As the very first winner of the AMERICAN IDOL television show competition, Kelly Clarkson was inevitably pegged as little more than a manufactured pop commodity. The surprisingly versatile singer managed to survive against expectations, however, and …

Hilary Duff, along with her one-time rival Lindsay Lohan, is a product of the Disney idol machine and the star of the long-running LIZZIE MCGUIRE television series. Duff's image has gone from squeaky-clean teenybopper to slightly vampy teenybopper si…

Ashlee Simpson, younger sister of singer Jessica Simpson, is one of the most fascinating pop-culture phenomena of the early 2000s. Following a stint on the squeaky-clean television drama "7th Heaven," the prefabricated sensation's singing career was …

As the lead singer of California neo-ska pop-punks No Doubt, Gwen Stefani gained notoriety for her spunky, riot grrrl-lite approach to fronting a rock band. On her 2004 solo debut, LOVE. ANGEL. MUSIC. BABY., Stefani pulled a musical about-face and fu…

b. 18 July 1982, Dallas, Texas, USA. Pop rock singer-songwriter and guitarist Cabrera dropped out of a course at the University of Texas to concentrate on music. He had previously played in punk bands but switched direction as a member of the Dallas-…

Of all the teen queens of the early 2000s, Lindsay Lohan seems to be both the most troubled (drug rumors, family strife, and the like) and the most likely to succeed, as her film and recording careers have slowly moved beyond bubblegum boundaries. Wh…

b. Joanna Noelle Levesque, 20 December 1990, Foxboro, Massachusetts, USA. Teen pop starlet JoJo made her way into the music business via the high-profile world of children's television. The daughter of musical parents (her father is a blues singer wh…

In 2002 one of the biggest stories in the music business was the ascendance of 17-year old Canadian singer Avril LaVigne. In an era dominated by pre-fabricated teen-pop, Avril was seen as a teen star with an edge. Instead of carefully crafted, studio…

Formed in Wichita Falls, Texas, USA, this pop punk quartet was formed in 1994, with its roots reaching back to a two-man music comedy team (vocalist/guitarist Jaret Reddick aka Jaret Von Erich and bass player Erik Chandler aka Erik Rodham Clinton), t…

In the late 1990s, Madonna had long since become a mature artist, turning her back on the carefree dance-pop of her early days ("Like A Virgin," "Holiday," etc.). Teenage singer Britney Spears picked up on this specific Madonna era, albeit with a mor…

Sister actingsinging duo Aly AJ -- whose full names are Alyson and Amanda Joy Michalka -- showed a passion for both kinds of performing at a very young age they started playing piano at age six and began acting classes soon after Born in LA the Mich…

The punk pop craze continued to sweep across US shopping malls and MTV during the early twenty-first century, owing to the emergence of acts such as Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based Simple Plan. Following in the footsteps of fellow Canadians Sum 41, Si…

Hailing from Chattanooga, TN, Usher Raymond (best known by his given name) emerged in the '90s as a young R&B singer full of promise. The stars must have been aligned correctly for him, as he snagged Puffy Combs as a producer for his eponymous 1994 d…

b. USA. Viewed in many quarters as an Elton John for the twenty-first century, this pop rock singer-songwriter made his much-hyped entrance on the US music scene in 2003 with his debut, Chariot. DeGraw grew up in the Catskill Mountains in upstate New…

b. Austin, Texas, USA. R&B vocalist Ciara enjoyed immediate commercial success when her debut "Goodies', climbed up the US charts to reach the peak position in September 2004. As a child of a military family, Ciara spent an itinerant childhood moving…

Videos and albums are not always the preferred formats for gaining success as a recording artist--it was an appearance in the hit Will Smith movie MEN IN BLACK that gave Destiny's Child a major boost to their recording career. From there, the all-fem…

Dallas-born Jessica Simpson started out as a heavily gospel-influenced teenage singer of contemporary Christian music, but before long her sheer starpower dictated a crossover to the secular world. In the late 1990s, Simpson became an enormously succ…

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…

With her multi-octave voice and more than 80 million records sold worldwide, it's no surprise that pop diva Mariah Carey is viewed as the successor to Whitney Houston. She emerged as the premier R&B/pop songstress of the 1990s, and by the end of the …

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…