Reba McEntire ’s first CD release in 1989 was the album Reba Live. During those last 18 years, 77 albums of the artist were released. Hereunder are some of Reba McEntire’s best successes. By the way, did you ever wonder how the artist succeded ? Birth Name: Reba Nell McEntire. Nickname: The Queen of Country Music, Big Red. The reigning queen of country music has pursued a musical career since the age of 5. In junior high, she performed with her siblings as the Singing McEntires. A fine athlete, McEntire followed in the footsteps of her rodeo champion father in competitive barrel racing. Her performance of the “Star Spangled Banner” at the 1974 National Finals Rodeo in Oklahoma City caught the attention of songwriter, Red Steagall who suggested she consider a career in country music. She has since earned 7 gold and 5 platinum albums and 2 Grammy Awards.
Reba McEntire never wanted to take four years between albums. But along the way she encountered a couple of diversions - including garnering commanding reviews for her starring role in the hit Broadway revival of Annie Get Your Gun and launching her successful new TV series, Reba. As much as she missed recording and singing, her absence allowed her a chance to recharge her musical batteries.

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Now she’s ready to return to her first love with a renewed perspective and a stronger-than-ever commitment. In doing so, she’s turned Room To Breathe into a celebration of the sum of her strengths, creating a stunningly emotional, wide-ranging album that underscores why she’s the most remarkable and accomplished female country singer of her generation. “I’m proud of all the music I’ve recorded and not to sound egotistical ” Reba remarks, “but I think this is the best collection of songs that I’ve ever had on one album.” While she worried about staying away so long - this is also the first time she’s ever gone more than two years without staging a concert tour - she figures that the break allowed her a chance to re-evaluate what she loves about singing country music. Like the title song says, it gave her room to breathe. Now, having exhaled, she savored the chance to record again, and she did so with more vigor and resolve than ever. “There’s something about having been away from the routine of the music business that ended up being refreshing to me,” she says with her typical aplomb. “By getting away from it for a little while, it all feels fresh and new again. It’s got a crisp feeling to it. It’s just felt so wonderful to get back to music again.” Meanwhile, Reba looks forward to taking her new music to the concert stage. “In 25 years, this is the longest break I’ve taken from live performing,” she says. “I needed a break, to be honest. But now I’m ready. The fans always make it really special, and I miss it.”  That word - heart - keeps coming up as Reba talks about her music these days. For someone who’s accomplished so much, who’s reached so far beyond her wildest dreams, everything still comes back to the same quality that initially drew her to music and to performance in the first place. Reba McEntire has succeeded so well because she knows what’s important: sharing her heart, and touching other people’s hearts.

Reba McEntire-Fancy

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Latest albums:

 Reba Duets Year 2007

Reba #1’s (CD 1) Year 2005

Reba #1’s (CD 2) Year 2005

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Born in 1949 in Freeholden, New Jersey, Bruce Springsteen grew up among the working class heroes who would go on to populate many of his songs. He learned to play guitar in garage and blues outfits, taking his inspiration from Bob Dylan, The Byrds, and The Beatles. By the time of his 1973 debut, Greetings From Asbury Park, NJ, he’d already forged his own unique identity.
Though he spent time playing the New York City folk circuit in the early ’70’s, Springsteen’s true home was the lonesome back streets and industrialized wasteland of New Jersey. Girding himself with some of his closest musical compatriots (dubbed the E Street Band after a location in Belmar, New Jersey), he caught the attention of Columbia Records and had his first deal by 1972. His first album immediately established him as a social commentator on the order of Bob Dylan.

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Bruce Springsteen - Girls In Their Summer Clothes

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and rock legend Bruce Springsteen framed the working man’s concerns with a combination of muscular, hard-driving rock and a poet’s sensitive flair for phrasing. Time and Newsweek magazines ran simultaneous, competing cover stories on him in 1975, and like Elvis Presley before him in the 1950s, Springsteen transcended music to embody rock and roll in the American culture of the 1980s. His 1984 release, the multi-platinum Born in the U.S.A, was a rock landmark which featured on the cover the back of a man standing before a U.S. flag wearing a white T-shirt and blue jeans, with a red bandanna tucked into his back pocket. This Springsteen album cover was a cultural image as familiar to 1980s America as then-president Ronald Reagan. It was one of the biggest selling records in history, and launched seven top ten singles.

With The Wild, The Innocent, & The E Street Shuffle, also released in 1973, Springsteen began to incorporate a more upbeat sound into his introspective lyricism. Tracks like “The E Street Shuffle” and “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” allowed the band to stretch out and contribute to the feel of the songs. Line-up changes over the next year made the transformation complete. By 1975, original members Clarence Clemons (sax), Garry Tallent (bass) and Danny Federici (organ) had been augmented by guitarist Steve Van Zandt, keyboardist Roy Bittan, and drummer Max Weinberg.

Born To Run, released as America suffered through oil embargos, record unemployment, and involvement in Vietnam, struck a chord with audiences world-wide. Featuring the blistering title track, as well as forlorn post-teen anthems such as “Thunder Road” and “Backstreets,” the album encapsulated not only a universal sense of entrapment, but offered a small grain of hope to a world weary of war, poverty, and social injustice. Arguably his career highlight, Born To Run also remains one of the best-selling rock albums of all time.

In 2001, Bruce released The Rising. After interviewing the survivors and family members of victims, he managed to create an album as socially relevant and universal as Nebraska, Born To Run, and Born In The USA. 2005 saw the release of Devils And Dust, another mostly-solo/acoustic album. He kicked off a world tour in Detroit in April, 2005. Though he’s definitely a man caught between two worlds- the tortured singer/songwriter and the larger-than-life, rev’ ‘em up rock n’ roll star- Bruce Springsteen continues to capture the imagination of both longtime fans and a curious younger generation.

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Latest albums of Bruce Springsteen:

 Magic Year 2007

 Hammersmith Odeon London ‘75 CD1 Year 2006

 Hammersmith Odeon London ‘75 CD2 Year 2006

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Here we are at 21, with Westlife, and it should be clear by now; there is no stopping the pop on this year end list! Seriously, though, did you really expect anything else? You will find a few rock/indie albums stashed here and there, but I am a boy who loves pop, and is more than willing to embrace it and share that information with the world.

Now, let me tell you why Westlife’s newest album, Back Home:made my year end list. First of all, if there is one thing that makes me weak in the knees, is a male vocalist to swoon over, as he sings me seemingly heartfelt love songs; and with Westlife, you get four of those in one package. Secondly, I have been a fan of Westlife for as long as I have known they existed, and if there is one thing that they have, is that they can consistently bring those pop-laced love songs that I adore so much. Finally, and most importantly, this record really is a testament of them going “back home”; allow me to explain.

Download mp3 album Back Home.

I will openly admit, that while I did enjoy Westlife’s previous album, The Love Album, I was more than disappointed to see it was yet another album of covers, as I would prefer that they only sprinkle a couple of covers here and there, and focus on those boyband ballads that I fell in love with them for in the beginning. Thankfully, this record only has 3 covers, and they are all pretty good, and overall, they don’t distract from the overall greatness of this record. I personally think that it is one of the best records that Westlife has released since 2003’s World of Our Own, and that is because they returned to that sound that made them so famous in the first place. There are lots of great single-worthy songs on this album, and enough sugary-sweet boyband goodness to satiate my appetite of pure unadulterated pop.

Yes, I can be a teenage girl sometimes when it comes to swooning over these boybands, but Westlife is THE boyband that gets the most attention from me. If anything, Backstreet Boys should really pay attention to these guys; they have been, and continue to be massively successful doing what they do best. If you don’t like pop, this record will most likely give you a toothache, because of the pure sugar coating on the record, but if you are already a fan of Westlife and/or like boyband-type music, then this is a great album, and you will probably enjoy it as much as I do.

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Within a matter of a few years, members of the Irish pop group Westlife went from singing in their school’s performance of the musical Grease to selling more than 10 million records worldwide. This was not an easy feat considering that the United Kingdom is filled with burgeoning talents trying to replicate the success of boy groups like Take That and Boyzone, which spawned solo artists Robbie Williams and Ronan Keating, respectively. Westlife has been able to rise above other spotlight seekers, though, to find record-setting success.

Shane Filan, Kian Egan, and Mark Feehily formed the backbone of Westlife while the three were attending school in the mid 1990s and performing around Dublin, Ireland, as IOU. Like the Backstreet Boys and O-Town, an entertainment manager had a hand in the formation of Westlife. When IOU appeared on a Dublin television show, the group piqued the attention of Louis Walsh, a pop “Svengali” who also managed the similar-sounding Boyzone. To showcase the group, Walsh offered IOU a spot opening for the Backstreet Boys at the Dublin club The Point.

After the group came together as Westlife in 1998, Walsh took them under his wing and introduced them to Nicky Byrne, an ex-soccer apprentice, and Bryan McFadden, who was attending a local stage school. According to Westlife’s record company biography, RCA Records signed the group immediately after seeing a performance. “When showcasing them, I instantly knew they were going to be a very successful band. They have surpassed my expectations. The great thing is that after all of their achievements, they have remained down-to-earth. They are a great bunch of guys to work with,” said RCA Records A&R consultant Simon Cowell.

The deal also brought onboard a co-manager, Ronan Keating, who is best known in the United States for his appearance on the Notting Hill film soundtrack. Westlife’s first single, “Flying Without Wings” debuted at number one on the British charts in 1999. The same success followed with “Seasons in the Sun” and “Swear It Again” in 2000.

The group’s self-titled debut album was released in November of 1999 and became the fastest-selling album in Irish music history. It has since gone quadruple platinum in the United Kingdom and sold more than five million copies worldwide. In Indonesia, Westlife has been dubbed the biggest-selling international release. The album offered five British number one singles including “Swear It Again,” “If I Let you Go” and “Flying Without Wings.”

Following in the general practice of saturating the market with an influx of singles to drive sales and broaden exposure for a group, Westlife sent their covers of “I Have a Dream”/”Seasons in the Sun” and later the fifth single, “Fool Again,” to stores. The group also earned a Guinness World Records 2001 listing as the most successful new chart act of all time for achieving consecutive number one spots on the British charts with its first seven singles.

After finding success in Britain, Westlife moved on to the United States where “Swear It Again” peaked at number two on the Billboard sales chart. While Boyzone paired with U2 for the song “The Sweetest Thing,” Westlife collaborated with American favorite Mariah Carey on the song “Against All Odds” in September of 2000. Like the group’s previous singles, “Against All Odds” hit number one in the United Kingdom. Feehily was thrilled to work with Carey: “It was beyond all my wildest expectations,” he said in the RCA biography.

In between touring and making several guest appearances, Westlife traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, and London, England, in the summer of 2000 to record its second album, Coast to Coast, which includes the Carey-Westlife piece “Against All Odds” and a cover of Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl.” Working with two different sets of producers–the single-named Cheiron in Stockholm, and Steve Mac and Wayne Hector in London–allowed the members of Westlife to indulge in their pop sensibilities. “We’re very happy to be working with both sets of producers again. They keep impressing us with their ideas and we’re comfortable with how they work–it’s like we’ve grown up together,” RCA Records quoted Filan as saying. “On the whole, this album is a big step up for us, both vocally and musically.”

The first single, “My Love,” achieved the same success as previous releases, reaching number one in October of 2000. British magazine New Musical Express (NME) panned Coast to Coast, however, implying that its lyrics were shallow. “‘Angel’s Wings’ includes the line, ‘You make everything that used to seem so big seem to be small’–surely an excuse that ranks up there with ‘Sorry love, it’s a bit cold’ and one which shatters the few illusions we had left of Kian [Egan].”

The popularity of Coast to Coast helped the album top its rivals on the charts and at the MTV Europe Music Awards. Westlife beat out Robbie Williams, Craig David, Travis, and Sonique for the Best United Kingdom and Ireland Act prize. The group also won a BRIT Award for Best Pop Act in 2001.

As of the summer of 2001, Westlife had begun work on a collaborative single with Canadian rocker Bryan Adams, whom NME called a “serial collaborator.” Egan told NME that the song is “very much like Bryan Adams’ old stuff rather than his new stuff. It’s in the same kind of style as ‘(Everything I Do) I Do It For You.’ We’re really excited because he’s got a great voice and it’s a brilliant opportunity for us.”

Fame reportedly started wearing on the group after newspapers shared accounts of Westlife’s drinking sprees. During a press conference in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in May of 2001, Westlife told journalists that they just want to be normal guys. “We make good music and we’re successful all over the world but when it comes to having a private life we got to have a private life. If one of us goes to a bar and is photographed coming out of it, that’s not his fault,” Filan is quoted as saying in a Reuters news service story on the Yahoo! News website.

Still, fans have flocked to see Westlife. Sixteen fans were injured on May 25, 2001, at Soemantri Bodjonegoro sports stadium in Jakarta, Indonesia, when the audience of 15,000 surged toward the stage at the end of the show. Two months earlier, four fans were crushed to death during an autograph signing at a shopping mall in the same city.

Despite speculation that the group’s reign at the top of the pop charts was coming to an end, Westlife planned for continued success with at least four more records on BMG as part of the group’s contract with the label. Westlife–who made history in May of 2001 for becoming the first boy band to play in South Africa–planned to record songs in Spanish as its next musical venture.

by Christina Fuoco

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