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".

 

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.

 

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.