As a featured performer on Saturday NIGHT LIVE between 1991 and 1995, Adam Sandler's forte was goofy physical comedy, but he has also displayed a talent for genuinely witty musical parody and acting, both on his subsequent comedy albums and in hit fi…

The undisputed king of the parody song, accordionist/singer/comedian "Weird Al" Yankovic has recorded send-ups of songs by popular artists as wide-ranging as the Knack, the Kinks, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Nirvana, and Eminem. His seemingly simple jo…

Out of the backwaters of Oklahoma rose the power-pop clatter of the All-American Rejects, whose 2002 self-titled debut album, released on the indie Doghouse Records, yielded a huge fan base and the attention of several major labels. In a field crowde…

The mercurial term "emo" has meant many different things since its first appearance in the mid-1980s hardcore punk underground. By the mid 2000s, the term was best exemplified by the band Fall Out Boy. Playing an accessible brand of melodic rock mark…

Turning the music world on its head, Eminem, the blond-haired rapper from Detroit, forced the hip-hop world to accept him as an equal. Despite lyrics full of anger, misogyny, violence, racism, and homophobia, Eminem has been a major commercial succes…

Coming out of the grass-roots Gilman St. punk scene of the early-1990s Bay Area, Green Day exploded into the mainstream with their third album, 1994's DOOKIE. The trio's punk energy and pop hooks, influenced by first-generation punks like the Buzzcoc…

Inspiring legions of imitators (especially among the rap-metal crowd), the Red Hot Chili Peppers combined biting rock guitar with funk rhythms and rap-influenced vocals for a thunderous, party-hearty sound. While the California band was popular on th…

A discovery of pop-punk superstars Fall Out Boy, the Las Vegas emo band Panic! At the Disco (named for a Smiths song), stormed the charts in 2005 while its members were barely old enough to vote. Offering a highly danceable take on the emo formula of…

Chris Rock is a stand-up comedian who first rose to national stardom when he appeared on Saturday Night Live in the late 80s and early 90s The early 90s were Rocks popular heyday when he frequently appeared in films he released his first comedy recor…

Kanye West first gained fame as an acclaimed hip-hop producer, working with Jay-Z, Foxy Brown, Mase, and others. West's solo debut was delayed due to a serious car accident, but when THE COLLEGE DROPOUT finally appeared in 2004, it took the hip-hop w…

b. Sean Paul Henriques, 8 January 1973, Kingston, Jamaica, West Indies. Paul was educated at Wolmers High School near the National Heroes Stadium, and the exclusive Bel Air High School in uptown Mandeville. His principal vocational research was at th…

California skate-punk trio Blink 182 employed a snappy mix of punk-pop and humor that appealed to a whole new generation of rock fans too young to have fully appreciated Green Day's initial impact. These third- (or fourth-) generation punks became th…

The Los Angeles-based hip-hop group Black Eyed Peas has made a name for itself by taking an eclectic and organic approach to rap, R&B, and funk. Led by vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Will.I.Am., the band also includes two other MCs, Apl.de.Ap. and Ta…

New Jersey hardcore band My Chemical Romance achieved a surprising degree of success with their Goth-tinged, woe-is-me take on punk. Labeled everything from emo and pop-punk to post-hardcore and screamo, My Chemical Romance are one of several bands f…

Queen embodied 1970s glam rock--mixing heavy riffs and intricate vocal harmonies with a gender-bending image. Freddie Mercury's operatic voice and Brian May's guitar were multi-tracked ad infinitum to create pomp-rock in the grandest sense. In the '8…

Atlanta, Georgia-based rapper Ludacris was a local success story. As a former intern on an Atlanta radio station, he became known for his theatrical station IDs. In 2000 he parlayed this notoriety into a successful debut album that he self-marketed t…

Hailing from Queens, New York, rapper 50 Cent had already garnered a grass-roots reputation as one of the hottest MCs around when he was tapped in the early 2000s by hip-hop golden boy Eminem for inclusion on the soundtrack to his film 8 MILE and a p…

System of a Down may be seen as part and parcel of the nu-metal explosion of the late-'90s, but their style is less akin to the likes of Limp Bizkit and Korn than to vintage thrash from the '80s, spiced with a touch of hardcore punk. The band's sound…

Though journalistic shorthand often finds Nickelback dubbed "the Canadian Creed," the band found success on its own terms right from the start with the 2000 debut album THE STATE. It may be true that the band's heavy guitars, pounding drums, and dram…

Denver-based band the Fray was formed in 2002 by Isaac Slade vocals piano and Joe King guitar vocals when the two former school friends met up again in a local music store They soon began regular two-man jam sessions that led to writing songs and dev…