Belgian commercial techno outfit created by producer Jo Bogaert, aka Thomas De Quincy. After playing keyboards in the indie outfit White Light in the mid-80s, Bogaert began working on his own dance music tracks, using various pseudonyms such as Nux N…

Leftfield consists of Paul Daley and Neil Barnes, two London percussionists-turned-DJs who tore up London's underground "progressive house" scene in the late '80s and early '90s with their early singles. In 1995 they released LEFTISM, which has been …

Diminutive, bald-headed Richard Melville Hall, better known as Moby, achieved greater mainstream success than any other electronica artist by virtue of his willingness to adapt electronic dance music to a well formed pop sensibility. From the '90s on…

Norman Cook's first foray into the music biz came as the bass player for 1980s UK pop/rock band the Housemartins, but once he got into the DJ world, he hung up his bass for good. As Fatboy Slim, he was at the forefront of the mid-'90s "big beat" move…

This Swedish pop band achieved their breakthrough in 1993 with the worldwide number 1, "All That She Wants". The comparisons to a fellow Swedish band seemed obvious - two female vocalists, one blonde, one brunette, and two male musicians, playing cat…

The Village People from New York City, USA, were a concept before they were a group. The brainchild of French record producer Jacques Morali (d. 15 November 1991, Paris, France), the troupe was assembled in 1977. Morali, who had been enjoying great s…

Along with Uncle Tupelo, the Jayhawks were part of the 1980s wave of alt-country (as opposed to 1970s-style country-rock) bands, filtering the influence of artists like Gram Parsons through an alternative rock sensibility. The band's first three albu…

AC/DC is generally regarded as a titanic force in the world of heavy rock, occupying a sphere of seminal influence right alongside Kiss. These Australian guitar gods--led by Angus Young, an axe-wielding man-boy in a school uniform--churn out songs la…

Getting her start as a dancer on the TV show IN LIVING COLOR, Jennifer Lopez first found stardom as an actress, then as a pop/dance singer. By the turn of the century, Lopez was one of the world's biggest celebrities. As both of her careers skyrocket…

Eschewing everything but the pursuit of fun, Athens, GA's B-'52s burst onto the New Wave scene in 1979. Their mix of '50s/'60s kitsch and pure pop instincts produced some classic campy tunes ("Rock Lobster," "Private Idaho"). The band's popularity hi…

A prolific US remixing, recording and producing outfit, Washington, DC-based Deep Dish comprises Iranian-born Ali "Dubfire" Shirazinia (b. 1971 Iran), and Sharam Tayebi (b. 1971, Iran). They met in 1991, DJing at the same party. In 1992, they formed …

Formed in Boston, Massachusetts, USA, during the mid-80s, by Nate Albert (guitar), Joe Gittleman (bass) and Ben Carr (vocals). They were joined by Dicky Barrett (vocals) and Tim "Johnny Vegas" Burton (saxophone) completing the line-up of the original…

Not many pop groups end up on postage stamps, as Abba has in its native Sweden; but then again, few groups become their homeland's most identifiable export. The group's stratospheric success was built on a foundation of buoyant, exquisitely arranged …

This UK pop quintet enjoyed widespread success in the late 90s with their polished, hip-hop inspired sound. Ritchie Neville (b. Richard Dobson, 23 August 1979, Birmingham, West Midlands, England), Scott Robinson (b. 22 November 1979, Basildon, Essex,…

b. Sascha Lappessen, Wuppertal, Germany. Created in a studio on an industrial estate in Düsseldorf, Germany, Sash!'s brand of easy-listening dance music became a huge international crossover pop success during the late 90s. Lappessen began recording …

The dance-rock duo Bodyrockers features Australian house DJ Kaz James one of the resident DJs at the Melbourne club night Onelove and British vocalistguitarist Dylan Burns who scored a hit single Fly with Me as Colorsound The pair introduced their mi…

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…

Late-1980s/early-'90s rock had totally lost the gritty feel of the '60s and '70s until Lenny Kravitz rediscovered the magic retro formula. Kravitz's sonic template was based on a combination of glam, soul, and psychedelia, and it made him a massive s…

Carlos Santana is one of those rare guitarists whose sound is instantly recognizable. His fiery, soulful blend of rock, blues, and Latin music made his band, also named Santana, an international success. From 1960s San Francisco psychedelia to '70s f…

Yellowman is one of the most well-known DJs in all of dancehall reggae, as much for his striking albino features as for his dexterous toasts. He ruled the dancehall charts for much of the 1980s and is often credited with introducing the overtly sexis…

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 …

Blues-rock has rarely gotten more down and dirty than with Texas's famous long-bearded trio ZZ Top. Billy Gibbons, Frank Beard, and Dusty Hill are responsible for some of the greatest party anthems of all time. They produced a number of 1970s rock cl…

Throughout the late 90s and into the 2000s berzone reigned as Californias leading breaks producer recording primarily singles for many of Americas leading commercial dance labels including City of Angles Astralwerks and Moonshine Born Timothy Wiles y…

This electronica trio from Marseilles, France, comprises DJ Oil, Frédéric Berthet and Arnaud Taillefer, who first began performing together in 1998. Perhaps in a similar mould to their fellow countrymen Air, St. Germain and Dimitri From Paris, Troubl…

Formed during summer 2000, this retro-sounding Texas, USA-based psych rock outfit features brothers Brandon (vocals/bass) and Benjamin Curtis (drums), who were joined by Josh Garza (multi-instruments). Prior to the formation of Secret Machines, all o…