Friday, June 17, 2011

Britney Spears


Britney Jean Spears (born December 2, 1981) is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album ...Baby One More Time in 1999. During her first decade within the music industry, she became a prominent figure in mainstream popular music and popular culture, followed by a much-publicized personal life. Her first two albums established her as a pop icon and broke sales records, while title tracks "...Baby One More Time" and "Oops!... I Did It Again" became international number-one hits. Spears was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop during the late 1990s.


 In 2001, she released her third studio album Britney and expanded her brand, playing the starring role in the film Crossroads. She assumed creative control of her fourth studio album, In the Zone released in 2003, which yielded chart-topping singles "Me Against the Music", "Toxic" and "Everytime". After the release of two compilation albums, Spears experienced personal struggles and her career went under hiatus. Her fifth studio album, Blackout, was released in 2007 and despite receiving little promotion, it spawned hits "Gimme More" and "Piece of Me". In 2008, her erratic behaviour and hospitalizations caused her to be placed in a conservatorship. The same year, her sixth studio album Circus was released, with the global chart-topping lead single "Womanizer". After embarking on The Circus Starring Britney Spears, she released greatest hits The Singles Collection, which featured U.S. and Canadian number-one single "3". In 2011, Spears returned with her seventh studio album, titled Femme Fatale, which was released on March 29, 2011, including the lead single "Hold It Against Me" which has become Spears' fourth U.S. number-one single.The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart.This made Spears the only female artist ever to have six number one debut albums, and have seven albums debut in the top two spots.




Spears has sold over 100 million records worldwide. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the eighth top-selling female artist in the United States, with 33 million certified albums.Spears is also recognized as the best-selling female artist of the first decade of the 21st century, as well as the fifth overall.She was ranked the 8th Artist of the 2000s by Billboard.In June 2010, Spears was ranked sixth on Forbes list of the 100 Most Powerful and Influential celebrities in the world; she is also the third most mentioned musician on the internet, according to Forbes.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Madonna

 Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone (Italian pronunciation: [tʃik̚ˈkoːne]); August 16, 1958) is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan, she moved to New York City in 1977 to pursue a career in modern dance. After performing in the music groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her debut album in 1983. She followed it with a series of albums in which she found immense popularity by pushing the boundaries of lyrical content in mainstream popular music and imagery in her music videos, which became a fixture on MTV. Throughout her career, many of her songs have hit number one on the record charts, including "Like a Virgin", "Papa Don't Preach", "Like a Prayer", "Vogue", "Frozen", "Music", "Hung Up", and "4 Minutes". Critics have praised Madonna for her diverse musical productions while at the same time serving as a lightning rod for religious controversy.


Her career was further enhanced by film appearances that began in 1979, despite mixed commentary. She won critical acclaim and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for her role in Evita (1996), but has received harsh feedback for other film roles. Madonna's other ventures include being a fashion designer, children's book author, film director and producer. She has been acclaimed as a businesswoman, and in 2007, she signed an unprecedented US $120 million contract with Live Nation.
Madonna has sold more than 300 million records worldwide and is recognized as the world's top-selling female recording artist of all time by the Guinness World Records. According to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), she is the best-selling female rock artist of the 20th century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States, behind Barbra Streisand, with 64 million certified albums. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked Madonna at number two, behind only The Beatles, on the Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Artists, making her the most successful solo artist in the history of the Billboard chart. She was also inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same year. Considered to be one of the "25 Most Powerful Women of the Past Century" by Time for being an influential figure in contemporary music, Madonna is known for continuously reinventing both her music and image, and for retaining a standard of autonomy within the recording industry.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Shakira



Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll (born February 2, 1977),known professionally as Shakira (pronounced /ʃəˈkɪəɹə/, Spanish: [tʃaˈkiɾa] or [ʃaˈkiɾa]),is a Colombian singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, dancer, and philanthropist who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s. Born and raised in Barranquilla, Colombia, Shakira revealed many of her talents in school as a live performer, demonstrating her vocal ability with rock and roll, Latin and Middle Eastern influences with her own original twist on belly dancing. Shakira is a native Spanish speaker and also speaks fluent English and Portuguese as well as some Italian, French and Arabic.
After commercial flops with local producers on her first two albums, and being little-known outside Colombia, Shakira decided to produce her own brand of music. In 1995 she released Pies Descalzos, which brought her great fame in Latin America and Spain, and her 1998 album ¿Dónde Están los Ladrones? was a critical success selling over 7 million copies worldwide.In 2001, aided by the worldwide success of her first English single "Whenever, Wherever" that became the best selling single of 2002, she broke through into the English-speaking world with the release of Laundry Service, which sold over 13 million copies worldwide. Four years later, Shakira released two album projects called Fijación Oral Vol. 1 and Oral Fixation Vol. 2. Both reinforced her success, particularly with the best selling song of the 2000s, "Hips Don't Lie".




In 1995, Shakira founded the Pies Descalzos Foundation. It is a Colombian charity with special schools for poor children all around Colombia. During her career, Shakira has performed at a large number of benefit concerts. Among the most famous are the Live 8 benefit concert in July 2005, the Live Earth concert, Hamburg where she headlined the show, as well as the "Clinton Global Initiative" created by former US President Bill Clinton. She was also invited to the Oval Office by President Barack Obama in February 2010 to discuss early childhood development.
She has won two Grammy Awards, seven Latin Grammy Awards, twelve Billboard Latin Music Awards and has been Golden Globe-nominated She is also the highest-selling Colombian artist of all time, and the second most successful female Latin singer after Gloria Estefan, having sold over 50 million albums worldwide according to Sony Music Entertainment. Her U.S. album sales stand at 9.6 million.
In the fall of 2009, Shakira released her sixth album She Wolf worldwide. Shakira's "Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)", was chosen as the official song for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.The song has received generally positive critical reception, and has become a worldwide smash hit and the biggest selling World Cup song of all time. On YouTube, the English version of the music video is the 3rd most watched video of all time with over 300 million views.Her seventh studio album, the bilingual Sale el Sol, was released October 2010 and has shipped over 4 million copies worldwide.[16]
She was engaged to the son of the former President of Argentina, Antonio de la Rúa. Their relationship lasted almost 11 years and ended in August 2010.She is now dating Spanish footballer Gerard Piqué and confirmed their relationship in March 2011

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Justin Bieber


 Justin Drew Bieber(pronounced /ˈbiːbər/ bee-bər, born March 1, 1994) is a Canadian pop/R&B singer-songwriter and actor. Bieber was discovered in 2008 by Scooter Braun, who happened to come across Bieber's videos on YouTube and later became his manager. Braun arranged for him to meet with Usher in Atlanta, Georgia, and Bieber was soon signed to Raymond Braun Media Group (RBMG), a joint venture between Braun and Usher, and then to a recording contract with Island Records offered by L.A. Reid.His debut single, "One Time", released worldwide in 2009, peaked in the top ten in Canada and charted in the top thirty in several international markets. His debut release, My World, followed on November 17, 2009, and was eventually certified platinum in the United States. He became the first artist to have seven songs from a debut album chart on the Billboard Hot 100.


His first full studio release, My World 2.0, was released on March 23, 2010 and has since received similar success; it debuted at number one and within the top ten of several countries, and was certified platinum in the United States. It was preceded by the worldwide top-ten single, "Baby," in January 2010. The music video of "Baby" is currently ranked as the most viewed and most discussed YouTube video, and was the most disliked until being overtaken by Rebecca Black's song Friday.Bieber followed-up the release of his debut album with his first headlining tour, the My World Tour, the remix albums My Worlds Acoustic and Never Say Never – The Remixes, and the 3D biopic-concert film Justin Bieber: Never Say Never – which had an opening weekend gross that nearly matched the record for the biggest opening weekend for a concert-film.
Bieber has been nominated and awarded numerous accolades over the past few years, winning Artist of the Year at the 2010 American Music Awards, and being nominated for Best New Artist and Best Pop Vocal Album at the 53rd Grammy Awards, among others. Bieber is considered a teen idol, and has been subject to acclaim from fans, as well as criticism and controversy from matters concerning his popularity and image.