No Doubt is an American pop rock/ska punk band from Anaheim, California, currently consisting of Gwen Stefani on vocals, Tom Dumont on lead guitar and keyboards, Tony Kanal on bass guitar and keyboards and Adrian Young on drums and percussion.

The group was formed by Eric Stefani and his sister Gwen in 1986. Originally called Applecore, they eventually got together a whole group of musicians and began practicing in their garage. After playing several gigs in the local area, the group was spotted by A&R man Tony Ferguson in 1990, and he quickly signed them to the label Interscope Records.

The group’s self-titled debut album was released in 1992. It was a commercial flop, selling just 30,000 copies, and led to Eric departing the band in 1994. However, they continued to record music, releasing The Beacon Street Collection on their own independent label in March 1995. After it sold more than three times the copies of their debut, it convinced their label to invest more time and money in the production of their third studio album Tragic Kingdom, which was released in October 1995.

The album was an instant success. It shot to number one in the Billboard 200 chart after the release of the hit single Just a Girl and went on to sell over sixteen million copies around the world. It also produced six further singles, including the international number one (and Grammy Award-nominated) hit Don’t Speak.

No Doubt released two more albums over the next six years – Return of Saturn and Rock Steady – which both charted inside the US Top 10 and sold millions of copies between them. The records also produced several Top 40 singles, including Simple Kind of Life, Hey Baby (ft. Bounty Killer), Hella Good, Underneath It All (ft. Lady Saw) and It’s My Life, and earned the group a total of six Grammy Award nominations. They eventually won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group for both Hey Baby and Underneath It All.

Having been on hiatus for the last few years as Gwen Stefani enjoyed a successful solo career, No Doubt have recently returned to the studio to work on their sixth studio album – set to be released in 2011.

Sir Elton John is a multiple Grammy Award-winning English pop/rock singer-songwriter, composer and pianist. He has released more than thirty albums in a career spanning almost five decades.

Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25^th March 1947 in Pinner, Middlesex, John took an interest in music – particularly rock and roll music – from a very young age. He started playing piano at the age of three and took up formal lessons at seven. At the age of 11, he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, and by his mid-teens he had a regular gig as a pianist in a nearby pub – the Northwood Hills Hotel. He also briefly joined a band called Bluesology.

After changing his name to Elton John (an homage to his bandmates Elton Dean and Long John Baldry) he met and began working with the lyricist Bernie Taupin – a collaboration that continues today. Together they became song writers for various artists, including Lulu and Roger Cook, and John also appeared as a session musician for artists like The Scaffold and The Hollies. Then, in 1969, Elton John released his debut solo album Empty Sky. This was quickly followed by his breakthrough self-titled album, which reached the Top 5 in the UK, produced the smash hit single Your Song and was nominated for Album of the Year at the 1971 Grammy Awards.

Since then, Elton John has set dozens of pop music records. He has scored an unprecedented 56 Top 40 singles on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart, including the classics Tiny Dancer, Rocket Man, Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, I’m Still Standing, Nikita, Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me and Can You Feel the Love Tonight. His 1997 re-recording of the single Candle in the Wind has sold over 37 million copies worldwide – making it the biggest selling single of all time. To date, Elton John has sold more than 250 million records around the world, and is one of the most commercially successful music artists ever.

The Beatles were a pop/rock band from Liverpool, England. Made up of John Lennon on vocals and rhythm guitar, Paul McCartney on vocals and bass guitar, George Harrison on vocals and lead guitar and Ringo Starr on vocals and drums, they are considered one of the most influential acts of all time.

Formed in 1957 as The Quarrymen, the group first found popularity after playing a string of gigs in Hamburg, Germany. They were signed to EMI Records in 1962 and released their debut album Please Please Me in early 1963. It was an instant hit, shooting to the top of the UK Albums Chart and staying there for thirty weeks, and producing the hit singles Love Me Do, Please Please Me and I Saw Her Standing There.

Next came the smash hit single I Want to Hold Your Hand, which not only reached number one in the UK but also the top spot in the US Billboard Hot 100 – kick-starting the British Invasion of the 1960s. They followed this with their second studio album With The Beatles (released as Meet The Beatles! in the US). It was another huge hit, reaching the top of the UK Albums Chart (and staying there for five months) and producing the now classic singles It Won’t Be Long, All My Loving and Not a Second Time.

Between 1964 and 1970 The Fab Four released a further 25 studio albums and twice as many singles, scoring a record 27 number one hits in the UK and the US. These include Love Me Do, She Loves You, Can’t Buy Me Love, A Hard Day’s Night, Yesterday, Yellow Submarine, Penny Lane, All You Need Is Love, Hey Jude, Let It Be and The Long and Winding Road.

The Beatles are the most commercially successful band in the history of popular music. To date they have sold somewhere between 250 million and one billion records worldwide.

Kelly Clarkson is an American pop rock singer-songwriter who shot to fame as the first winner of American Idol.

Born in Fort Worth, Texas on 24^th April 1982, Clarkson began singing at a young age. She was a member of the high school choir and also performed in a number of school theatre productions and singing competitions. She auditioned for the first series of television talent show American Idol in 2001, at the age of twenty, and eventually won the competition on 4^th September 2002 with 58% of the public vote.

Her first single, A Moment Like This, was released less than two weeks later. It reached number one on the US album charts and sold over 235,000 copies in its first week alone. Clarkson’s debut album Thankful followed in early 2003, going straight to number one on the Billboard 200 and producing her second Top 10 hit single Miss Independent.

Clarkson built on her success with the release of her second album Breakaway in 2004. The album spent more than a year in the US Top 20 and sold over six million copies. The title single Breakaway reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100 and was featured in the film The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, while the second single Since U Been Gone reached number two. The album also spawned three more Top 20 singles – Because of You, Behind These Hazel Eyes and Walk Away - and received two Grammy Awards for Best Pop Vocal Album and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance (Since U Been Gone).

The singer has since released two albums. 2007’s My December and 2009’s All I Ever Wanted reached numbers two and one in the album charts respectively and between them have produced the number one hit My Life Would Suck Without You and the Top 20 singles Never Again and I Do Not Hook Up.

Eric Clapton (CBE) is an English blues-rock guitarist and singer-songwriter, and one of the most influential musicians of all time.

Born 30^th March 1945, Clapton received his first acoustic guitar on his thirteenth birthday and spent much of his late teens busking around Richmond, Kingston and the West End of London. However, in October 1963 he got his big break when he joined the blues-influenced rock and roll band The Yardbirds. The group, now infamous for starting the careers of three of the world’s greatest guitarists – Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page (founder of Led Zeppelin) – pioneered several electronic guitar techniques, such as distortion, feedback and echo, and scored  a number of UK hits including For Your Love, Over Under Sideways Down and Heart Full of Soul.

Clapton left The Yardbirds in May 1965 to form Cream – the world’s first supergroup. They scored a number of UK and US hits, including I Feel Free, Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, Crossroads and Badge, before breaking up in November 1968. Clapton then formed the group Derek and the Dominoes which, while only releasing one album, will forever be remembered for the smash hit single Layla – often voted one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

Eric Clapton went solo in the early 1970s and scored a critical and commercial hit with his 1974 album 461 Ocean Boulevard. It’s notable for including the song I Shot the Sheriff – a cover of the then-unknown Bob Marley’s song and credited with bringing both Marley and reggae music as a whole into the mainstream – as well as the hit single Willie and the Hand Jive.

Since 1975 Clapton has released a further seventeen studio albums and scored hits with singles like Wonderful Tonight, I Can’t Stand It, My Father’s Eyes and Tears in Heaven. He was recently ranked fourth in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time.

Avril Lavigne is a Canadian pop rock/punk singer-songwriter from Belleview, Ontario.

Born 27^th September 1984, Lavigne began singing at the age of two. At fourteen her father built her a home studio, complete with microphone, drum kit, keyboard, rhythm and bass guitars, and Lavigne soon began to perform at country fairs and write her own material.

In 1998 she won a radio competition and got the opportunity to appear with Shania Twain on tour. Off the back of this she was invited to perform on local singer Stephen Medd’s 1999 album Quinte Spirit.

In 2000 Lavigne auditioned for the head of Arista Records, Antonio Reid, and was immediately signed to a two album contract. She dropped out of school and moved to America to record her debut album…

Let’s Go was released in June 2002, when Lavigne was just seventeen. It shot to number two on the Billboard 200, reaching number one in the UK and Canada. It eventually went on to sell over sixteen million copies – making it one of the biggest selling albums of the decade – and produced three Billboard Hot 100 Top 10 singles: Complicated, Sk8er Boi and I’m With You. The album earned a total of eight Grammy Award nominations and led to the singer being named Best New Artist at the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards.

Lavigne’s next album, 2004’s Under My Skin, was also a huge commercial success. It debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 and has, to date, sold over ten million copies worldwide. It spawned the Top 30 singles My Happy Ending and Don’t Tell Me and led to her performing on her first world tour.

The singer’s third album The Best Damn Thing was released in April 2007. It was another Billboard 200 number one hit and has sold over seven million records worldwide to date. The lead single Girlfriend shot to the top spot on the Hot 100 and was the biggest selling song of 2007, while the follow up singles When You’re Gone, Hot and The Best Damn Thing all charted.

In January 2010 Lavigne released the single Alice for the soundtrack to the Tim Burton film Alice in Wonderland, and she is currently working on material for her fourth studio album.

The Cranberries are an alternative rock band from Limerick, Ireland, currently consisting of vocalist Dolores O’Riordan (previously Niall Quinn), guitarist Noel Hogan, bassist Mike Hogan and drummer Fergal Lawler.

Formed as ‘The Cranberry Saw Us’ in Limerick in 1989, the group produced a demo tape of songs in the early 90s and sent it to several record companies in Ireland and the UK. It immediately attracted a lot of attention and, following a short industry bidding war, the group signed with Island Records.

After deciding to shorten their names to ‘The Cranberries’, the group released their debut album Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? in 1993. It became an immediate commercial hit, reaching number one in the UK Albums chart and selling over five million copies in the United States. It produced two hit singles: Linger (which reached number eight in the US) and Dreams (which hit the UK Top 30).

The group released their second album, No Need to Argue, on 3^rd October 1994. Although a much darker record than its predecessor, focusing on subjects like war, death and destruction, it is the group’s most successful album to date. It produced the smash hit single Zombie – a song about The Troubles in Northern Ireland that topped the Australian and German pop charts, as well as the US Billboard Hot Modern Rock Tracks chart. It also produced the UK Top 30 singles Ode to My Family and I Can’t Be With You. To date, the album has sold sold over seventeen million copies around the world.

The band released three more albums during the 1990s and 2000s: To the Faithful Departed, Bury the Hatchet and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.  Between them the records produced a string of hit singles, including Salvation, Free to Decide, When You’re Gone, Promises and Animal Instinct, before the group took a hiatus in 2003. However, they reunited six years later and are currently working on their sixth studio album.