After a sFirst rising to fame at the helm of the popular folk-rock band 10, 000 Maniacs, Natalie Merchant subsequently enjoyed even greater success as a solo performer as her plaintive vocals and literate, socially conscious songs established her among the preeminent female performers in contemporary pop. Born October 26, 1963 in Jamestown, New York, Merchant joined 10, 000 Maniacs at the age of 17, quickly becoming the band's driving artistic force; after a pair of successful independent releases, they signed to Elektra in 1985, and in the years to follow emerged among the most popular acts in alternative rock, shooting into the Top 40 with 1987's superb In My Tribe. However, around the time of recording 1992's Our Time in Eden, Merchant gave her bandmates two years notice, and after the release of 1994's MTV Unplugged publicly announced she was leaving their ranks. Her 1995 solo debut, Tigerlily, debuted just shy of the Top Ten, scoring a hit with the single "Carnival; " it was followed in 1998 by Ophelia. Live in Concert, recorded at New York's Neil Simon Theatre, appeared a year later. A prominent social activist, Merchant also regularly campaigned in the name of such hot-button issues as animal rights, domestic violence and homelessness.
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Five For Fighting has one main member, John Ondrasik, who considers himself mainly a singer and songwriter, though he is also competent as a guitarist and pianist. The name he picked for his band refers to a form of discipline used in the turbulent sport of hockey. Players who fight during the game are sent storming away to cool down for five minutes in a penalty box. In other words, they get five for fighting.
Ondrasik, born and raised in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, started his musical training when he was only two years old. His mother, a piano teacher, gave him lessons. When he was around 13, he appropriated — which is a nicer way of putting it than saying stole — his sister's guitar. He taught himself to use this instrument and soon to write music. Somewhere along the way, he also took vocal lessons in opera. He soon discovered that opera wasn't his cup of tea, and Ondrasik leaned toward music by artists like Billy Joel, Journey, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, and Earth, Wind & Fire.
In 1997 Ondrasik, using the stage name Five For Fighting, saw the release of his debut album, Message for Albert, recorded under the Capitol Records label. "Last Great American," "2 Frogs," "Wise Man," and "Day by Day" are some of the arena rock — salted with pop — that fans can sample on this first album. Released on Columbia Records, Five For Fighting's sophomore offering, American Town, didn't come until three years later. Continuing his themes of love and life, although with a more political spin, Ondrasik re-teamed with producer Greg Wattenberg and had mixing help from Jack Joseph Puig, who has worked with the Goo Goo Dolls, Beck, Counting Crows, and Semisonic. When he isn't recording, Ondrasik tours often, and has traveled with artists like the Dave Matthews Band and with singer David Gray.
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Since her debut in 1988, Sarah McLachlan's atmospheric folk-pop has gained a devoted following of fans not only in Canada, where she has established star status, but also in the U.S. and U.K. Each album has shown her growing both as a musician and songwriter, continually redefining herself and emerging as a major voice in the growing Adult Alternative Pop format.
Sarah McLachlan was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia on January 28, 1968 where she took vocal training in addition to classical piano and guitar lessons as a child. After a year of art training at the Nova Scotia School of Design, while fronting a new wave band, October Game, Nettwerk Records approached her for a solo deal. She initially turned it down in favor of continued studies, but took them up on the offer in late 1987 and relocated to Vancouver. On the strength of her debut, 1988's Touch, she was signed to Arista for international distribution. The album eventually reached gold status in Canada and was reissued worldwide in 1989. In 1991, she followed up with Solace, an impressive collection that showed a great leap in songcraft and built a strong cult following in the U.S.
In September 1992, following a 14-month promotional tour, McLachlan traveled to Cambodia and Thailand for work on a Canadian-sponsored documentary on poverty and child prostitution, World Vision. Inspired by her experiences, she retreated to a secluded house outside of Montreal to write material for her next album. After six months in a Montreal studio with collaborator/producer Pierre Marchand, Fumbling Toward Ecstasy, her strongest and most personal effort to date, ...
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In the tradition of British boy bands like Take That and Boyzone comes Dublin's Westlife, a quintet consisting of Shane Filan, Nicky Byrne, Bryan McFadden, Mark Feehily and Kian Egan. Filan, Egan and Feehily were among the group's six founding members, but the other half of the group was dispatched when Louis Walsh, Boyzone's manager, took interest in them. This made room in the band for Byrne and McFadden; Walsh also introduced Westlife to Boyzone vocalist and solo artist Ronan Keating, who became the group's co-manager shortly after they cemented their recording contract. The group's first single, 1999's "Flying Without Wings" entered the UK charts at #1, a feat they replicated with "Seasons In The Sun" and "Swear It Again" in 2000. Their self-titled debut album met with similar chart-topping success and quickly went platinum in their homeland. Westlife was released in the US by Arista Records in early 2000.
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