Although I’m really not a fan of her as a person recently really, Madonna is still one of those music artists that just keeps coming back and still gets bigger every time. I think that mostly everyone in the United States, maybe even the world could tell you at least one Madonna song without a problem. Having said, this pop star queens net-worth is over 800 million dollars, meaning she’s still going to be around for a long time because her career isn’t even near the end. Starting her singing in 1979, the “Pop-Queen” has sold more than 300 million records worldwide! According to the Guinness World Records, she is known as the best selling female recording artist and is also behind Elvis, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson for fourth-best selling act of all time.

She is now on her tenth worldwide concert tour “Rebel Heart” beginning August in 2015. There will be a total of 53 shows for this tour. At 56 years old I don’t know how she has the energy to do all of this still because I think that would be very exhausting for myself at almost 21 years old. Although I don’t agree with some of the raunchy things that she does on stage, her music still is very catchy and impressing for someone only 10 years younger than my Maam and Pap(grandparents).

In the beginning of the band, the starting members were just Jackie, Tito, and Jermaine Jackson as “The Jackson Brothers”. Later on, Michael and Marlon joined, renaming the group to “Jackson 5”. They are most popularly known today for their songs “ABC” “I Want You Back” and “I’ll Be There”. These song are still heard today in TV shows and movies all around. They are also still played on certain throwback radio stations. The song that I remember the most is “ABC”, it was even performed in a Nickelodeon TV show called “Victorious” just a couple years ago as one of those famous orange jail jumpsuit videos with the prisoners performing. (starting at 27 seconds) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glma2zR9-fo

With this, they managed to do a total of 5 tours all together, and 1 tour without Michael, making it the first time touring without him. This tour was called “The Unity Tour” and it included Jackie, Tito, Jermaine, and Marlon. They managed to do 70 shows in the time span of June 20, 2012 to July 27, 2013. I found a “box office score data sheet” from one show that they did in Los Angeles in 2012, showing that 4,511 / 5,774 total people showed up to the show. I think that if Michael was still there to perform with them, the venue would have been much bigger and the show would have sold out making thousands(probably millions) more than the gross revenue of 182,163 dollars that the four of them made at that one show. Still, with a 78 % attendance percentage, and only 4 out of the 5 members being there(also factor in how much older and different their voices sound), I would say they did pretty well for not touring in a very long time.

Another country artist that I love is Dolly Parton. Standing at only 4′ 11″ this small woman has big power in the music industry. Most famous for her country music, she accomplished big things throughout her life, and still is. Even young children knows who she is, because she used to be a frequent guest star on the Disney hit show “Hannah Montana” as Miley’s God Mother. Not only is she in the music business, she also is a TV and movie actress and a business woman. Dolly also has a literacy program called “Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library”.

Dolly Parton’s music career started as a child, singing on local radio stations. At age 13 she recorded her single “Puppy Love” with Goldband Records. The day after she graduated high school she moved to Nashville to begin her booming career. Starting out as a songwriter, at age 19 her singing career had just begun. Now, she has 42 career top 10 country albums, and has won three American Music Awards and seven Academy of Country Music Awards.

I really enjoyed the song “9-5” that was played in class. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbxUSsFXYo4 I particularly liked the music video which features Dolly as a younger woman who looks 10 times different as she does now. This song can relate to probably a lot of students in college who work and go to school because she talks about dreaming bigger, which I often do. She also says “You’re just a step on the boss-man’s ladder” which is completely true because almost every job you have the boss tries to step all over you for their own success.

Since we talked a little about country, I would like to choose a blog post about one of my favorite country artists, Rascall Flatts. They are a country pop genre band consisting of Gary LeVox, Jay DeMarcus, and Joe Don Rooney. They have a soothing sound to them and are very soulful in their slower songs. One of my all time favorites from them is “God Bless the Broken Road.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-vZlrBYLSU. It is a song about how every relationship they ever had that was broken led them to their dream girl. Another one of my favorites is “What Hurts the Most”. The music video is one that could bring you to tears, because it definitely makes me cry every single time that I watch it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qH4qyi1-Ys. Most of their songs have great meaning to me throughout my life. I always wanted “God Bless the Broken Road” as my wedding song(If I ever get married).

William Jonathan Drayton Jr. better known as Flavor Flav is a popular rapper and TV star. Surprisingly this rap star started out in a church choir as a young boy. Also, a fact about him is that he set a house on fire while playing with a lighter as a kid. He was first famous for being in the rap group “Public Enemy”. Flav was also in his TV show “Flavor of Love” which he had multiple women in a house with them and tried to find love with one. The reason I chose to write about him is because my roommates loved that show and would talk about it all of the time. I found it funny that he walked around with big clocks around his neck and also that women were attracted to him. Although most of the attraction probably dealt with the money. I also find it funny that he has kids ranging from age 32 to age 8.

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez or better known as just Selena was an iconic singer in the Tejano genre. She is one of my all time favorite singers, although I was just a one year old when she was murdered. I first found out about Selena through her famous movie “Selena” played by J-Lo. The movie was actually her families idea shortly after she died and all of the vocals in the movie was her original work, J-Lo just lip sang throughout it. The movie was based on her life and included her entire family and their quick trip to stardom. Her life was full of ups and downs, yet she stayed positive the entire way through which really makes her a great person and idol.

She still lives on through her brother, who is also an artist, her museum, and she even has a “Selena day” dedicated in her memory in Texas. Her songs have great meaning and that is why I also love her music. She also means a great deal to me because my older cousin who passed away used to beautifully sing her songs to our family as kids.

On August 15 1989-August 18 1989 the ever so famous music and art fair occurred. It was held on a 600 acre dairy farm in Bethel New York. The famous music festival had 32 stage performances in front of about a 400,000 people crowd. Known as a festival where lots of hippies were drawn to, I honestly think that Woodstock  would have been so amazing to attend and I wish I was born back in that time. Although nothing can quite be comparable, there is something in our day in age that 18+ people of age now attend. It is called Coachella, and the genres that take place there are rock, indie, hip hop, and EDM. It began in October 1999 after the apparently terrible and disaster remake of Woodstock which also occurred in ’99. Coachella did not have a festival in 2000, but they started back up in 2001 and are still going on stronger than ever. It is now a popular place to show off your best “boho” style and dance around. Also big with Coachella is where all of the celebrities like to attend (Vanessa Hudgens, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, Brittany Cole, etc.) It is also one of the largest and most profitable music festivals in the United States. I read online that: “In 2014, the festival tallied an aggregate attendance of 579,000 over six days and grossed a record-breaking $78.3 million.” That’s over 179,000 more people  than Woodstock!

It is not a surprise that for week 6 that a lot of people probably chose to talk about the Beatles because, who wouldn’t want to talk about the Beatles? When you played “A Day in the Life” in class I had never heard it before and I loved it. It is something different and not anything close to what I normally listen to. I liked the orchestra part in it where they are all playing at different parts and it sounds kind of creepy. I looked into the song further and learned that the total amount of time spent recording the orchestra part was 34 hours. Another one of my favorites is “Lucy in The Sky with Diamonds” which a little funny fact about it was that Lennon was accused of the song title shortened spelling out LSD.

During week 5 we talked about James Brown. In the reader chapter 33 states that “James Brown stands out as one of the most influential and successful musicians in the history of R&B.” Which I most definitely agree with because he is still well known today. For example, his song “I Feel Good” is still very popular and is used in commercials and movies all of the time. I was particularly interested in his story in the reader because it says that he started out born into extreme poverty. It amazes me how his talent got him this far and that he is forever going to be an iconic musician. Another one of his famous song that we learned about was “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag” written and sung by him. This was his first song to make it on the Billboard Hot 100 top 10. It was also number 72 in 2004 on Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest songs of all time, making my point that he is still and always will be well known.

We talked about Elvis in chapter 22. Elvis is my Maam’s (also known as Grandma’s) absolute favorite singer in the entire world. She has everything you could imagine with Elvis’ name on it. So as you could imagine, she talks about him a lot! We love listening to “Blue Christmas” (written by Billy Hayes and Jay W. Johnson) and most famously performed by Elvis on Christmas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uwfz5mMLSDM I also love how Disney incorporated him in the famous kids movie “Lilo and Stitch” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX_OY7iwOb4 because Lilo loved Elvis. (Just a little cute fun fact) Another fact, Elvis was famous for not only rock n’ roll but he also for serving in the US Army from 1958-1960.

Also nicknamed “The King”, Elvis had around 20 #1 albums! He is still famous to this day, and his name and songs will live on forever. Sadly Elvis died from a heart attack from drug abuse.