Bryan Adams

Born 5^th November 1959 in Kingston, Ontario, Adams began taking an interest in music in his teens, learning to play a variety of instruments including the guitar, bass guitar, piano, keyboards and harmonica. He quit school at the age of fifteen to play with bands like Shock and Sweeney Todd – who released the album 1977 album If Wishes Were Horses with London Records – before deciding to pursue a career as a solo artist.

Adams sent demos to a number of record labels, eventually signing with A&M Records in 1978. He released his first single Let Me Take You Dancing in March the following year. This was followed by his 1980 self-titled debut album, which produced two Canadian Top 100 hits – Hidin’ From Love and Give Me Your Love – and the 1981 album You Want It You Got It. This was followed by his mainstream breakthrough album Cuts Like a Knife, which reached number eight on the Billboard 200 and produced the hit singles Straight from the Heart, Cuts Like a Knife and This Time. Then came the follow-up albums Reckless and Into the Fire, which reached numbers one and seven in the US charts respectively and produced ten Canadian Top 20 singles, including the numbers ones Heaven, Summer of ‘69 and Heat of the Night, and the Top 5 hits Run to You and Somebody.

During the 1990s Adams released a further three hit studio albums and scored huge hits with singles like Can’t Stop This Thing We Started, Thought I’d Died and Gone to Heaven, Please Forgive Me, All for Love (with Rod Stewart and Sting), Have You Ever Really Loved a Woman?, The Only Thing That Looks Good on Me Is You, Let’s Make a Night to Remember, I Finally Found Someone (with Barbra Streisand), When You’re Gone (with Melanie C) and Cloud Number Nine.

But undoubtedly his biggest hit of the decade was (Everything I Do) I Do It for You, which reached number one in over twenty countries worldwide. It spent seven consecutive weeks on the top spot in the US and sixteen in the UK (still the longest in British chart history) and won the singer a Grammy Award in 1992.

Since the turn of the century Bryan Adams has released two further albums – Room Service and 11 – and scored UK Top 20 hits with the singles Here I Am and Open Road.

Born 5^th January 1969 in Canton, Ohio, Manson originally aspired to a career in journalism, but soon took a more active interest in music. He formed Marilyn Manson & the Spooky Kids in Florida in 1989 – choosing the name Marilyn Manson as a portmanteau of the Hollywood actress Marilyn Monroe and the serial killer Charles Manson – but this was later shortened to simply Marilyn Manson.

Manson and his band first came to fame with the release of their 1994 album Portrait of an American Family. Produced by Trent Raznor (of Nine Inch Nails fame) and released on Manson’s own record label Nothing Records, the album produced the singles Get Your Gunn and Lunchbox, and earned the group a cult following. They then entered the mainstream with their next album Antichrist Superstar. Released in October 1996, it shot to number three on the Billboard 200 and went on to sell over 7.5 million copies worldwide. It also produced two Mainstream Rock Tracks chart Top 30 hits: The Beautiful People and Tourniquet.

Mechanical Animals, the group’s final album of the 1990s, hit the top spot of the Billboard 200 (and number eight in the UK) and spawned the UK number 12 hit The Dope Show, as well as the singles I Don’t Like the Drugs (But the Drugs Like Me) and Rock Is Dead. Since the turn of the century they have released four more US Top 20 albums – Holy Wood (In the Shadow of the Valley of Death), The Golden Age of Grotesque, Eat Me Drink Me and The High End of Low – and scored hits with singles like Disposable Teens, Tainted Love, mOBSCENE, Personal Jesus and Heart-Shaped Glasses (When the Heart Guides the Hand).

In December 2009, Manson stated that fans “can expect a new record a lot sooner than they think”.

Born 7^th June 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince recorded his first demo tape at the age of seventeen and was immediately singed to Warner Bros. Records. He played all 23 instruments on his debut album, 1978’s For You, but it was a critical and commercial flop and produced only one notable single – Soft and Wet – which reached 92 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fortunately, he enjoyed more success with 1979’s Prince, which produced the singles I Wanna Be Your Lover (#11 on the Hot 100), Still Waiting and Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad?, and this was followed by the critically acclaimed albums Dirty Mind and Controversy, which gave Prince a devoted cult following.

The 1980s saw a string of successful albums, with four US number one hits – When Doves Cry, Let’s Go Crazy, Kiss and Batdance – and the Top 20 singles 1999, Little Red Corvette, Delirious, Purple Rain, I Would Die 4 U, Raspberry Beret, Pop Life, Sign of the Times, U Got the Look, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, Alphabet Street and Partyman.

Prince continued to produce hits throughout the 1990s – including Thieves in the Temple, Cream, Diamonds and Pearls, 7, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and I Hate U – and has scored an incredible thirty Top 40 singles to date, selling over 100 million records worldwide. He has also been credited with writing hit songs for a variety of other artists, including Chaka Khan, The Bangles and Sinéad O’Connor, making him one of the most successful artists in music history.

His latest album, 20Ten, is due for release in late 2010.

Norah Jones

Born Geethali Norah Jones Shankar on 30^th March 1979 to concert producer Sue Jones and the world famous Grammy Award-winning sitar player Ravi Shankar, Norah Jones learned to sing and took piano lessons at a young age. She eventually majored in jazz piano at the University of North Texas and worked as a lounge singer for a couple of years before signing with Blue Note Records as a solo artist in late 2000.

After releasing the EP This Is My Time in 2001, Jones shot to fame a year later with the release of her debut contemporary jazz album Come Away with Me. The record debuted at the top of the US Billboard 200 chart, with the single Don’t Know Why reaching number 25 on the singles chart. The release earned Jones eight Grammy Awards, including for Best New Artist, Album of the Year and Record of the Year (Don’t Know Why), and has sold in excess of 22 million copies to date.

Jones’ second album, Feels Like Home, was also an enormous success, selling over a million copies in the first week of its US release and eventually shipping over ten million copies worldwide. The album produced the smash hit single Sunrise and earned Jones another three Grammy Award nominations, winning one for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (Sunrise).

The singer’s third album Not Too Late followed in 2007. It reached the number one position in twenty countries around the world, including the US, UK and Germany, and eventually sold over six million copies. It also produced the singles Thinking About You, Not Too Late, Sinkin’ Soon and Until the End.

Her latest album, 2009’s The Fall, reached number three in the US and produced the singles Chasing Pirates, Young Blood and Stuck. Jones began her fourth world tour in March 2010.