Michael BoltonMichael Bolotin (born February 26, 1953), known professionally as Michael Bolton, is an American singer and songwriter. Bolton performed in the hard rock and heavy metal music genres from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, both on his early solo albums and those he recorded as the frontman of the band Blackjack. He became better known for his series of pop rock ballads, recorded after a stylistic change in the late 1980s.
Kenny GKenneth Bruce Gorelick (born June 5, 1956), known professionally as Kenny G, is an American smooth jazz saxophonist, composer, and producer. His 1986 album Duotones brought him commercial success. Kenny G is one of the best-selling artists of all time, with global sales totaling more than 75 million records. Kenny G was born in Seattle, Washington to a Jewish family. His mother was a Canadian Jew from Saskatchewan, Canada. He came into contact with the saxophone when he heard a performance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
1990s in musicPopular music in the 1990s saw the continuation of teen pop and dance-pop trends which had emerged in the 1970s and 1980s. Furthermore, hip hop grew and continued to be highly successful in the decade, with the continuation of the genre's golden age. Aside from rap, reggae, contemporary R&B, and urban music in general remained extremely popular throughout the decade; urban music in the late-1980s and 1990s often blended with styles such as soul, funk, and jazz, resulting in fusion genres such as new jack swing, neo-soul, hip hop soul, and g-funk which were popular.
J-popJ-pop (ジェイポップ, jeipoppu; often stylized in all caps; an abbreviated form of "Japanese popular music"), natively also known simply as pops, is the name for a form of popular music that entered the musical mainstream of Japan in the 1990s. Modern J-pop has its roots in traditional music of Japan, and significantly in 1960s pop and rock music. J-pop replaced kayōkyoku ("Lyric Singing Music", a term for Japanese popular music from the 1920s to the 1980s) in the Japanese music scene.
Dolly PartonDolly Rebecca Parton (born January 19, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter, musician, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman, known primarily for her decades-long career in country music. After achieving success as a songwriter for others, Parton made her album debut in 1967 with Hello, I'm Dolly, which led to success during the remainder of the 1960s (both as a solo artist and with a series of duet albums with Porter Wagoner), before her sales and chart peak came during the 1970s and continued into the 1980s.
Celine DionCéline Marie Claudette Dion (seɪˌliːn_diˈɒn ; born 30 March 1968) is a Canadian singer. Referred to as the "Queen of Power Ballads", she is noted for her powerful and technically skilled vocals. Her music has incorporated genres such as pop, rock, R&B, gospel, and classical music. Her recordings have been mainly in English and French, although she has also sung in Spanish, Italian, German, Latin, Japanese, and Chinese.
CherCher (ʃɛər; born Cherilyn Sarkisian; May 20, 1946) is an American singer, actress and television personality. Often referred to by the media as the "Goddess of Pop", she has been described as embodying female autonomy in a male-dominated industry. Known for her distinctive contralto singing voice and for having worked in numerous areas of entertainment, as well as adopting a variety of styles and appearances; Cher rose to fame in 1965 as one half of the folk rock husband-wife duo Sonny & Cher, before launching a successful, six-decade-long solo career.
Sentimental balladA sentimental ballad is an emotional style of music that often deals with romantic and intimate relationships, and to a lesser extent, loneliness, death, war, drug abuse, politics and religion, usually in a poignant but solemn manner. Ballads are generally melodic enough to get the listener's attention. Sentimental ballads are found in most music genres, such as pop, R&B, soul, country, folk, rock and electronic music. Usually slow in tempo, ballads tend to have a lush musical arrangement which emphasizes the song's melody and harmonies.
Freestyle musicFreestyle music, also called Latin freestyle or (initially) Latin hip hop, is a form of electronic dance music that emerged in the New York metropolitan area and Philadelphia, primarily among Hispanic Americans and Italian Americans in the 1980s. It experienced its greatest popularity from the late 1980s until the early 1990s. A common theme of freestyle lyricism originated as heartbreak in an urban environment typified by New York City. An important precursor to freestyle is 1982's "Planet Rock" by Afrika Bambaataa & Soul Sonic Force.
Joni MitchellRoberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter and painter. As one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her starkly personal lyrics and unconventional compositions which grew to incorporate pop and jazz elements. She has received many accolades, including ten Grammy Awards and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997.
