'Pop' Bands // p 2 of 7

Brett Dennen

Brett Michael Dennen (born October 28, 1979) is an American folk/pop singer and songwriter from Central California. His sixth studio album, Por Favor, was released in May 2016.

Early life
Dennen grew up in Central Valley, California in a small farm town. As a child, Dennen was homeschooled, where he was given creative freedom by his parents. His father was an avid pickler, which Dennen attributes to his own love for briney foods. He spent much of his time learning to play music. After becoming proficient in the guitar, he started to write his own songs.

Dennen learned to play guitar while attending Camp Jack Hazard, a residential summer camp in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. His camp counselors played the music of Neil Young, John Denver, and Joni Mitchell, the same music that his parents listened to. As an adolescent, he worked there as a counselor. He has continued to help the camp, performing at a fundraiser in February 2012 for the Jack and Buena Foundation, which now runs Camp Jack Hazard.

He attended Oakdale High School. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz in 2002, where he was a student at Kresge College. He majored in sociology and philosophy, with goals of becoming an educator, a teacher, or a community worker. He also led numerous anti-smoking campaigns on campus, and was instrumental in removing ash trays from building entrances. He also began writing music with friends, and he eventually established a jam band, playing mandolin alongside an acoustic guitarist, bassist, hand drummer, and flutist. He found writing music that everyone would like, however, "stifling and overwhelming."

After graduating college and remaining in Santa Cruz, Dennen moved to Los Angeles to perform. In late 2003 and early 2004, he began to record his first album, which he self-released. A year after the album's release, Universal signed on as a distributor.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Broken Social Scene

Broken Social Scene is a Canadian indie rock band, a musical collective including as few as six and as many as nineteen members, formed by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning. Most of its members play in various other groups and solo projects, mainly in the city of Toronto. These associated acts include Metric, Feist, Stars, Apostle of Hustle, Do Make Say Think, KC Accidental, Emily Haines & The Soft Skeleton, Amy Millan, and Jason Collett.

The group's sound combines elements of all of its members' respective musical projects, and is occasionally considered baroque pop. It includes grand orchestrations featuring guitars, horns, woodwinds, and violins, unusual song structures, and an experimental, and sometimes chaotic production style from David Newfeld, who produced the second and third albums.

Stuart Berman's This Book Is Broken (2009) covers the band from its inception to its critical acclaim. In 2010, Bruce McDonald made This Movie Is Broken, a movie about the band's Harbourfront show during the 2009 Toronto strike.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Cavedoll

Eclectic-Indie-Pop-Glam-Prog band comprised of Camden Chamberlain, Zak Mason, Brian Kubarycz, Eric Stoye, Vanessa Angulo, Josh Emery, & Nate Simpson. Songwriter/Producer/Curator Camden Chamberlain’s hyper-creative musical collective also frequently features Van Christensen, Greg Nielsen, Mike Sasich, Jamison Wilkins, Terence Hansen, and Anthony Phan, along with distinguished collaborators such as the legendary siren Ruby Friedman, Grammy-nominated producer/drummer Alex Elena, renowned TV/film/West-End-Musical composer Tim Phillips, Rich DeCicco of The Ladies Of Sport, Gentry Densley of Iceburn, Maya Coppola, Dustin Swan, Jake Emery, Ahmond, Josh Wells, Calhoon Popadopolis, Pat Maine, and so many more. At the core are Camden Chamberlain and Vanessa Angulo who once shared a home, cars, dishes, and a marriage... They now share children, music, and a close friendship. Based in Salt Lake City and Saint George, Utah as of 2019, the project eschews genres yet never loses complete sight of certain pop-sensibilities. One can typically expect, on average, two or three full-length releases per year. So be sure to check in with this prolific and unique project regularly! Your ears will thank you.

^{Source spotify.com}

Charlie Winston

Charlie Winston Gleave (born 14 September 1978), better known as Charlie Winston, is an English singer-songwriter based in London. Winston has so far had his most significant commercial success in France.

Charlie played bass guitar for his brother Tom Baxter, appearing on Baxter's Feather and Stone album. As well as touring with Tom, much of Charlie's early career saw him composing music for, and performing in, London-based contemporary theatre productions.

His first ever unreleased and rarest record was Mischifus, a mix between beatbox, guitar and piano, which appeared as a theater/dance production that he had performed on stage in 2007 recorded under the Real World label.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Cigarettes After Sex

Cigarettes After Sex is an American ambient pop band formed in El Paso, Texas, in 2008, founded by Greg Gonzalez. The band is known for their ethereal, limerent and often dream-like musical style, lyrics often based on the themes of romance and love, as well as Gonzalez's voice, described as "androgynous". While marketed as an ambient pop band, Cigarettes After Sex are also considered to be shoegaze, dream pop and slowcore.

The band's debut extended play (EP), I., was released in 2012, with the song "Nothing's Gonna Hurt You Baby" eventually becoming a sleeper hit through commercial licensing. After the release of the standalone single "Affection" in 2015, the band released their self-titled debut studio album in June 2017 to positive reviews.

In August 2019, the band announced their second studio album, titled Cry, along with the single "Heavenly". The album was released on October 25, 2019.

History
Cigarettes After Sex was formed in El Paso, Texas, in 2008. Gonzalez recorded the first EP, I., in a four-story stairway at his alma mater, University of Texas at El Paso, calling the experience "basically an accident; kind of an experiment".

Gonzalez relocated to Brooklyn, New York, where the band's single "Affection" was recorded and released in 2015 along with a cover of REO Speedwagon's "Keep On Loving You".

Through music recommendations, Cigarettes After Sex became popular on YouTube, leading to live performances across Europe, Asia, and the United States. The band then released their self-titled debut studio album on June 9, 2017.

Musical style and influences
In a feature for Noisey by Vice, Christina Cacouris describes Cigarettes After Sex as "elemental, hazy and romantic, but with a noir edge underneath Gonzalez's androgynous voice" as well as "sweet and sentimental". "As the band’s name suggests, it’s reminiscent of lying in bed, but its ambient qualities don’t prevent it from being music you can dance to." Gonzalez cites Françoise Hardy as his favorite singer and Miles Davis as having great impact. In an interview with Sound of Boston, he also noted films such as L'Avventura and The Double Life of Veronique were influential to the feel and sound of the music in "Affection" and their LP. The band also includes The Cowboy Junkies' album The Trinity Session, Julee Cruise, and Cocteau Twins as influences. The music blog Eardrums Music describes the band as "slow, dreamy and beautiful with gorgeous, tender vocals and very good lyrics." and compares it to Mazzy Star Music bloggers behind Swell Tone describe Cigarettes After Sex as a band producing "melancholy, slow pop that will sweetly rock any listener into a listless stupor."

Reviewing Affection for Independentmusicnews.com, Jae Pyl concludes that "there’s just such an intimacy to Cigarettes After Sex's sound that it’s impossible to not let it into the pit of your belly."

^{Source Wikipedia}

Cotton Jones

Cotton Jones (formerly The Cotton Jones Basket Ride) is an indie folk band, with elements of psychedelic folk, dream pop, baroque pop, and Americana, based in Cumberland, Maryland and currently signed to Suicide Squeeze Records.

Michael Nau (born October 31, 1984) is the lead singer-songwriter and plays guitar, Whitney McGraw (born July 20, 1986) is on keyboards, organ, and electronic autoharp, Todd Gowans (born February 4, 1986) is on lead electric guitar, and Greg Bender is on bass.

The signature sound of the band is Michael Nau and his wife Whitney McGraw's ethereal vocals.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Crumb

Crumb is an American indie rock band, founded in Boston. The group is a collaboration of Brooklyn-based musicians Lila Ramani (guitar, vocals), Jesse Brotter (bass, backing vocals), Brian Aronow (synthesizers, keyboard, saxophone), and Jonathan Gilad (drums), who met while attending Tufts University.

History

Ramani, Brotter, Aronow, and Gilad, met at Tufts University and, prior to the formation of Crumb, had collaborated on Boston-based projects, including Bad and Blue, JG and The Funky Bunch, and The American Symphony of Soul. In 2016 they came together to develop and record a collection of songs Ramani had started writing in high school and college, ultimately resulting in the band’s first two EPs, Crumb (2016) and Locket (2017). Both EPs were independently released, with physical cassettes released by DIY label Citrus City Records.

Crumb went on to release their debut full-length album, Jinx, on June 14, 2019. The album received positive reviews from music critics.

Music style

Indie Current described Crumb's sound on 'Locket' as psychedelic slacker-rock. Paste Magazine called their sound a meld of "60s psych, loose jazz, and freeform indie rock into a soothing pop amalgamation." Their sound has been compared to Melody's Echo Chamber, BadBadNotGood, Quilt, Tame Impala, and Broadcast.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Damon Albarn

Damon Albarn OBE (/ˈdeɪmən ˈælbɑːrn/; born 23 March 1968) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the frontman and primary lyricist of the rock band Blur and as the co-founder, lead vocalist, instrumentalist, and primary songwriter of the virtual band Gorillaz.

Raised in Leytonstone, East London, and around Colchester, Essex, Albarn attended the Stanway School, where he met guitarist Graham Coxon and formed Blur, releasing their debut album Leisure in 1991. After spending long periods touring the US, Albarn's songwriting became increasingly influenced by British bands from the 1960s. The result was the Blur albums Modern Life Is Rubbish (1993), Parklife (1994) and The Great Escape (1995). All three albums received critical acclaim while Blur gained mass popularity in the UK, aided by a Britpop chart rivalry with Oasis. Subsequent albums such as Blur (1997), 13 (1999), and Think Tank (2003) incorporated influences from lo-fi, art rock, electronic and world music. These were followed by The Magic Whip (2015), Blur's first studio album in 12 years.

Albarn formed the virtual band Gorillaz in 1998 with comic book artist Jamie Hewlett. Drawing influences from hip hop, dub, pop, trip hop, and world music, Gorillaz released their self-titled debut album in 2001 to worldwide success, spawning successful follow-ups Demon Days (2005), Plastic Beach, The Fall (both released in 2010), Humanz (2017), The Now Now (2018) and the first season of their Song Machine project, Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez (2020). Although Albarn is the only permanent musical contributor, Gorillaz albums typically feature collaborations from a range of artists. Gorillaz are cited by the Guinness Book of World Records as the "Most Successful Virtual Band".

Albarn's other notable projects have included two supergroups: the Good, the Bad & the Queen and Rocket Juice & the Moon, working with the non-profit organization Africa Express, which he co-founded, and composing film soundtracks. He also scored the stage productions Monkey: Journey to the West (2008), Dr Dee (2012) and Wonder.land (2016). His debut solo studio album Everyday Robots was released in 2014, with his second The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows released in 2021.

In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked Albarn number 18 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". In 2016, Albarn received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2016 New Year Honours for services to music. In 2020, Albarn was granted Icelandic citizenship.

^{Source Wikipedia}

David Bowie

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie (/ˈboʊi/, BOH-ee), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million albums worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music artists. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.

Born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child, eventually studying art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. "Space Oddity" became his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart after its release in July 1969. After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of his single "Starman" and album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted radically towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK devotees but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the album Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg, and released Station to Station. The following year, he further confounded musical expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low (1977), the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the "Berlin Trilogy". "Heroes" (1977) and Lodger (1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.

After uneven commercial success in the late 1970s, Bowie had UK number ones with the 1980 single "Ashes to Ashes", its parent album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and "Under Pressure", a 1981 collaboration with Queen. He reached his commercial peak in 1983 with Let's Dance; the album's title track topped both UK and US charts. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Bowie continued to experiment with musical styles, including industrial and jungle. He also continued acting; his roles included Major Jack Celliers in Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence (1983), Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth (1986), Pontius Pilate in The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), and Nikola Tesla in The Prestige (2006), among other film and television appearances and cameos. He stopped touring after 2004 and his last live performance was at a charity event in 2006. In 2013, Bowie returned from a decade-long recording hiatus with The Next Day. He remained musically active until he died of liver cancer two days after the release of his final album, Blackstar (2016).

^{Source Wikipedia}

David Sylvian

David Sylvian (born David Alan Batt, 23 February 1958) is an English singer-songwriter and musician who came to prominence in the late 1970s as frontman of the band Japan. The band's androgynous look and increasingly electronic sound made them an important influence on the UK's early-1980s New Romantic scene. Following their breakup, Sylvian embarked on a solo career with his debut album Brilliant Trees (1984). His solo work has been described by AllMusic as "far-ranging and esoteric," and has included collaborations with artists such as Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Fripp, Holger Czukay, and Fennesz.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in Basildon in 1980. The group consists of a trio of Dave Gahan (lead vocals and co-songwriting), Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, co-lead vocals and main songwriting) and Andy Fletcher (keyboards).

Depeche Mode released their debut album, Speak & Spell, in 1981, bringing the band onto the British new wave scene. Founding member Vince Clarke left after the release of the album; they recorded A Broken Frame as a trio. Gore took over as main songwriter and later, in 1982, Alan Wilder replaced Clarke, establishing a lineup that continued for 13 years. The band's last albums of the 1980s, Black Celebration and Music for the Masses, established them as a dominant force within the electronic music scene. A highlight of this era was the band's June 1988 concert at the Pasadena Rose Bowl, where they drew a crowd in excess of 60,000 people. In early 1990, they released Violator, an international mainstream success. The following album Songs of Faith and Devotion, released in 1993, was also a success, though the band's internal struggles during recording and touring resulted in Wilder's departure in 1995.

Depeche Mode have had 54 songs in the UK Singles Chart and 17 Top 10 albums in the UK chart; they have sold more than 100 million records worldwide. Q included the band in its list of the "50 Bands That Changed the World!" Depeche Mode also rank No. 98 on VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". In December 2016, Billboard named Depeche Mode the 10th Greatest of All Time Top Dance Club Artists. They were nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2017 and 2018, and were inducted as part of the Class of 2020.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Dirty Beaches

Alex Zhang Hungtai (born September 4, 1980 in Taipei) is a Taiwanese-born Canadian musician and actor. In addition to his given name, he makes music under the names Last Lizard and Dirty Beaches.

Zhang released several EPs and three albums as Dirty Beaches on cassette-only labels before releasing his fourth full-length, Badlands, in March 2011. Badlands, unlike Zhang's earlier work, included his vocals on most songs. The album was long listed as a nominee for the 2011 Polaris Music Prize. Drifters/Love Is The Devil followed in 2013, pushing further into no wave, electronic music, jazz and ambient territory.

In 2014 Zhang decided to end the Dirty Beaches project after releasing the instrumental album Stateless, on which he played sax. As Last Lizard, Zhang collaborated with jazz and improvisational musicians and released new solo pieces on Soundcloud, Vimeo and Vine. In 2016 Zhang released the instrumental piano album Knave of Hearts under his own name.

Zhang has also recorded original film soundtracks for several documentaries, including Water Park (2012) and Who Is Arthur Chu? (2017), in addition to directing music videos for himself and others.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Eleni Mandell

Eleni Mandell is an American singer-songwriter. Since 2000, she has published albums through Zedtone Records in Toronto, Ontario, which in 2012 began licensing her releases to Yep Roc in the United States, and Make My Day in Europe. She is also a member of folk supergroup The Living Sisters with Inara George and Becky Stark.

Mandell attended punk and underground rock shows while growing up in Los Angeles in the 1980s. She was inspired as a young songwriter by Tom Waits, X, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Randy Newman. Chuck E. Weiss, a socialite musician and associate of Tom Waits, was a mentor to Mandell.

Eleni Mandell's first album, Wishbone (1998), was produced by Jon Brion. Her second album, Thrill, was released in 2000, earning her comparisons to PJ Harvey and Tom Waits. Around 2001, The New Yorker magazine described Mandell "as perhaps the best unsigned artist in the business." In the same year, Mandell won the Los Angeles Regional Poll at The 1st Independent Music Awards for the song "Pauline." In 2003, she released Country For True Lovers, which was produced by X guitarist Tony Gilkyson. Miracle of Five (2007) featured contributions from Wilco guitarist Nels Cline and X drummer DJ Bonebrake.

Mandell's eighth full-length release, I Can See the Future (2012), was her first album to be licensed by Yep Roc, a U.S. record label. Produced by Joe Chiccarelli (The Shins, The Strokes, White Stripes), guest appearances include drummer Joey Waronker (Beck, Atoms for Peace), saxophonist Steve Berlin (Los Lobos), a duet with Benji Hughes, backing vocals throughout by Becky Stark and Inara George (The Living Sisters), and arrangements by Nate Walcott (Bright Eyes).

^{Source Wikipedia}

Elliott Smith

Steven Paul "Elliott" Smith (August 6, 1969 – October 21, 2003) was an American singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived much of his life in Portland, Oregon, where he first gained popularity. Smith's primary instrument was the guitar, though he also used piano, clarinet, bass guitar, drums, and harmonica. Smith had a distinctive vocal style, characterized by his "whispery, spiderweb-thin delivery", and used multi-tracking to create vocal layers, textures, and harmonies.

After playing in the rock band Heatmiser for several years, Smith began his solo career in 1994, with releases on the independent record labels Cavity Search and Kill Rock Stars (KRS). In 1997, he signed a contract with DreamWorks Records, for which he recorded two albums. Smith rose to mainstream prominence when his song "Miss Misery"—included in the soundtrack for the film Good Will Hunting (1997)—was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Original Song category in 1998.

Smith was a heavy drinker and drug user, as well as being diagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and major depressive disorder, which impacted his life and work; the topics often appearing in his lyrics. In 2003, aged 34, he died in Los Angeles, California, from two stab wounds to the chest. The autopsy evidence was inconclusive as to whether the wounds were self-inflicted or the result of homicide. At the time of his death, Smith was working on his sixth studio album, From a Basement on the Hill, which was posthumously completed and released in 2004.

^{Source Wikipedia}