Sugababes - About You Now

Multi-ethnic U.K. trio Sugababes jumped aboard the teen pop bandwagon prior to the new millennium and exuded their own sassy demeanor without the frivolity of most mainstream acts.

Siobhan Donaghy, Keisha Buchanan, and Mutya Buena were barely in their teens when they formed in 1998, sharing a liking of garage, hip-hop, and dance music. Initially, Sugababes were three friends who enjoyed singing along to the radio. Buchanan and Buena had been pals since primary school, and a chance meeting with Donaghy molded a fierce bond. A career in music wasn't intentional, yet a deal with London surfaced in 2000. Studio time with producer Cameron McVey (All Saints, Pete Tong) led to One Touch, which was released during the summer of 2001 and featured a dozen tracks co-written by the girls, including the smash hit "Overload." Sales didn't meet London's expectations. The group was subsequently dropped.

During the fall of 2001, rumors swirled about Donaghy's departure. Buena and Buchanan denied that Donaghy was kicked out of the group, but she was nonetheless gone after a four-year run. Heidi Range, one of the pre-chart members of Atomic Kitten, became her replacement, and Angels with Dirty Faces -- the group's second album -- was released through a new deal with Island by the end of 2002. The Richard X-produced "Freak Like Me," a cover of Adina Howard's 1995 R&B hit that featured a bolstered version of Tubeway Army's "Are Friends Electric" as its backdrop, debuted as a number one hit in the U.K. The Xenomania-produced "Round Round" followed suit with identical success.

Three, released in late 2003, fittingly topped out at number three on the U.K. album chart. It spawned another U.K. number one, "Hole in the Head," which even managed to scrape the Hot 100 in the U.S. and hit the top of the same country's dance chart. Amazingly, the group was never given much of a push stateside. Taller in More Ways, the fourth album, followed roughly two years later and eclipsed the group's already successful run by reaching the top of the U.K. album chart. Shortly after its release, Buena left the group on good terms, citing personal persons. Amelle Berrabah's entry into the group prompted a re-release of Taller that featured her vocals on a handful of cuts; Buena's work was left intact on a few others, and the album eventually gained platinum status. Overloaded: The Singles Collection was out by the end of 2006, and just a year later, the Sugababes released Change, a record which contained the chart-topping single "About You Now."

One Republic ft Timbaland - Apologize

You could say that Ryan Tedder was taught to reach for his goals from a very young age. Knowing his favorite treat was candy corn, his musician father placed a bowl of it on top of the family's grand piano. "He'd use it as bait," Tedder says. "The only way I could get at that candy corn was to practice. Then he'd put it within reach. I was three."

His father's tactics worked. Though he no longer works for candy, Tedder's passion for music was ignited in his childhood and soon blossomed into full-fledged obsession. By age 13, Tedder realized that he needed to express himself through his own songs and become an artist. His supple tenor, crystalline melodies, and emotionally charged lyrics reflect the blood and sweat of a young man who has devoted his life to learning and developing his craft as a singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Hence the intensely affecting music he has written for his Los Angeles-based band, OneRepublic.

“The songs touch on things like despair, lack of hope, and frustration,” Tedder says. “They have to do with my own journey; they're about times when I've felt stuck—that I'll never achieve my goals. But ultimately, in the songs, I resolve it by seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and realizing that no matter how bad things get, there's always a way out.”

It's that optimism and cathartic quality that propels such songs as “Stop and Stare.” The lyrics have shades of melancholy, but there is a tangible emotional undercurrent running through them. “To me, that is the most important thing,” Tedder says. “If you can't tap into emotion, then you're just selling catchy tunes.”

The enormous wellspring of emotion this 25-year-old Midwesterner taps into when he writes is partly due to his background. Tedder was raised in a devoutly religious extended family of missionaries and pastors in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “My mom didn't know anything about non-secular music,” Tedder says. “To this day, if I told her I was working with Prince, she'd think I was referring to my old dog.” The only non-Christian music he was exposed to as a kid was the Beach Boys. “I loved that they weren't gospel,” he says. “And their melodies and harmonies were just so tight.”

Having learned to play piano at age 3 through the Suzuki method, in which very young children play by ear rather than reading notes, Tedder taught himself to sing at age 12 by listening to his favorite records and trying to imitate John Lennon and Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, U2's Bono, and Sting until he could sing every note. “I sang for two hours a day every day of my life until I was 18,” Tedder says. Along the way, he picked up guitar, drums, bass, and clarinet.

Encouraged by his father, a pianist and songwriter who had received publishing offers but chose not to go the musical route, Tedder took losing his college scholarship his sophomore year (“because I kept skipping classes to write songs”) as a sign that he was meant to pursue his music professionally. He bounced around the Midwest for several years waiting tables to support himself until a brief stint working at a Pottery Barn warehouse became the last straw: “No more non-music-related jobs,” he says. Instead he fast-talked his way into an internship at DreamWorks Records' Nashville office and sold his car to buy recording equipment. “I didn't want to give myself a Plan B,” he says.

Desperate for money, Tedder began to produce demos for songwriters and labels, charging $300 to $400 a track. He hopped from production deal to deal, eventually hooking up with hip-hop producer Timbaland at one point and writing tracks for Southern rapper Bubba Sparxxx. Soon Tedder found himself at a crossroads. “I was offered two publishing deals within two months of being in Nashville,” he says. “I could have just written songs and lived a carefree life, but I knew that I had to be an artist. I wanted to form a rock band and create my own sound.”

Enter OneRepublic, which he formed in Colorado in 2004 with bassist Tim Meyers, guitarist Zach Filkins, guitarist Drew Brown, and drummer Eddie Fischer. The band are currently in the studio working on OneRepublic's debut album, which will be released by Columbia Records in 2006.

Tedder describes the music they are working on as being heavily influenced by the Beatles for the songwriting craft and melodic inventiveness, and U2 for the uplifting vocal delivery and emotional undercurrents. Throughout songs like “Apologize,” “All We Are,” and “Mercy,” Tedder aspires to move his listeners the way Bono does onstage. “You go to a U2 concert and it's like church,” he says. “I want to make people feel like that. I don't want someone to say, ‘Oh, he has a nice voice.' I want that person to walk away and feel like he or she has had a religious experience.”

Linkin Park - Shadow Of The Day

Linkin Park are:

Chester Bennington – Vocals
Mike Shinoda – Vocals / Emcee
Rob Bourdon – Drums
Brad Delson – Guitar / Bass
Phoenix Farrell – Bass
Joseph Hahn – DJ / Samples

Sophomore albums are famously tricky affairs. Musicians have their entire lives to pen their debut album, the theory goes, and a relatively short time to follow it up. But what if the debut in question is the biggest selling album in recent memory? And what if the music industry has Hollywood-like expectations for another instant blockbuster? That was the scenario Linkin Park faced when they entered the studio to record Meteora, the follow-up to their multi-platinum debut Hybrid Theory.

That album, which Rolling Stone called "twelve songs of compact fire indivisibly blending alternative metal, hip-hop, and turntable art", has shipped 14 million units worldwide to date. It was the Number One selling album of 2001. It launched three chart-topping singles including "In The End." And in 2002 it received a Grammy® for Best Hard Rock Performance for "Crawling," as well as nominations for Best Rock Album and Best New Artist. After diligently pursuing their craft since the band's humble origins in Southern California circa the mid-'90s, Linkin Park now had the world's ear.

To those outside the band, the pressure to follow up that success might have seemed insurmountable. But within Linkin Park, vocalists Chester Bennington and Mike Shinoda, guitarist Brad Delson, turntablist Joseph Hahn, drummer Rob Bourdon, and bassist Phoenix weren't sweating it in ways you might expect. Instead of dwelling on outside expectations, they set to work, meticulously crafting each moment of each song to their own exacting standards. The bigger picture developed accordingly.

"We don't ever want to have the mindset where we need to sell 10 million albums each time out. That's ridiculous," says Bennington. "It's a blessing to sell that many albums; it doesn't happen very often in this business--even once in your career is an achievement. Our obligation is to our fans. We're not going to get too comfortable and say it's a given that people will run out and buy our albums." "And if you know us, you know the biggest pressure came from within the band," says Shinoda.

"We just wanted to make another great album that we're proud of," says Bourdon. "We focused on that, and worked hard to create songs we love. We're our own harshest critics." If you doubt that, consider this: Shinoda and Bennington wrote 40 unique choruses for Meteora's poignant first single, "Somewhere I Belong," before arriving at the best possible version.

"We knew we needed to fix a couple things on that song," says Shinoda with a shrug. "So we'd write a new chorus, record it, mix it. Then we'd listen to it the next day, and Chester and I would look at each other and say, 'I don't know... I think it could be better.' And then we'd start again from scratch. It was a lot of work. We probably wrote and scrapped our sophomore jinx album somewhere in the mix. But we took our time, remained critical, and wrote songs we knew were good. Some people might have expected us to write a weaker version of Hybrid Theory -water it down, stagnate. But that's not what we're about."

The winning results of that painstaking approach are instantly apparent on Meteora. The twelve lean tracks display immense growth from the road-honed band, while still showcasing the rare chemistry that's been in place since Bennington completed the line-up in 1999. Working once again with Hybrid Theory co-producer Don Gilmore, the album came to life in a variety of studios, including the band's beloved tour-bus facility and each member's respective home set-up. This time Linkin Park had the opportunity to experiment with a wider palette sound, and an even more diverse array of styles.

They married wildly distressed samples to heavy guitars on songs such as "Somewhere I Belong." They arranged live strings and piano for "Breaking The Habit" and "Faint." They experimented with complex beats on songs such as "Easier To Run." They even added a Japanese flute called a shakuhachi to the hip-hop-driven "Nobody's Listening." Throughout, the rich textures and dynamic arrangements serve to enhance the moods created by Bennington's and Shinoda's powerful vocals - and vice versa. The synergy invites repeat listens.

The guiding vision for the 18-month recording process was evoked by the album's title, Meteora. During a European tour in 2002, the band stumbled upon a travel magazine featuring destinations in Greece. On the cover, the word "Meteora " and the accompanying photo caught their eye, and subsequently fired their imaginations.

Meteora is a group of six monasteries perched atop rock pinnacles rising 1500 feet above the plains of central Greece. As Bennington puts it, "they don't seem of this planet." And it's true. (To see for yourself, rent the Bond flick For Your Eyes Only, in which Roger Moore kicks ass at one of the mountain fortresses.) The Greek word literally translates as "hovering in the air." It's a fitting term for the otherworldly region, as well as for the album Linkin Park created with the image in mind. "We wanted to write songs that lived up to the energy that name exudes," says Bennington.

"It's really epic and beautiful. It totally embodies the sense of timelessness and expansiveness we wanted the album to have," says Shinoda. "We've since met people who've visited Meteora," adds Hahn. "People go there for solitude now - to find themselves. And that's what the album is about - finding yourself. Each song is about looking within and letting out emotions."

This time out, Bennington and Shinoda expanded the emotional range heard on Hybrid Theory. That album dealt with frustration, anger, fear and confusion from a younger person's perspective, according to Shinoda. The goal: catharsis. By contrast, Meteora reflects the accelerated lives the band members have led since recording their debut. "We toured the world for two years. That alone makes you step back and take a look at the bigger picture," says Shinoda. "We've always been interested in universal feelings, and that's what we focused on with this album. But Meteora is different in the sense that we're dealing with more facets of the human condition." "It's still a very dark album, but there's definitely more optimism," says Bennington. "We're still the same people, but now there's a light at the end of the tunnel."

On "Somewhere I Belong," for example, the verses describe fear and confusion, but the chorus takes that crucial first step toward arriving at a solution. Bennington sings, "I want to heal. I want to feel like I'm close to something real. I want to find something I've wanted all along, somewhere I belong."

And on "Breaking The Habit," he sings, "I don't know what's worth fighting for. Or why I have to scream. I don't know why I instigate and say what I don't mean. I don't know how I got this way. I know it's not alright. So I'm breaking the habit tonight."

Once again, the vocalists worked closely together to deliver a broad spectrum of emotions as a unified front. Now, however, Bennington and Shinoda draw upon a longer shared history. Their voices and sentiments are practically indivisible. "Mike is a computer whiz, and a formally trained musician," says Hahn, distinguishing the difference between the two vocalists. "Chester brings the rawness - the emotion that needs to come out. They complement each other that way. It's a true yin-yang thing."

The entire band, in fact, sounds more fully realized on Meteora. It's a rare achievement: A full integration of six members that still retains the unique qualities of each individual. The end result is the thumbprint style known as Linkin Park. "We don't really analyze the chemistry," says Bourdon. "We're just lucky and grateful that we found each other and that we work so well together."

"The collaborations are more seamless now," agrees Bennington. "Mike, for instance, knows more about me as a person, and I know more about him, so it's easier to write lyrics together. It's not possible to have secrecy in our relationship. You have to open up, because you want the other person to be on the same page. We're all that way with each other."

And with collaborators like these, who needs a therapist?

"Exactly," says Bennington with a laugh. "That's why I joined a band in the first place."