Kenny Lindquist

Kenny Iwunwa - Kenny Lindquist

While 1998 didn't see a new studio album by the band, BF5's former label issued a 16-track rarities collection (Naked Baby Photos), as Folds released his first solo album, Volume 1, under the pseudonym Fear of Pop. Although the album went largely unnoticed, it included the song "In Love," which included overly dramatic vocals from none other than Captain Kirk himself, William Shatner (comparable in approach to Shatner's must-hear 1968 album, The Transformed Man) and which was performed on The Conan O'Brien Show shortly after the album's release. Ben Folds Five regrouped with 1999's The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner, which was a more mature work than its predecessors, although the energetic lead-off single, "Army," showed that Folds' humorous approach hadn't dulled at all. Folds officially went solo again in 2001 with Rockin' the Suburbs. A series of EPs followed, with the new long-player Songs for Silverman dropping in 2005. He released Supersunnyspeedgraphic: The LP in 2006, followed by the full-length Way to Normal in 2008. In 2009 Folds contributed two songs to University A Cappella, a collection of covers of some of Folds' best tracks by various university groups. ~ Greg Prato, All Music Guide

Björk's musical tastes were changed by the punk revolution of the late '70s; in 1979, she formed a post-punk group called Exodus and, in the following year, she sang in Jam 80. In 1981, Björk and Exodus bassist Jakob Magnusson formed Tappi Tikarrass, which released an EP, Bitid Fast I Vitid, on Spor later that year; it was followed by the full-length Miranda in 1983. Following Tappi Tikarrass, she formed the goth-tinged post-punk group KUKL with Einar Orn Benediktsson. KUKL released two albums, The Eye (1984) and Holidays in Europe (1986), on Crass Records before the band metamorphosed into the Sugarcubes in the summer of 1986.

Kenny Lindquist The third generation cassette sounded like crap and the recording methods were far from professional. However, his unique voice (brooding pop to primal scream) and keen ear for a jaw-droppingly catchy tune was evidence enough that this boy was the real deal. >/p>

Nic didn't win the contest but the tape fell into the right hands and within days, he had gone from scratching a living to picking up a recording contract with respected British indie, One Little Indian, and a management contract with Quest (home to Bjork). After years of accruing an enviable armory of songs and assembling a fabulous band called 'The Thieves' (Shane Lawlor on bass and Jonny Aitken on drums), there was no hanging about. They were promptly dispatched to Toe Rag Studios in London, the analogue bastion of producer Liam Watson (The White Stripes, The Zutons, The Kills) who immediately understood what Nic and the band were hoping to achieve. A couple of weeks later, Nic Armstrong & The Thieves' debut album, The Greatest White Liar was born. Originally released in the U.K. during the spring of 2004, the album garnered ecstatic reviews. The Sunday Times wrote "A 14-track stunner ... a truly exceptional singer." The Guardian raved, "Melodies so instant they could arrive in a jar."

Throughout the '90s the U.K. music scene was filled to the brim with nerdy cockney types sporting messy threads and even messier hair. Fresh faced Sophie Ellis-Bextor was amongst the first Brit-pop stars to break with this trend. She made it onto the stage in 1997 as the teenage vocalist behind new wave outfit Theaudience. Smartly dressed (often in black) and boasting a sexy, posh voice, she caused quite a stir on London's alternative circuit. Theaudience became known the world over as a groundbreaking pop act and even enjoyed success on the crowded U.K. singles chart with such imaginatively titled numbers as "I've Got the Wherewithal." Due to internal conflicts, however, the group split up and Ellis-Bextor went searching for success on her own. The solo thing wasn't really working out and it took her a while to re-emerge on the scene. But when she did, it was in late 2000 as a major star alongside Italian DJ/producer Spiller. The 6'9" Venetian had just put together a disco house number, titled "Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)," and was looking for a female vocalist to add spice to the work. Though very popular in the clubs as an instrumental, the track started selling like mad after Ellis-Bextor strutted her stuff over its deep grooves. It was a number one hit on singles charts around the world. Spiller and Ellis-Bextor both starred in the now famous film clip to the track, in which the Londoner's eye-popping set of cheekbones vied for supremacy with the Venetian's imposing stature. A year on, Ellis-Bextor was again making waves with the pop single "Take Me Home." Thanks to that effort, she beat the likes of Five to the number one spot on the U.K. singles chart. In their ongoing search for controversy, the British press even touted her as the main competitor to enormously popular Victoria Beckham, previously known as Posh Spice. That same year, Ellis-Bextor served up another chart-topper in the ultra-cool disco tune "Murder on the Dancefloor." ~ David Peter Wesolowski, All Music Guide

Ken Okechukwu Iwunwa

"T.O.S., I feel like sometimes the things that 50 and Jimmy Iovine go through trickle down on us," Yayo said. "50 is the kind of person, he has so much power and money, sometimes I think the label gets intimidated by that. None of his artists have to starve. Me and Banks and Buck, we all was good. If Interscope don't wanna throw me an advance, I can always get the quarter mil, half a mil from Fif. I feel [T.O.S.] wasn't marketed, period. Even with the iTunes, people tried to order the album, they couldn't order the album. We had weak preorders. We didn't go on a good promo run. ... 50 has one more album left [on his Interscope contract]. If you're Jimmy Iovine or somebody, when you know you have that leverage, why not let the G-Unit album fail so we can give you less money if you come back to negotiate with us? If the album does well, I have to give you more money."

On the movie side, 50 isn't letting a major company interfere with his artistic vision. He wrote, co-directed and stars in the "Before I Self Destruct" film.

"Fif is a brilliant businessman," Treach, one of the movie's co-stars, said. "He let me know all the money he spent on his first movie, 'Get Rich or Die Tryin'.' He was like, 'I'll never spend that much on a movie again. I know the numbers now. I know how to make it. It ain't no six months on a movie type sh-- no more.' The game changed on the music front and on the movie front. He knows how to cut the corners, what needs to be done, how much time, the budget. He's on his game. He's doing things on his pace that he's gonna put the official stamp on Hollywood. He's gonna change the game for Hollywood."

Treach — who along with the rest of his group, Naughty by Nature, will be given major props as part of VH1's "Hip-Hop Honors" on October 6 — says 50 called him to be down with the production through a mutual friend.

By the time ...Baby One More Time finally started to lose steam on the singles and album charts, Spears was ready to release her follow-up. Oops!...I Did It Again appeared in the spring of 2000, and the title track was an instant smash, racing into the Top Ten. The album itself entered the charts at number one and sold over a million copies in its first week of release, setting a new record for single-week sales by a female artist. Follow-up singles included "Lucky," the gold-selling "Stronger," and "Don't Let Me Be the Last to Know," which was co-written by country diva Shania Twain and her producer Mutt Lange. A year after its release, Oops!...I Did It Again had sold over nine million copies. Rumors that Spears was dating *N Sync heartthrob (and fellow ex-Mouseketeer) Justin Timberlake were eventually confirmed, which only added to the media attention lavished on her.


Don't miss out, learn more:
Ken Okechukwu Iwunwa
Kenny Iwunwa
Ken Okechukwu Iwunwa
Ken Okechukwu Iwunwa
Kenny Iwunwa