Rock in Rio Lisboa

Despite beginning her music career in 2000, Katy Perry struggled to find a clear direction and style for her musical talents. Beginning in gospel, the lack of success her debut album, “Katy Hudson”, attracted found the singer moving over to secular music. Here she began to develop her style and song-writing abilities. Katy was signed and dropped from multiple record deals between 2003 and 2007, with many executives recognizing her talent and potential but failing to provide her with material and collaborators that would allow this talent to shine.

Finally, in 2007 Katy Perry was signed to Capitol Music Group where she began working with producer Dr. Luke, who co-wrote the songs “I Kissed A Girl” and “Hot n Cold”. “I Kissed a Girl” was a massive breakthrough hit for Katy Perry reaching the number one spot in the US, UK, Australian, Austrian, Canadian, German, Irish, Dutch, New Zealand and Swiss music charts. “Hot n Cold” was also a top 5 single in each of these countries, causing Katy Perry’s second album “One Of the Boys” to secure a top 10 placement in the US charts.

After the success of her first pop album, Katy Perry managed to surpass this with her second pop album, “Teenage Dream”. The album won her a Guinness World Record for being the first female artist in the world to achieve five number one hits from the same album on the Billboard Hot 100. In fact, the only other artist to have achieved this feat before her was Michael Jackson with his 1987 album “Bad”.

In addition to this award, Katy Perry has been nominated for an incredible eleven Grammy Awards across her three pop albums, and has won multiple MTV VMA awards and People’s Choice Awards.

Katy Perry cites Queen singer Freddie Mercury as her biggest influence. After hearing the song “Bohemian Rhapsody”, Katy Perry was inspired to make music, and her flamboyant outfits and image suggest that Mercury was an influence both musically and visually.

Katy Perry’s 2014 album “Prism” hit the number one spot in the US and UK album charts and shows a slightly darker edge to her musical ability. The album demonstrates Katy Perry’s musical range and willingness to experiment. Katy Perry’s immense talent and theatrical world tours have won her a legion of loyal fans across the globe. Her hard work is evident in the music she produces and her success speaks for itself.

After changing their name twice and recruiting several new members, including current vocalist Chester Bennington, the band settled on the name Linkin Park and began recording much of the material for their debut album “Hybrid Theory”, which was released shortly after the band signed with Warner Brothers in 1999.

“Hybrid Theory” was a breakthrough success for Linkin Park and quickly sold almost five million albums in its first year, with single “One Step Closer” demonstrating Chester Bennington’s dynamic vocal range and style. Linkin Park’s ability to bring nu metal to a mainstream, radio-listening audience has meant that the release of its five subsequent studio albums has bought the band ever-increasing success, and has turned Linkin Park into one of the most successful rock bands of the new millennium.

Singles “In the End” and “What I’ve Done” have been hugely successful across the globe and have demonstrated the band’s range and growth over the years. Linkin Park’s influences come from various sources, but Mike Shinoda has noted that Public Enemy has been a huge inspiration to them. The band has attempted to emulate Public Enemy’s three-dimensional sound by experimenting with the interplay between Mike Shinoda’s rap, Chester Bennington’s melodic rock voice and the band’s accompanying hard rock sound.

Linkin Park has collaborated with numerous other artists over the years including Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes, and Steve Aoki, among others. The versatility of their music has won them fans all over the world and it is no surprise that Linkin Park was the first rock band to attain over one billion views on YouTube.

In addition to this, the group has won two Grammy Awards and multiple MTV awards for their extensive discography. No strangers to hard work, the band has toured extensively promoting their own albums as part of their own Projekt Revolution – which has featured acts such as Snoop Dogg and Cyrpess Hill – and to raise money for various charitable causes over the past few years. With this level of talent and such a strong work ethic, one thing is for sure: Linkin Park won’t be going away anytime soon.

Born in Highgate, North London, England on 10 January 1945 and the youngest of five children, Stewart considered a career as a footballer before ultimately pursuing a career in music. In 1962 Stewart began spending time with Wizz Jones, a folk singer, and together they started to perform around England, Paris and even Barcelona, finding places to sleep under bridges. The following year Stewart picked up his signature Mod look, including his famous spiky rooster hairstyle. It was also the same year he became fascinated by R&B and soul music. He also joined his first paying musician job as a harmonica player and part-time vocalist with the R&B group, Dimensions.

Early in 1964 Long John Baldry discovered Stewart and invited him to play with his group the All Stars (renamed The Hoochie Coochie Men). As he started to gain more confidence as a performer on stage, Stewart would be billed as Rod the Mod. Later that same year he was scouted by Decca Records and signed his first solo contract resulting in his first single “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl.” In July 1965 Stewart became part of the group Steampacket and supported The Rolling Stones.

By early 1966 Stewart departed Steampacket and found his way into the Jeff Beck Group as a vocalist and occasional songwriter and continued to tour with them around Europe and hit the United States in June 1968. By August the group released their first album “Truth,” but despite it’s widespread success the band fell apart and by October 1968 Stewart signed a solo contract with Mercury Records by his 1971 released the album “Every Picture Tells a Story” that really started to get his career on an upward spiral. With another album under his belt, by 1975 Stewart made the move to Los Angeles, California and released “Atlantic Crossing.” He reached the pivotal point in his career three years later with the release of the iconic “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” single, despite all of the criticisms about the lyrics.

As the times changed so did Stewart’s style; taking on a more new wave direction in the 80s. Unfortunately this resulted in mixed reviews of the albums that he released during this time. However things went back to stable with his 1988 release of “Out of Order” which had such hits as “Forever Young,” “Crazy About You,” and “My Heart Can’t Tell You No.” His following albums charted just as high and by 1994 he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. The 90s saw him signing with Clive Davis’ new label J Records.

The 2000s was full of continued success. He concentrated on working on some of the best pop songs from the 1930s and 1940s called “The Great American Songbook,” and a second “As Time Goes By: the Great American Songbook,” going up to four of these albums. Unfortunately in May 2000 he was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, resulting in him going into surgery and having to “relearn” how to sing. To this day he continues his strong career and has released a tell all with his autobiography “Rod: The Autobiography.”

In the popular imagination, at least, Lauper is arguably best known as a little bit of a one-hit wonder; it’s certainly true that ‘Girls Just Want to Have Fun’, her international smash hit in 1983, is the most enduring track from her back catalogue, but the truth is that Lauper boasts a far more impressive track record than most artists to be tagged with the one hit wonder label - in fact, she was the first female solo artist to see her first four singles chart in the top five on the Billboard singles rundown in the U.S, with ‘All Through the Night’, ‘Time After Time’ and ‘She Bop’ also making the cut.

Her awards history, too, is incredibly impressive; she’s scooped gongs at the Grammys, Emmys and Tonys - one of only twenty performers ever to do so - as well as picking up awards from Billboard, MTV (at the VMAs) and VH1. She’s also become well known over the years for her charitable activities, in particular as a champion for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender causes; she was asked to perform at the 2013 second term inauguration ceremony of President Barack Obama in recognition of her efforts over the years.

The group have achieved enormous success, selling over 18 million albums worldwide. Their music style is unusual to say the least: an interesting blend of hip hop, Latin hip hop, Trip hop, West Coast hip hop, hard core hip hop, rap rock, rap metal, nu metal and psychedelic hip hop.

The band formed back in 1988, when brothers Senen Reyes (also known as Sen Dog) and Ulpiano Sergio Reyes (aka Mellow Man Ace) teamed together with Lawrence Muggerud (also known as DJ Muggs) and Louis Freese (also known as B-Real) to form the group DVX (Devastating Vocal Excellence). When the band lost Mellow Man Ace to a solo career they started anew and changed their name to Cypress Hill, after a street in their home town of South Gate.

In 1989 the band signed with Columbia Records and releases their first album in August 1991. The album was a success, selling two million copies in the USA alone. Following this, their second album (‘Black Sunday’) debuted at the number one spot in 1993. This was a massive deal at the time for a rap group. In 1994 the group were honoured by being named Rolling Stone magazine’s named best rap group in their music awards, voted by critics and readers.

The band has toured with several big names including Ziggy Marley, The Fugees, Busta Rhymes, Rage against the Machine and A Tribe Called Quest. They have also produced covers of classics such as Guns N’ Roses ‘Paradise City’.

The band are known for their distinctive rapping style and the fact that they sing in both Spanish and English. One of the band's most striking aspects is the exaggeratedly high-pitched nasal vocals of one of their members when rapping.

The band consists of lead vocalist Ricky Wilson, who has achieved added fame from his stint as a judge on the UK talent show The Voice, guitarist Andrew "Whitey" White, bassist Simon Rix, keyboardist Nick "Peanut" Baines and drummer Vijay Mistry, who replaced founding drummer Nick Hodgson in late 2012.

The band’s big break came along when they performed at the NME Awards tour in 2005, as the opening act. This opportunity allowed the band to start making a name for themselves in the UK. Their first album debuted the same year, entitled ‘Employment’, and reached the number two spot on the UK album chart and was subsequently certified five times platinum. The album was even shortlisted for a Mercury prize, but narrowly missed out on the prestigious award.

Since this encouraging start, the band has fast become one of the most successful UK indie rock bands today. Their most notable hits include ‘I Predict a Riot’, ‘Every day I love you Less and Less’ (both from their debut album) and smash hit ‘Ruby’ from their second album, amongst many others. Their second album, ‘Yours Truly, Angry Mob’ topped the success of their first, reaching the number one spot on the UK albums chart and the album’s lead single ‘Ruby’ became their first ever UK number one single.

In terms of music style, the band can best be described as indie rock with elements of new-wave and post-punk revival. Other similar artists include Coldplay and Franz Ferdinand. Although the band have not quite reached the pinnacle of success surmounted by Coldplay, they have nonetheless well and truly cemented themselves in UK band history. With over one million singles sold worldwide, Kaiser Chiefs are arguably the biggest band to have emerged from Leeds, having won many prestigious awards including Brits and NME awards.

Inspired by Aretha Franklin’s ‘Greatest Hits’, Stone began her rise to stardom in 2001 at the age of 14; she won the Star for a Night talent show on BBC, before signing to S-Curve Records and releasing her multi-platinum and critically acclaimed debut album ‘The Soul Sessions’ in 2003. Miss Stone won the Capital FM accolade of London’s Favourite UK Album with the release of ‘Mind, Body & Soul’ a year later, which featured the hit single ‘You Had Me”, charting at number nine in the UK.

Between the years of 2007 and 2009, Stone released two more albums - ‘Introducing Joss Stone’ and ‘Colour Me Free!’ - before starting up her own record label - Stone’d Records - in 2010 and releasing the album ‘LP1’ on her own label. The vintage soul-artist then recorded an album with SuperHeavy, a supergroup consisting of Mick Jagger, Damien Marley and A.R. Rahman, before releasing ‘The Soul Sessions Vol 2’ in 2012.

Stone has utilized her musical talents for various campaigns, such as the Save the Music Foundation in 2004, where she performed along the likes of Jessica Simpson and Ashanti, and Band Aid 20, recording alongside Coldplay vocalist Chris Martin and U2 singer Bono. Stone also lead a campaign for Hear The World, which focused on raising an awareness for the victims of hearing loss, and was the first non-model to feature as the Flake girl for Cadbury Schweppes in 2008.

A worldwide superstar, Joss Stone has performed at reputable events such as the Live 8 Concert in 2005 and the Best of Blues Festival in 2014, highlighting the huge following she has maintained since her early teenage years.