Steve Miller Band (1) 100 views 0 favorites Steve Miller's career has encompassed two distinct stages: one of the top San Francisco blues-rockers during the late '60s and early '70s, and one of the top-selling pop/rock acts of the mid- to late '70s and early '80s with hits like "The Joker," "Fly Like an Eagle," "Rock'n Me," and "Abracadabra." Miller was turned on to music by his father, who worked as a pathologist but knew stars like Charles Mingus and Les Paul, whom he brought home as guests; Paul taught the young Miller some guitar chords and let him sit in on a session. Miller formed a blues band, the Marksmen Combo, at age 12 with friend Boz Scaggs; the two teamed up again at the University of Wisconsin in a group called the Ardells, later the Fabulous Night Trains. Miller moved to Chicago in 1964 to get involved in the local blues scene, teaming with Barry Goldberg for two years.
He then moved to San Francisco and formed the first incarnation of the Steve Miller Blues Band, featuring guitarist James "Curly" Cooke, bassist Lonnie Turner, and drummer Tim Davis. The band built a local following through a series of free concerts and backed Chuck Berry in 1967 at a Fillmore date later released as a live album. Scaggs moved to San Francisco later that year and replaced Cooke in time to play the Monterey Pop Festival; it was the first of many personnel changes. Capitol signed the group as the Steve Miller Band following the festival.
The band flew to London to record Children of the Future, which was praised by critics and received some airplay on FM radio. It established Miller's early style as a blues-rocker influenced but not overpowered by psychedelia. The follow-up, Sailor, has been hailed as perhaps Miller's best early effort; it reached number 24 on the Billboard album charts and consolidated Miller's fan base. A series of high-quality albums with similar chart placements followed; while Miller remained a popular artist, pop radio failed to pick up on any of his material at this time, even though tracks like "Space Cowboy" and "Brave New World" had become FM rock staples. Released in 1971, Rock Love broke Miller's streak with a weak band lineup and poor material, and Miller followed it with the spotty Recall the Beginning: A Journey from Eden. Things began to look even worse for Miller when he broke his neck in a car accident and subsequently developed hepatitis, which put him out of commission for most of 1972 and early 1973.
Miller spent his recuperation time reinventing himself as a blues-influenced pop/rocker, writing compact, melodic, catchy songs. This approach was introduced on his 1973 LP, The Joker, and was an instant success, with the album going platinum and the title track hitting number one on the pop charts. Now an established star, Miller elected to take three years off. He purchased a farm and built his own recording studio, at which he crafted the wildly successful albums Fly Like an Eagle and Book of Dreams at approximately the same time. Fly Like an Eagle was released in 1976 and eclipsed its predecessor in terms of quality and sales (over four million copies) in spite of the long downtime in between. It also gave Miller his second number one hit with "Rock'n Me," plus several other singles. Book of Dreams was almost as successful, selling over three million copies and producing several hits as well. All of the hits from Miller's first three pop-oriented albums were collected on Greatest Hits 1974-1978, which to date has sold over six million copies and remains a popular catalog item.
Miller again took some time off, not returning again until late 1981 with the disappointing Circle of Love. Just six months later, Miller rebounded with Abracadabra; the title track gave him his third number one single. The remaining albums released in the '80s -- Italian X Rays,1984; Living in the 20th Century, 1986; and Born 2B Blue, 1988 -- weren't consistent enough to be critically or commercially successful. The early '90s saw Miller return to form with Wide River (the title track becoming a Top 40 chart entry) and the release of a retrospective box set compiled by the artist himself. Miller continued to headline shows into the 2000s, sharing the bill with classic rock acts such as 2008 tourmate Joe Cocker. He also announced the impending release of a new studio album of R&B covers. In 2010, the band released Bingo!, the first release on Miller's own Space Cowboy Records.
Stevie Nicks (2) 312 views 0 favorites Stephanie Lynn Nicks (born May 26, 1948) is an American singer, songwriter, and producer known for her work with the band Fleetwood Mac and as a solo artist.
After starting her career as a duo with her then-boyfriend Lindsey Buckingham, releasing the album Buckingham Nicks to little success, Nicks joined Fleetwood Mac in 1975, helping the band to become one of the best-selling music acts of all time with over 120 million records sold worldwide. Rumours, the band's second album with Nicks, became one of the best-selling albums worldwide, being certified 20× platinum in the US.
In 1981, while remaining a member of Fleetwood Mac, Nicks began her solo career, releasing the studio album Bella Donna, which topped the Billboard 200 and has reached multiplatinum status. She has released eight studio solo albums and seven studio albums with Fleetwood Mac, selling a certified total of 65 million copies in the US alone.
After the release of her first solo album, Rolling Stone named her the "Reigning Queen of Rock and Roll". Nicks was named one of the 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time and one of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time by Rolling Stone. Her Fleetwood Mac songs "Landslide", "Rhiannon", and "Dreams", with the last being the band's only number one hit in the US, together with her solo hit "Edge of Seventeen", have all been included in Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. She is the first woman to have been inducted twice into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: first as a member of Fleetwood Mac in 1998 and then as a solo artist in 2019.
Nicks has garnered eight Grammy Award nominations and two American Music Award nominations as a solo artist. She has won numerous awards with Fleetwood Mac, including a Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1978 for Rumours.
The albums Fleetwood Mac, Rumours, and Bella Donna have been included in the "Greatest of All Time Billboard 200 Albums" chart by Billboard. Furthermore, Rumours was rated the seventh-greatest album of all time in Rolling Stone's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", as well as the fourth-greatest album by female acts.
Stina Nordenstam (1) 82 views 0 favorites Stina Nordenstam (born Kristina Ulrika Nordenstam on 4 March 1969 in Stockholm, Sweden) is a Swedish singer, songwriter and musician. In 1991, the year she released her first album Memories of a Colour, Nordenstam played at the Swedish parliament as part of the Year of Jazz. Her early work, including her second album, And She Closed Her Eyes, released in 1994, was significantly jazz-influenced, with only subtle elements of alternative rock. With 1997's Dynamite she started down a darker, more experimental path; most of the album was filled with processed, distorted electric guitars and unusual beats, but careful listening revealed her unique song-writing abilities. An album of covers, People Are Strange, followed before she returned in 2001 with This Is Stina Nordenstam, an album with shorter songs and a more pop-like feel; ex-Suede vocalist Brett Anderson featured on two tracks. In 2003 Nordenstam appeared in a duet with Jonas Bjerre from Mew on Mew's third album Frengers, with a song called "Her Voice Is beyond Her Years". Between 2003 and 2004 she made the Swedish radio-theatre series called The Fears of the Ice, about one of the first polar expeditions. Her 2004 album, The World Is Saved, continues the path set on This Is..., but presents a more realised sound and acknowledges her earlier jazz influences more. In addition to being a musician, Nordenstam also works in other fields, such as photography and music-video directing. Slightly reclusive, she gives very few interviews, rarely performs live and even alters her appearance using wigs and make-up for album covers and magazines. During the promotion for The World Is Saved, however, she gave more interviews than usual, and even talked about the possibility of future live performances. In 2006, Nordenstam appeared on Snow Borne Sorrow, an album by the band Nine Horses, singing duets with the band's vocalist, David Sylvian.
Sting (5) 676 views 0 favorites After disbanding the Police at the peak of their popularity in 1984, Sting quickly established himself as a viable solo artist, one obsessed with expanding the boundaries of pop music. Sting incorporated heavy elements of jazz, classical, and worldbeat into his music, writing lyrics that were literate and self-consciously meaningful, and he was never afraid to emphasize this fact in the press. For such unabashed ambition, he was equally loved and reviled, with supporters believing that he was at the forefront of literate, intelligent rock and his critics finding his entire body of work pompous. Either way, Sting remained one of pop's biggest superstars for the first ten years of his solo career, before his record sales began to slip.
Before the Police were officially disbanded, Sting began work on his first solo album late in 1984, rounding up a group of jazz musicians as a supporting band. Moving from bass to guitar, he recorded his solo debut, 1985's The Dream of the Blue Turtles, with Branford Marsalis, Kenny Kirkland, and Omar Hakim. The move wasn't entirely unexpected, since Sting had played with jazz and progressive rock bands in his youth, but the result was considerably more mature and diverse than any Police record. The album became a hit, with "If You Love Somebody Set Them Free," "Love Is the Seventh Wave," and "Fortress Around Your Heart" reaching the American Top Ten. Sting brought the band out on an extensive tour and filmed the proceedings for a 1986 documentary called Bring on the Night, which appeared alongside a live double album of the same name. That year, Sting participated in a half-hearted Police reunion that resulted in only one new song, a re-recorded version of "Don't Stand So Close to Me."
Following the aborted Police reunion, Sting began working on the ambitious Nothing Like the Sun, which was dedicated to his recently deceased mother. Proceeding from a jazz foundation, and again collaborating with Marsalis, Sting worked with a number of different musicians on the album, including Gil Evans and former Police guitarist Andy Summers. The album received generally positive reviews upon its release in late 1987, and it generated hit singles with "We'll Be Together" and "They Dance Alone." Following its release, Sting began actively campaigning for Amnesty International and environmentalism, establishing the Rainforest Foundation, which was designed to raise awareness about preserving the Brazilian rainforest. An abridged Spanish version of Nothing Like the Sun, Nada Como el Sol, was released in 1988.
Sting took several years to deliver the follow-up to Nothing Like the Sun, during which time he appeared in a failed Broadway revival of The Threepenny Opera in 1989. His father also died, which inspired 1991's The Soul Cages, a dense, dark, and complex album. Although the album peaked at number two and spawned the Top Ten hit "All This Time," the record was less successful than its predecessor. Two years later, he delivered Ten Summoner's Tales, a light, pop-oriented record that became a hit on the strength of two Top 20 singles, "If I Ever Lose My Faith in You" and "Fields of Gold." At the end of 1993, "All for Love," a song he recorded with Rod Stewart and Bryan Adams for The Three Musketeers, became a number one hit. The single confirmed that Sting's audience had shifted from new wave/college rock fans to adult contemporary, and the 1994 compilation Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting played to that new fan base.
Three years after Ten Summoner's Tales, Sting released Mercury Falling in the spring of 1996. Although the album debuted highly, it quickly fell down the charts, stalling at platinum sales and failing to generate a hit single. Although the album failed, Sting remained a popular concert attraction, a feat that confirmed his immense popularity regardless of his chart status. Released in 1999, Brand New Day turned his commercial fortunes around in a big way, though, eventually going triple-platinum and earning two Grammy Awards. Issued in 2003, Sacred Love also did well, and Sting spent several years with the reunited Police before returning to his solo game for 2009's If on a Winter's Night.... One year later, he hit the road alongside the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, who added their own symphonic arrangements to his material. Symphonicities, a companion CD, and Live in Berlin, released in conjunction with the world tour, arrived that same year.
Stone Temple Pilots (5) 382 views 0 favorites Stone Temple Pilots (often abbreviated to STP) is an American rock band from San Diego, California that consists of Scott Weiland (lead vocals), brothers Robert DeLeo (bass guitar, vocals) and Dean DeLeo (guitar), and Eric Kretz (drums, percussion).
After forming in 1986 under the name Mighty Joe Young, the band found immediate success in 1993 after signing with Atlantic Records and releasing their debut album Core (1992) under the STP moniker. The band went on to become one of the most commercially successful bands of the 1990s, releasing four more studio albums: Purple (1994), Tiny Music... Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop (1996), No. 4 (1999) and Shangri-La Dee Da (2001) before separating in 2003, after which the band members partook in various projects, most notably Velvet Revolver and Army of Anyone. STP eventually reconvened in 2008 for a reunion tour, released a new self-titled album in 2010, and have been actively touring since.
While initially displaying a sound typically identified as grunge early on in its career, further releases from the band have shown a variety of influences, including psychedelic rock, bossa nova and classic rock. The band's evolution throughout the 1990s and early 2000s involved several tumultuous periods of commercial highs and lows, brought about in part by Weiland's well-publicized struggles with drug addiction.
Strike (1) 272 views 0 favorites Strike were a British electronic dance music band formed in 1994 consisting of Matt Cantor (later of Freestylers), Andy Gardner (later of Plump DJs) and the vocalist Victoria Newton.
Strike formed towards the end of 1994. A chance vocal session for Victoria Newton at the studios of Fresh Records in Ladbroke Grove, landed her the role as the lead singer.
Strike's first single, "Formula One", entered the lower reaches of the UK top 100 chart. They did not break through until "U Sure Do" was released in December 1994, originally charting at number 31 in the UK Singles Chart, only to re-enter the chart and climb to number 4 in April 1995. due to the track becoming a major club hit. They then began to tour extensively, appearing on television programs such as Top of the Pops and MTV and playing to audiences as large as 70,000. "U Sure Do" achieved chart success in many territories and this took the band to Spain, Italy, Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Germany and Japan.
Strike went on to produce another four UK Top 40 hits and an album I Saw the Future was released in 1997 on Fresh Records. They toured with and supported many international artists including the Backstreet Boys, Jocelyn Brown and the Spice Girls.
Newton was offered a solo recording contract with Strike's label, Fresh. In September 1999, she made her debut release with "Martha's Harbour", a cover of the All About Eve hit, including mixes by Mike Koglin and Blu. Although it failed to reach the UK Singles Chart, it was a No. 8 UK club hit and a favourite of DJ, Paul Van Dyk.
A solo album was recorded and planned for release for late 1999, entitled Live for Today but was cancelled. In the 2000s, Newton turned her attention to jazz and Latin music, and in 2003 released a solo album of jazz and Brazilian music entitled The Song is You.
In 2006, remixes of "U Sure Do" were released.
Sublime (4) 595 views 0 favorites Sublime was an American reggae rock and ska punk band from Long Beach, California, formed in 1988. The band's line-up, consistent throughout its duration, consisted of Bradley Nowell (vocals and guitar), Eric Wilson (bass), and Bud Gaugh (drums). Lou Dog, Nowell's dalmatian, was the mascot of the band. Nowell died of a heroin overdose in 1996, resulting in the band's breakup. In 1997, songs such as "What I Got", "Santeria", "Wrong Way", "Doin' Time", and "April 29, 1992 (Miami)" were released to U.S. radio.
Sublime released three studio albums, one live album, five compilation albums (one of which also contains never-before released material), three EPs, and one box set. Although their first two albums—40oz. to Freedom (1992) and Robbin' the Hood (1994)—were slightly popular in the United States, Sublime did not experience major commercial success until 1996 with their self-titled third album, released two months after Nowell's death, which peaked at No. 13 on the Billboard 200, and spawned the single "What I Got", which remains the band's only No. 1 hit single (on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart) in their musical career. As of 2022, the band has sold over 20 million albums worldwide, including about ten million in the U.S. alone. Michael "Miguel" Happoldt and Marshall "Ras MG" Goodman contributed to several Sublime songs.
In 2009, the surviving members attempted to reform the band with Rome Ramirez, a young guitarist and avowed Sublime fan from California. However, not long after performing at Cypress Hill's Smokeout Festival, a Los Angeles judge banned the new lineup from using the Sublime name as they needed permission from Nowell's estate, which owns the rights to the Sublime name. This prompted the lineup of Wilson, Gaugh and Ramirez to change their name to Sublime with Rome, which has since released three albums, although Gaugh left the group shortly after the release of their 2011 debut Yours Truly.
Suicidal Tendencies (1) 421 views 0 favorites Suicidal Tendencies is an American hardcore punk band formed in 1980 in Venice, California, by vocalist Mike Muir, who is the only remaining original member of the band. Along with D.R.I., Corrosion of Conformity, and Stormtroopers of Death, they are often credited as one of "the fathers of crossover thrash". Their current lineup includes Muir, guitarists Dean Pleasants and Ben Weinman, bassist Ra Díaz and drummer Dave Lombardo. Notable musicians who have contributed to the band's studio or live activities include guitarists Rocky George and Mike Clark, bassists Louiche Mayorga, Robert Trujillo, Josh Paul and Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner, and drummers Amery Smith, Jimmy DeGrasso, Brooks Wackerman, David Hidalgo Jr., Thomas Pridgen and session musician Josh Freese.
Suicidal Tendencies have released thirteen studio albums (four of which are composed of re-recorded or previously released material), two EPs, four split albums, four compilation albums, and two long-form videos. The band achieved their first success with their 1983 self-titled debut album; it spawned the single "Institutionalized", which was one of the first hardcore punk videos to receive substantial airplay on MTV. After releasing one new song on the split release Welcome to Venice (1985) and their second studio album Join the Army (1987), Suicidal Tendencies were signed to Epic Records in 1988, and continued their commercial success with its next three albums, How Will I Laugh Tomorrow When I Can't Even Smile Today (1988), Controlled by Hatred/Feel Like Shit...Déjà Vu (1989) and Lights...Camera...Revolution! (1990); the latter two were certified Gold by the RIAA. Their 1992 follow-up album The Art of Rebellion was another success, and included three of their biggest hits "Asleep at the Wheel", "Nobody Hears" and "I'll Hate You Better".
After releasing two more studio albums (Still Cyco After All These Years and Suicidal for Life), the band broke up and severed ties from Sony and Epic in 1995. However, they reunited a year later and have continued to perform and record since then. After over a decade of work and many lineup changes, Suicidal Tendencies released their eleventh studio album with all-new material, 13, in 2013, followed three years later by World Gone Mad (2016); both albums were well-received by critics, and considered comebacks for Suicidal Tendencies. Their most recent releases are the EP Get Your Fight On! and an album featuring unreleased and re-recorded material Still Cyco Punk After All These Years, both released in 2018. The band is currently working on new material for the follow-up to World Gone Mad.