Whether stepping to the mic or writing for others, Sia Furler has made a seismic impact on modern pop. Born in Adelaide, Australia, in 1975, Furler started out singing in acts there and later in London. Her early solo albums did fine - with 2004's "Breathe Me" memorably scoring the final sequence of HBO's Six Feet Under - but it wasn't until she started penning songs for other artists that her career took off.

James Blunt can seem like the most soft-hearted kind of singer, with his trembling falsetto and lyrics full of yearning. But as you might expect of a star who spent much of his pre-fame life serving in the British army, he's not as easily bruised as he sometimes sounds. Instead, Blunt's proven to be a remarkably hardy and enduring artist in the years since he first bared his soul on "You're Beautiful", a confession of unrequited love that became one of the biggest hits of the 2000s. It was one of many songs on Blunt's 2004 debut, Back to Bedlam, that helped spur a wider shift for British and Irish singer/songwriters away from the more broodin...

A former busker with a self-described hippie streak, singer/songwriter/surfer Jason Mraz has a gift for observations about life's silver linings and effervescent melodies that are a staple of contemporary pop radio and bonfire strum-alongs. Born in Mechanicsville, Virginia, in 1977, Mraz was a natural performer from his early days in school plays and talent shows. In high school, he fell under the sway of the local jam circuit before picking up the guitar himself at 18. Mraz's eternally sunny pop seemed destined for California, so he headed west in 1999 and, after making the rounds of San Diego's coffeehouse scene, secured a weekly gig at Jav...

Combining traditional storytelling skills with a contemporary folk-rock sound, Scottish singer-songwriter Amy Macdonald has racked up a string of Top 5 albums in the UK. Raised in Bishopbriggs, East Dunbartonshire, Macdonald was inspired by Oasis and Scotland's own Travis. She taught herself guitar and began writing songs as a teenager. Her 2007 debut album, this is the Life, topped the UK charts on its way to selling more than a million copies. The single "Mr Rock & Roll" was a Top 20 UK hit.

The electronic project VNV ("Victory Not Vengeance") Nation was conceived in London in 1990 by Ronan Harris, debuting in May of that year with the 12-inch "Body Pulse". Singles such as "Standing" and "Dark Angel" were club mainstays, boasting Harris' love for pulsating club rhythms and his developing seascapes of dark ambient waves. Mix projects Genesis.1 and Genesis.2 followed that format in 2001, giving a sneak preview to VNV Nation's Futureperfect.

Like many bands born of the late-1990s nu-metal boom, Evanescence built their empire atop a foundation of grinding riffage and anguished lyrics. But the Little Rock, Arkansas, group had something none of their peers had: the voice of Amy Lee. Not only was the singer/pianist a rare female presence in a genre dominated by dudes, but her chandelier also-rattling vocals infused their aggressive attack with a breathtaking gothic grandeur. After Lee first bonded with guitarist Ben Moody at a Christian summer camp in 1994, Evanescence's early indie releases were marketed to the religious-rock market, until the band conquered the world at large with ...

The exuberant UK dance-pop group Steps scored 13 consecutive Top 5 hits during their 1998–2001 heyday. Steps were the creation of manager Tim Byrne and songwriters Steve Crosby and Barry Upton. They posted a newspaper advert and formed the five-piece group after auditioning thousands of hopefuls. The group's name came from a marketing plan: The dance steps for each of the quintet's choreographed music videos would be included with their singles.

The duo of Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe have been crafting witty, hooky synth-pop since a chance meeting at a hi-fi shop in 1981. Tennant's reserved vocals and Lowe's crisp instrumentation added a sardonic existentialism to New Wave. Their first single, the 1984 chronicle of urban life "West End Girls", became a minor club hit before being reworked with producer Stephen Hague; the revamped version became an international hit a year later. In the decades that followed, Pet Shop Boys would be revered as one of synth-pop's most beloved acts.

Thanks to her preternatural gift for weaving ambient textures and multilingual vocals into towering songs, Enya has become one of the most successful Celtic musicians of all time, having sold an estimated 75 million records worldwide and scored four Grammys, five Billboard Music awards, and an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination. The Irish singer born Eithne Ní Bhraonáin in 1961 began her musical career far more modestly as a keyboardist in her family's Celtic folk band, Clannad, in 1980. Two years later, she teamed up with manager and producer Nicky Ryan and his wife, lyricist Roma Ryan, to launch what would become a mega-successful solo car...

During her championship season on the first American Idol in 2002, Kelly Clarkson wowed judges and viewers in ways that countless contestants have emulated since, but few ever repeated. But what's most amazing about the Texan sweetheart's Cinderella story is not how she earned that first burst of reality-TV glory but how she extended her 15 minutes to weather setbacks and forge a career as one of music's best-loved performers.

Rooted at the crossroads of aggressive metal and beat-driven hip-hop, Linkin Park became one of the most successful acts of the early 21st century by incorporating elements from hardcore rap, raucous punk, atmospheric electronic, and even polished pop stylings into their music. From the commercial peak of their hip-hop-influenced, multi-platinum breakthrough albums Hybrid Theory (2000) and Meteora (2003), into a brief electronic phase (2010's A Thousand Suns), and a pop moment (2017's One More Light), they stayed ahead of the curve without sacrificing heaviness or chart success.

Calling Josh Groban one of the biggest stars in the history of classical crossover certainly is high praise. Yet it doesn't even begin to sum up the talents of an artist who isn't just a vocalist but an actor, multi-instrumentalist, and composer as well. When Groban first emerged in the late 1990s, there was no musician quite like him. Still a teenager, the L.A.-raised crooner (born in 1981) was skilled enough to stand in for an under-the-weather Andrea Bocelli at the rehearsals for the 1998 Grammy Awards. At the same time, he possessed all the youthful charm of a pop star - this wasn't the Three Tenors in tuxedos; this was the nice boy down ...