cat power

Cat Power is the stage name of American singer/songwriter Chan Marshall (born Charlyn Marie Marshall on January 21, 1972). She is known for her minimalist style, sparse guitar and piano playing, and breathy vocals.

Chan Marshall was born in Atlanta, Georgia. Marshall’s father, Charlie, is a blues musician and itinerant pianist. Her childhood involved much upheaval, with Marshall living throughout the Southern United States (Greensboro, North Carolina; Bartlett, Tennessee; and Georgia and South Carolina), back and forth between parents and her grandmother. In interviews she has openly discussed her childhood and stated that the constant traveling prepared her for the touring life of a professional musician.

After dropping out of high school, she started performing under the name Cat Power while in Atlanta, backed by musicians Glen Thrasher, Marc Moore, and others. She took the Cat Power name after a Caterpillar ad that read: “Cat Diesel Power”. While in Atlanta, Marshall played her first live shows as support to her friends’ bands, including Magic Bone and Opal Foxx Quartet.

In 2007, Marshall contributed songs to the soundtrack of Ethan Hawke’s new movie The Hottest State, recording with Jesse Harris and Terry Manning, and the Academy Award-winning Juno. In early 2008, she collaborated with Beck and producer Danger Mouse on the album Modern Guilt. She contributed backing vocals to two tracks, “Orphans” and “Walls”. The album was released in July of that year.

Cat Power’s song “Half of You”, from the album You Are Free, was featured on the HBO show True Blood in an episode 6 love scene, and “Fool”, from the same album, was featured in episode 4 of the third series of UK teen drama Skins. Cat Power’s song “The Greatest,” from her album The Greatest, was featured in the 2009 film 17 Again.

via wikipedia

Sea of Love

Wonderwall (cover)

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Katy B

Katy B-(Katie Brien) is an English singer-songwriter and a graduate of the BRIT School. She is a R&B, funky, house and garage singer and has also performed under the name Baby Katy. Having been offered “major label deals” in 2009, she released her first single with the label Rinse in 2010. She has just completed a degree in Popular Music at Goldsmiths College, London.

DJ NG’s song “Tell Me”, which she featured on as Baby Katy, was released on a white label and later signed to Ministry of Sound. Katy B has collaborated with Geeneus to cover the Kevin Saunderson produced “Good Life” and the track “As I”. She also provides vocals on the track “Hold Me” for The Count and Sinden’s upcoming debut album Mega Mega Mega and features on Magnetic Man’s track “Perfect Stranger”

Geeneus, with whom Katy B collaborated with, works for Rinse FM. Following the official recognition of the station in June 2010 (formerly a pirate radio station), Rinse presented Katy B’s first single, “Katy On A Mission”, which was produced by Benga and will be released on 22 August 2010.
Katy B performed at the London Jazz Festival in 2009 with Ms Dynamite and is collaborating with Ms Dynamite on her upcoming album.

via Wikipedia

Katy On A Mission

Louder

Katy B on iTunes

Lykke Li

Li Lykke Timotej Zachrisson Li was born in Ystad, Skåne in 1986; her mother is a photographer, her father is a musician.^[2] The family moved to Stockholm when Li was a toddler and later moved to a mountaintop in Portugal when Zachrisson was six, where they lived for five years; the family also spent time in Lisbon and Morocco and spent winters in Nepal and India.^[2][3] She moved to the neighborhood of Bushwick, Brooklyn inNew York for three months when she was 19.^[4][5][6] She returned when she was 21 to record her album.^[7] When not touring, she resides in the Södermalm district of Stockholm.

Her music often blends elements of pop, electronic, and alternative rock; various instruments can also be found in her songs, including violins, tambourines, trumpets, saxophones, and cellos. She released her debut album, Youth Novels, in 2008. Youth Novels received a wider European release in June, 2008. The album was produced by Björn Yttling of Peter Bjorn and John. Stereogum named her an artist to watch in October 2007 and described her music as a mix of soul, electro and “powdered-sugar pop”.

Lykke has become increasingly popular with indie music fans and took her particular flavor of music more mainstream with an appearance on Last Call with Carson Daly on February 18, 2009. She has received a great deal of notoriety for her cover of “Knocked Up”, originally recorded by Kings of Leon who had approached Lykke to cover a song of her choice, and “Gifted” in which she performs with Kanye West. Going further mainstream, Lykke performed at the 2009 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 19, as well as the 2009 Lollapalooza Music Festival on August 8 as part of the promotional tour for the album Youth Novels.

via Wikipedia

Dance Dance Dance

I’m Good, I’m Gone

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Kid Sister

Melisa Young (born July 3, 1980) better known by her stage name Kid Sister, is a rap artist based in Chicago, Illinois.

Kid Sister’s ethnic background includes African American, Native American, and Caucasian. In numerous interviews and magazine articles, she has revealed that she has struggled financially for years before becoming Kanye West’s protege. Recently she has admitted to being 215 pounds at one point in her life. She continues in this interview that she has been “thick” her whole life but explains that this has had no bearing on her self-esteem because at her core she is not a passive person.

Kid Sister has a degree in film from Columbia College Chicago and worked on two independent feature films during her studies: 9/11 drama The Guys (2002) starring Sigourney Weaver and Anthony LaPaglia; and Best Thief In the World (2003) starring Mary Louise Parker and Audra McDonald. Kid Sister once worked for retail chain Bath & Body Works, which she sometimes mentions in interviews and in her creative work.

via Last.Fm

Big N Bad

Pro Nails

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Laura Jansen

Laura Jansen (born 4 March 1977) is a Dutch singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles. Jansen established herself as a regular at the Los Angeles live music venue the Hotel Cafe before gaining fame in her native country, The Netherlands. The daughter of an American mother and Dutch father, she holds dual citizenship in the United States and The Netherlands.

Her music has been featured on the television shows Newport Harbor and The Real World: Cancun.

She previously toured with Joshua Radin for six weeks as part of his band in 2008. In 2009, she toured with William Fitzsimmons as a part of his band and also as his support act.

via Wikipedia

Wicked World

Single

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Pat Benatar

In 1971, Pat married her High School sweetheart, GI Dennis Benatar, and they moved to Virginia where he was stationed. Working as a bank clerk and a waitress, Pat began to sing in a Roaring Twenties theme restaurant and in hotel lounges.

On her return to New York, Pat divorced and started to take her singing seriously. From musicals she moved on to the cabaret circuit, her voice developing into a hard pop/rock sound.

At an open mike night in the New York City club, Catch a Rising Star, the owner liked Pat’s look and sound, and gave her a regular slot. Chrysallis Records signed her and, in 1979, she released million-selling ‘In The Heat Of The Night’. She followed it with multi-platinum ‘Crimes Of Passion’ the next year.

The early 1980s were a whirlwind for Pat, highly prolific musically and experimenting with video, her face and sound were a mainstay of the fledgling MTV.

In 1985, Benatar and husband/producer/long-time collaborator Neil Giraldo became the proud parents of a baby girl, Haley, but Benatar continued to record and tour right up until 1993, when she was forced to come off the road after the release of ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’, to give birth to her second daughter, Hana.

Back on tour in the summer of 1995 with REO Speedwagon and Fleetwood Mac she proved to the masses, once again, that she was still one of rock’s premiere female vocalists.

via The Biography Channel

Heartbreaker

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

Pat Benatar on iTunes

Vanessa Paradis

Born in St. Maur, France on December 22, 1972, Vanessa enjoyed singing from an early age. Her career began to develop after she was discovered on a popular TV show entitled L’Ecole Des Fans; a French TV program that provides little children with the opportunity to demonstrate their talents.

Years later, when Vanessa turned thirteen, she recorded her first single called La Magie Des Surprises-Parties (the magic of surprise parties). Her career really skyrocketed when her record-producing uncle, Didier Pain, was working with a singer on a song entitled Joe le Taxi in which Vanessa was invited to sing. The outcome was instant success.
In 1988, her very first album was M & J, and she later released Variations Sur Le Même T’aime. Her second album, the self-titled Joe was produced by her then boyfriend Lenny Kravitz in 1992.

Before making her move into the fashion world in 1994, Vanessa performed on stage one last time. She confirmed her position as a model by appearing in magazine ads for Coco Chanel. Her passageway onto the silver screen became an instant success when she played in Noce Blanche. For her exquisite performance in the movie, Vanessa took home the Caesar award (the French equivalent of an Oscar). At this point, Vanessa realized that she preferred acting over singing. She later went on to star in Elisa and Un Amour de Sorciere.

via Biggest Stars

Divine Idylle

La Ballade de Lily Rose

Vanessa Paradis on iTunes

Andrea Gibson

Andrea moved from New Orleans to Colorado in 1999, where she began attending weekly poetry readings at Denver’s political hub, The Mercury Café. In a years time she had rushed the scene, making her mark with the 2000 Denver Slam Team at The National Poetry Slam in Providence, Rhode Island. In the same year, Andrea joined Vox Feminista, a multi-passionate performance tribe of radical, political women bent on social change through cultural revolution. She went on to become a four-time Denver Grand Slam Champion. Andrea took 4th place out of 350 poets in the individual finals at the 2004 National Poetry Slam in St. Louis, while simultaneously leading Team Denver to a 2nd place title in the team competition.

Andrea has headlined everywhere from the Nuyorican Poet’s Café, to Pride Fests and Lady Fests, to high schools and universities throughout the country. She has been showcased on Free Speech TV, Dyke TV, the documentary Slam Planet, and Independent Radio Stations nationwide. She is featured on New York City’s 2004 Best of Urbana CD, and is currently a member of the prestigious Bullhorn Collective “comprised of 30 of the highest ranking slam poets and most accomplished performance poets in the world.” She has shared the stage with such names as Leslie Feinberg, Amy Goodman, Dennis Kucinich and KRS1.

Andrea is an independent artist who has self-released four CDs, Bullets and Windchimes (2003), Swarm (2004), When The Bough Breaks (2006), and Yellowbird (2009).

Photograph

For Eli

Janelle Monae

Janelle Monae’s creativity knows no bounds. Her debut studio album The ArchAndroid (Suite II and III) is a 70-minute concept album where her alter-ego, Cindi Mayweather becomes a “messiah-esque figure to the android community of Metropolis”. She’s co-written seventeen out of the eighteen songs and they jump unabashedly from pop to jazz to punk. The video for her single Tightrope shows her shimmying in a tuxedo and bow tie doing the tightrope dance and she just looks effortlessly cool. Her album has received critical acclaim but it seems like there are lots of people who have no idea who she is despite the fact that, to me, everything about her screams superstar. Intelligent and imaginative, there’s a Janelle Monae song for everyone to love.

Tightrope

Many Moons

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The Prids

The Prids are a band from Portland, Oregon. The quartet’s music can be categorized as a blend of noise pop and post-punk, influenced by Sonic Youth, Built to Spill, The Smiths, Unrest, My Bloody Valentine and Wire. Founded in Saint Joseph, Missouri in 1995 by David Frederickson and Mistina Keith, they continued to develop in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska. In Lincoln they befriended Harry Dingman III, guitarist of 1980s cult legendary post-punk band For Against. But the Prids has seen its share of tumult over the years. Its founding members, David Frederickson and Mistina Keith, married one another, then got divorced but continued their musical collaboration à la Fleetwood Mac. In 2008, everyone in the group was injured in a highway wreck that cost them their van and equipment (although the financial blow was cushioned by donations which streamed in from fans across the globe). The Prids’ have even survived the hazards of geography, keeping things together in transitions from their original base in Missouri through stints in Nebraska en route to Oregon.

The band relocated to Portland in November 1999. The Prids follow a strong DIY ethic similar to that of Fugazi, including the home recording of several of their records. Booking their own tours, running their own label collective This-a-Way Records, which includes other Portland bands Lookbook, Soft Tags and We Miss The Earth. The “label” collective is described by founder Mistina La Fave as “Musicians coming together to support one another. No contacts, just sharing our knowledge and resources to help one another get our music out there.”

via NME and One-Track-Mind

Mistina Keith

I’ll Wait
I’ll Wait – Prids

In The Fall
In The Fall

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