Popular Music Artists of the 21st Century
Linkin Park
Originating from the city of Agoura Hills in the state of California, the rock band Linkin Park is often hailed as one of the best, if not THE best, rock band of the century. Originally created in 1996, Linkin Park gained international fame when they released their groundbreaking album Hybrid Theory, which eventually became certified Diamond due to its overwhelming level of popularity. After Hybrid Theory, Linkin Park followed up with an equally successful album, Meteora. In 2003, Linkin Park was named the 6th best band of the music video era as well as the 3rd greatest band in this millenium.
Aftering the huge success of their first two albums, Linkin Park decided to explore new genres and came out with an entirely different style of album called Minutes to Midnight. The band’s most recent album, A Thousand Suns, was made available back in 2010. All in all, Linkin Park has sold well over 50,000,000 total albums and has even been awarded 2 Grammies.
Kesha
Born in March of 1987 as “Kesha Rose Sebert”, the girl known as “Ke$ha” is an American singer (although a few of her compositions are more raps). Kesha was signed to a record label called “Dr. Luke’s” at age 18. However, while she continued to sing during the time she was with Dr. Luke’s, it wasn’t until 2009 where she really began to rise to fame. The first she was ever heard of amongst most music listeners was not until she was featured in the soung “Right Round” by Flo Rida (which was featured in the movie The Hangover). Later that year, her single Tik Tok became the most popular song not only in America, but in 11 other countries as well. After rising to fame with this song, she began to produce more popular music, including “Blah Blah Blah”, “Your Love is My Drug”, and “Take it Off”. In 2011, her new album cannibal was released, which featured the popular song We R Who We R and became incredibly popular.
Justin Bieber
One of the most popular singers to come out of Canada since Avril Lavigne has been Justin Bieber. Bieber was discovered by a man named Scooter Braun back in 2008 who happened to catch a glimpse of one of his videos and became eager to become his manager. Scooter saw to it that Bieber became familiar with the popular pop singer Usher and was eventually signed to his record label. His first single, called One Time, became one of the most popular songs in Canada and gained the body numerous fans all across the globe. After this single became so popular, he was commissioned to produce a full album called My World, which would soon be certified as a Platinum album, bringing him to international fame.
Bieber’s soon to be released single, which would be part of the studio release of My World 2.0, became one of the most downloaded songs of all time. The music video was considered to be the number one most disliked video of all time, with over 400 million people disliking it. Unfortunately for Bieber, he would soon be replaced by someone with a superior voice as the most disliked Youtube Vide, Rebecca Black’s “Friday”. After the album became so popular, Bieber began going on tour with his My World Tour and debuting in many prominent cities. Afterwards, he produced a 3D style movie called “Never Say Never” (based off of 1 of his song titles) that featured all of his songs and became immensely popular.
Over the years, Bieber has received an enormous amount of awards, including being named the “Artist of the Year” by the American Music Awards. Additionally, Bieber was even nominated at the grammies for being the Best New Artist and having the Best Pop Vocal Album, although he did not win either of these (thankfully). Bieber has been labeled a teen heartthrob, which is significantly attributed to his silky, attractive hair. He has also received numerous criticism from many people, and is generally disliked heavily outside of the teen girl/homosexual male demographic.
Rebecca Black
Born in 1997, Rebecca Black is a singer who became infamous after her single “Friday” became the most disliked video on Youtube and was labeled by many as “the single worst song ever written”. This single was not a commissioned single, but instead Rebecca’s mother had to pay thousands of dollars to have the single recorded by the now infamous ARK Music Factor. The video ended up receiving over 160 million views, nearly all of which were dislikes. Eventually, the video was removed due to a copyright dispute between Rebecca and ARK Music Factory (or at least their lawyers). The song was later featured on television shows such as Glee and America’s Best Dance Crew, and Rebecca was later given a cameo in Katy Perry’s song about Friday. Recently, she came out with another single called “My Moment” in which she openly scuffs all the haters who have been hating on her Friday song. Needless to say, this song was mired in controversy as well, which naturally has brought Rebecca even more publicity.
Katy Perry
Born in 1984 as “Kathryn Elizabeth Hudson”, Katy Perry is a popular pop singer and actress. Katy was raised by devout Christian pastor parents who only permitted her to listen to gospel style music as a kid. During her childhood, she became the star of her local church choir, and felt so strongly about her singing talents that she chose to drop out of high school, receive a GED, and move to California in hopes of becoming a music star. In 2001, she attempted to release a gospel album, which of course was the genre she was most experienced with. Unfortunately, this album flopped, as did her next album that she made with the production team The Matrix.
Finally, after hooking up with the Capitol Music Group (which was fourth label in only seven years, reflecting her initial failures), she decided to change her stage name to “Katy Perry”, which she thought would be more catchy than “Kathryn Hudson”. At this point she attempted to release the song titled “You’re So Gay” which gained some media attention but was never very popular. Finally, in 2008, Katy eventually was able to make it big with her groundbreaking snigle “I Kissed a Girl”. Additionally, her single “Hot n Cold” also became popular, although it was “I Kissed a Girl” that gained most of the popularity. At this point, all of her future albums became huge successes. Her next album, Teenage Dream, contained the songs Teenage Dream (obviously), California Girls, ET, Last Friday Night (featuring Rebecca Black), and Firework, all of which became immense successes. At this point, Katy became the first artist to ever spend an entire fifty-two weeks straight in the Billboard Hot 100′s top ten.