Guns N' Roses brought powerful, nasty rock back into the music charts in a period dominated by pop and dance. Ugly and violent, they were also an occasionally sweet and funny, with their breakthrough hit being "Sweet Child O' Mine".

 

Manowar is an American heavy metal band from Auburn, New York, United States of America, formed in 1980. They are known for writing lyrics with an emphasis on the heavy metal genre itself, fantasy (particularly sword and sorcery) and mythological topics (particularly Norse mythology). Manowar's sound is loud and bombastic; in an interview for MTV in February 2007, bassist Joey DeMaio lamented that "these days, there's a real lack of big, epic metal that is drenched with crushing guitars and choirs and orchestras... so it's nice to be one of the few bands that's actually doing that." In 1984 the band was included in the Guinness Book of World Records for delivering the loudest performance, a record which they have since broken on 2 occasions. They also hold the world record for the longest heavy metal concert after playing for 5 hours and 1 minute in Bulgaria in 2008. Although the band has never been a mainstream commercial success in the United States, they maintain a strong cult following there. In contrast, they are extremely popular in the heavy metal scene in Europe, Japan, Australia and South America. Dedicated fans are known and referred to by the band as "Manowarriors" or "Immortals", and collectively their fans are known as the "Army of Immortals". The band has sold over 9 million albums.

 

Limp Bizkit is an American rock band from Jacksonville, Florida. The band's lineup consists of Fred Durst (lead vocals), Wes Borland (guitar), Sam Rivers (bass), John Otto (drums) and DJ Lethal. Limp Bizkit has been nominated for three Grammy Awards and have won several other major awards. The band has sold an estimated 35 million albums worldwide. Formed in 1995, the band achieved mainstream success with their second studio album, Significant Other, released in 1999. Their third studio album, Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water, released in 2000, continued the band's success. The album sold 1.05 million copies in its first week, making it the fastest-selling rock album ever, breaking the record held for 7 years by Pearl Jam's Vs. Following the departure of Wes Borland in 2001, Mike Smith was brought in as a replacement for the fourth studio album, Results May Vary, released in 2003. The album did not achieve the success of the previous two albums. Borland rejoined the band in 2005 for the release of an EP, The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) but departed again. He rejoined the band in February 2009. With their original lineup, their first full-length album in seven years, Gold Cobra, is set for a 2010 release.

 

Supertramp are a British progressive rock band that released a series of top-selling albums in the 1970s and early 1980s. Their early music included ambitious concept albums, from which were drawn a number of hits including "Goodbye Stranger", "Bloody Well Right", "The Logical Song", "Breakfast in America", "Dreamer", "Give a Little Bit", "It's Raining Again", and "Take the Long Way Home". Supertramp attained superstardom in the United States, Canada, most of Europe, South Africa, Australia and Brazil, although they were not quite as popular in the UK. Nonetheless, the album Breakfast in America was a big hit there, reaching number three on the UK charts and featuring two top 10 singles.

 

Dark Tranquillity is a Swedish melodic death metal band from Gothenburg. They are the longest-standing band from the original Gothenburg metal scene, and are one of the most integral pioneers of the melodic death metal genre of music.

 

Ketevan "Katie" Melua (Georgian, born 16 September 1984) is a Georgian-British singer, songwriter and musician. Born in Georgia, she moved to Northern Ireland at the age of eight and then to England at fourteen. Melua is signed to the small Dramatico record label, under the management of songwriter Mike Batt, and made her musical debut in 2003. In 2006, she was the United Kingdom's bestselling female artist and Europe's highest selling European female artist. In November 2003, at the age of nineteen, Melua released her first album, Call off the Search, which reached the top of the United Kingdom album charts and sold 1.8 million copies in its first five months of release. Her second album, Piece by Piece, was released in September 2005 and to date[update] has gone platinum four times. Melua released her third studio album Pictures in October 2007, which was the last of her albums to be made in collaboration with Mike Batt. According to the Sunday Times Rich List 2008, Melua has a fortune of £18 million, making her the seventh richest British musician under thirty. It was reported in 2009 that she had lost almost half of her fortune as a result of the global economic downturn.

 

Pal Waaktaar and Magne Furuholmen, formerly of Bridges formed a-ha in the early 80s. "Take on Me" took three times to become a hit in the UK, eventually hitting number two in November 1985.

 

Michael Steven Bublé, born 9 September 1975, is a Canadian singer-songwriter and actor. He has won several awards, including two Grammy Awards and multiple Juno Awards. His first album reached the top ten in the UK and Canada. He found worldwide commercial success with his 2005 album It's Time, and his 2007 album Call Me Irresponsible was an even bigger success, reaching number one on the Canadian Albums Chart, the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, the Australian ARIA Albums Chart and the European charts. Bublé has sold more than 25 million albums worldwide.

 

Blind Guardian are a German heavy metal band formed in the mid-1980s in Krefeld, West Germany. The band is often credited as one of the seminal and most influential bands in the power metal and speed metal subgenres, Blind Guardian was a part of the German heavy metal scene that emerged in the mid-1980's. The band's lyrics, written by vocalist Hansi Kürsch, are inspired by the fiction of fantasy authors such as J. R. R. Tolkien, Stephen King, and Michael Moorcock, as well as traditional legends and epics. Over the years, a running theme has developed associating the band members with travelling bards.

 

Comprised of six neighbourhood friends, The Coral formed in their early teens in the mid-1990s. The British publication NME championed them, proclaiming them the best-new-English-band.

 

Alter Bridge is an American rock band based in Orlando, Florida. The band was formed in 2004 by then-former members of Creed, Mark Tremonti (lead guitar, vocals), Brian Marshall (bass), and Scott Phillips (drums), with Myles Kennedy (lead vocals, lead and rhythm guitar), formerly of The Mayfield Four. Alter Bridge released their debut album, One Day Remains, in August 2004, followed by their second album, Blackbird, in October 2007. Both of those were highly successful. In January 2010, the band announced that 17 songs for a third album have been finished and that the band is writing even more material.[3] The album's recording process, accompanied by producer Michael "Elvis" Baskette (Ratt, Limp Bizkit), began on February 15, 2010.

 

Quality, quality act. Arcade Fire is an indie rock band based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and fronted by the husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne. In addition to instrument mainstays guitar, drums and bass guitar, members play piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, glockenspiel, keyboard, French horn, accordion, harp, mandolin and hurdy-gurdy. The band takes most of their instruments on tour, and the multi-instrumentalist band members switch instrumental duties throughout their shows.

 

MGMT (officially pronounced em-gee-em-tee, but colloquially pronounced 'Management') is an American band based in Brooklyn, New York, consisting of Ben Goldwasser and Andrew VanWyngarden. Formed at Wesleyan University and originally with Cantora Records, they signed with Columbia Records and Red Ink in 2006. On October 5, 2007, Spin.com named MGMT "Artist of the Day". On November 14, 2007, Rolling Stone pegged MGMT as a top 10 "Artist to Watch" in 2008. The band was named 9th in the BBC's Sound of 2008 top 10 poll. They were also named as Last.fm's most played new artist of 2008 in their Best of 2008 lists.

 

Motörhead are a British rock band formed in 1975 by bassist, singer and songwriter Ian Fraser Kilmister, known mostly by his stage name Lemmy, who has remained the sole constant member. The band pre-dated, but are sometimes regarded as part of, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which re-energised heavy metal in the late 1970s and early 1980s.