records, he signed Aaliyah to his Blackground Records label at the age of twelve. She released her debut album, Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number on June 14, 1994. The album peaked at number 18 on the Billboard 200 and sold two million copies in the United States. After her debut album, Aaliyah left Jive Records and signed to Atlantic Records. She then released her second album, One in a Million. It features the singles,"One in a Million", "Hot Like Fire", "The One I Gave My Heart To", "If Your Girl Only Knew", and "4 Page Letter" and has since sold over two million copies. In 2000, Aaliyah landed her first major movie role in Romeo Must Die. A loose adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. She then went back to the studio and released her third album Aaliyah on July 17, 2001. The album debuted at number two on the Billboard 200 and sold over 20,000 copies it’s first week. The album sold nearly 3 million copies in the United States, and 12 million copies worldwide to date. On August 25, 2001, at 6:45 PM (EST), Aaliyah and various members of her record company boarded a twin engine Cessna 402B at Abaco Island, Bahamas. The plane crashed shortly after takeoff, killing Aaliyah and all members on board.
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