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    August 1st, 2010White44Bryan Adams

    Bryan Adams is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer.

    Born 5th 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.

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    July 21st, 2010White44Alanis Morissette

    Alanis Morissette is a Canadian-American pop/alternative rock singer-songwriter.

    Born 1st June 1974 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, Morissette began playing the piano at the age of six. She wrote her first song Stay with Me at the age of ten, and released it as a single with the backing of local folk singer Lindsay Morgan. Her musical education continued throughout elementary and high school, and at the age of twelve she also took an acting role as a regular character on the CTV/Nickelodeon show You Can’t Do That on Television.

    She entered a number of local talent competitions in her teens and won several of them. She also appeared on the renowned Star Search in New York, USA, but was sent home after just the first round. However, this appearance led to her signing her first record contract in 1988. She released two albums (in Canada only) in the early 1990s – Alanis and Now Is the Time – and scored Top 40 hits with the singles Too Hot, Walk Away, Feel Your Love, An Emotion Away, No Apologies and (Change Is) Never a Waste of Time.

    But it was 1995’s Jagged Little Pill that shot Morissette to international fame. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 (spending twelve weeks there in total) and sold over 33 million copies worldwide – making it one of the best-selling records of all time. It was nominated for six Grammy Awards (winning four) and produced five US Top 10 singles – You Oughta Know, Ironic, You Learn, Hand in My Pocket and Head over Feet.

    Alanis Morissette has released four more albums since then – Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998), Under Rug Swept (2002), So-Called Chaos (2004) and Flavors of Entanglement (2008) – which have produced the hit singles Uninvited, Thank U, Hands Clean, Precious Illusions, Hands Clean, EverythingEight Easy Steps, Underneath and I Remain.

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