With his distinctive vocals and award winning songwriting skills, Canadian musician Bryan Adams name remains one of the most recognized of our time.

Borrowing from such flamboyant pop stars as Freddie Mercury, Elton John, and George Michael, British singer Robbie Williams started out in the boy band Take That, but soon split and launched a solo career. By the late 1990s he had become a dance/pop …

b. Ronan Patrick John Keating, 3 March 1977, Dublin, Eire. Keating's rise to fame as lead vocalist of Irish pop quintet Boyzone, gave little indication of the shrewd business brain lurking underneath his bland, choreographed exterior. Within five yea…

Every decade has a teenybopper band that takes the charts by storm, and the early 1990s saw Take That picking up in the U.K. where '80s American teen stars New Kids On The Block left off. Led by songwriter and lead vocalist Gary Barlow, Take That hit…

When Cherilyn Sarkasian reinvented herself as the more photogenic half of '60s pop duo Sonny & Cher, no one could guess it would be merely the first step in an ongoing artistic redefinition that would continue for decades. After the smash success of …

U2's Bono was one of the few real rock heroes of the 1980s, leading the Irish band to international recognition with a charged, political approach to music. The band's early efforts brought a stadium-size presence to alt-rock, with Bono's expressive …

Though he was born in India, the singer Cliff Richard has had a five-decade career (notably achieving number one hits in four of them) in the U.K., as one of the country's most successful and best-loved artists. Starting in the late 1950s as an Elvis…

This Scottish folk duo, who specialize in belligerent harmonies, comprises identical twins Craig and Charlie Reid from Auchtermuchty. They had an early UK hit in 1987 with the Gerry Rafferty-produced "Letter From America". Follow-ups included the typ…

In the early 1980s, aspiring New Jersey musician John Bongiovi assembled a rock band, secured a record deal, and changed his name to Jon Bon Jovi. By 1986, Bon Jovi's brand of melodic hard rock was a runaway hit, with the band's third album, SLIPPERY…

Celine Dion's ascent from stardom in her native Canada to the upper echelons of international pop divadom is one of the 1990s major success stories. Blessed with a formidable set of pipes and a preference for heart-in-the-throat ballads, the precocio…

The purveyor of the most blood-curdling scream in pop music history (on his epochal cover of the Beatles "A Little Help From My Friends"), the deeply soulful Cocker is also one of rock's most gifted interpretive singers. After a breakthrough performa…

Phil Collins's frontman talents lay dormant for many years when he was the drummer for prog-rockers Genesis, taking a back seat to Peter Gabriel. When Gabriel quit in 1975, Collins stepped out from behind the drums and made Genesis a hit-making machi…

Sweden's first pop export of the 90s, Marie Fredriksson (b. Gun-Marie Fredriksson, 30 May 1958, Östra Ljungby, Sweden) and Per Håkan Gessle (b. 12 January 1959, Halmstad, Sweden) enjoyed international success thanks to a highly commercial combination…

The U.K.'s Dire Straits became one of the world's most popular rock bands the old-fashioned way, through songwriting and musicianship. When "Sultans of Swing" broke through on both sides of the Atlantic in 1979, the sound suggested Bob Dylan backed b…

The Bay City Rollers were a pop phenomenon in the mid-1970s, taking their money-in-the-bank mix of good looks, pop hooks, and just a dash of rock-&-roll danger from their native Scotland to the States and back again. The Rollers' music was pure bubbl…

As the daughter of gospel/R&B singer Cissy Houston, Whitney Houston was literally born to sing. Initially a back-up vocalist and fashion model, Houston leapt to solo stardom with her self-titled debut in 1985. Since then, she has remained one of the …

The natural inheritors to Take That's "boy band" throne in the mid-90s, this quintet of unaffected young Irish men was tailored for mainstream success by Polydor Records and their manager, promoter Louis Walsh. After auditions Mikey Graham (b. 15 Aug…

This Athens band's initial mix of Velvet Underground strum, Byrds-like Rickenbacker jangle, and charismatically oblique singing, became the sound of the 1980s as legions of bands followed suit. But even as imitators codified R.E.M.'s approach into th…

The roots of Los Angeles band Maroon 5 lay in the late-1990s Weezer-influenced alt-rock outfit Kara's Flowers. After that group disbanded, the members eventually started a new band (along with a second guitarist). Rechristening themselves Maroon 5, t…

They never broke big in the States, but Glasgow, Scotland's Texas were one of the most popular band's in the U.K. and Europe during the 1990s. Though firmly rooted in the Britpop tradition, Texas maintained a distinct sound that nodded to everything …