Agnes Carlsson

Agnes (often credited as Agnes Carlsson), born March 6, 1988 in Vänersborg, is a Swedish singer who rose to popularity after winning Idol 2005, the Swedish version of Pop Idol, shown by TV4.

Agnes is the debut album composed of the songs performed by the Idol 2005 winner Agnes Carlsson. The album debuted at #1 in Sweden and stayed there for 2 weeks. The lead single, "Right Here, Right Now (My Heart Belongs to You)", written and produced by Jörgen Elofsson, topped the Swedish Top 60 Singles chart for six weeks. The second single released off the album, "Stranded", was less successful, peaking at #27 in the Swedish singles chart.

Rex Goudie & Melissa O'Neil - Whiskey Lullaby

Rex Goudie is a Canadian singer, songwriter and was the runner-up of Canadian Idol 3. Goudie was the runner-up to winner Melissa O'Neil. On Thursday, April 6, 2006, she and Rex confirmed in an interview with the CTV entertainment program eTalk Daily that they have been dating since the third week of Canadian Idol.

Melissa Crystal O'Neil (born July 12, 1988 in Calgary, Alberta) was the winner of the third season of Canadian Idol. She attended Lester B. Pearson High School, and was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta (parents Tim O'Neil and Alison Yeung). O'Neil has worked at a daycare centre, and has been involved in local musical theatre productions. Her mother has been quoted as saying that the singing only really started three years ago. Melissa has one sibling, a younger brother named Colin whom she is very close to.

Whiskey Lullaby is taken from Rex Goudie 2005 album "Under The Lights".

Leon Jackson

When You Believe is the first single from 2007 X-Factor's winner, Leon Jackson. It is cover from Mariah Carey & Whitney Houston. The song is great, It is hard to sing this song, eh?! Well he is doing good.

Natasha Bedingfield - Unwritten

"Unwritten" is a Grammy-nominated single from English singer Natasha Bedingfield, co-written by her, Danielle Brisebois and Wayne Rodrigues. The song appears on her debut album, which is also named Unwritten. It was released as her third single in the United Kingdom in November 2004, and as her second single in the United States in 2006, the song proved to be a big hit for the singer in the U.S., as it climbed slowly on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, eventually reaching number five for two weeks (becoming her second Top 20 hit and first Top 10 hit in the country).

As of March 2006, "Unwritten" was certified platinum in the U.S., making it one of the best selling digital tracks (and one of very few singles to sell in excess of a million copies) to date.

Unwritten was also the most played song on U.S. radio during 2006 as confirmed before her performance at the Diana concert.

History

The history of music predates the written word and is tied to the development of each unique human culture. Although the earliest records of musical expression are to be found in the Sama Veda of India and in 4,000 year old cuneiform from Ur, most of our written records and studies deal with the history of music in Western civilization[citation needed]. This includes musical periods such as medieval, renaissance, baroque, classical, romantic, and 20th century era music. The history of music in other cultures has also been documented to some degree, and the knowledge of "world music" (or the field of "ethnomusicology") has become more and more sought after in academic circles. This includes the documented classical traditions of Asian countries outside the influence of western Europe, as well as the folk or indigenous music of various other cultures. (The term world music has been applied to a wide range of music made outside of Europe and European influence, although its initial application, in the context of the World Music Program at Wesleyan University, was as a term including all possible music genres, including European traditions. In academic circles, the original term for the study of world music, "comparative musicology", was replaced in the middle of the twentieth century by "ethnomusicology.")Popular styles of music varied widely from culture to culture, and from period to period. Different cultures emphasized different instruments, or techniques, or uses for music. Music has been used not only for entertainment, for ceremonies, and for practical & artistic communication, but also extensively for propaganda.As world cultures have come into greater contact, their indigenous musical styles have often merged into new styles. For example, the United States bluegrass style contains elements from Anglo-Irish, Scottish, Irish, German and some African-American instrumental and vocal traditions, which were able to fuse in the US' multi-ethnic "melting pot" society.There is a host of music classifications, many of which are caught up in the argument over the definition of music. Among the largest of these is the division between classical music (or "art" music), and popular music (or commercial music - including rock and roll, country music, and pop music). Some genres don't fit neatly into one of these "big two" classifications, (such as folk music, world music, or jazz music).Genres of music are determined as much by tradition and presentation as by the actual music. While most classical music is acoustic and meant to be performed by individuals or groups, many works described as "classical" include samples or tape, or are mechanical. Some works, like Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, are claimed by both jazz and classical music. Many current music festivals celebrate a particular musical genre.There is often disagreement over what constitutes "real" music: late-period Beethoven string quartets, Stravinsky ballet scores, serialism, bebop-era jazz, hip hop, punk rock, and electronica have all been considered non-music by some critics when they were first introduced

Media and Technology

The music that composers make can be heard through several media; the most traditional way is to hear it live, in the presence, or as one of the musicians. Live music can also be broadcast over the radio, television or the internet. Some musical styles focus on producing a sound for a performance, while others focus on producing a recording which mixes together sounds which were never played "live". Recording, even of styles which are essentially live, often uses the ability to edit and splice to produce recordings which are considered better than the actual performance.As talking pictures emerged in the early 20th century, with their prerecorded musical tracks, an increasing number of moviehouse orchestra musicians found themselves out of work.[4] More than just their position as film accompanists was usurped; according to historian Preston J. Hubbard, "During the 1920s live musical performances at first-run theaters became an exceedingly important aspect of the American cinema."[5] With the coming of the talkies, those featured performances—usually staged as preludes—were largely eliminated as well. The American Federation of Musicians took out newspaper advertisements protesting the replacement of live musicians with mechanical playing devices. One 1929 ad that appeared in the Pittsburgh Press features an image of a can labeled "Canned Music / Big Noise Brand / Guaranteed to Produce No Intellectual or Emotional Reaction Whatever" and reads in part:Canned Music on TrialThis is the case of Art vs. Mechanical Music in theatres. The defendant stands accused in front of the American people of attempted corruption of musical appreciation and discouragement of musical education. Theatres in many cities are offering synchronised mechanical music as a substitute for Real Music. If the theatre-going public accepts this vitiation of its entertainment program a deplorable decline in the Art of Music is inevitable. Musical authorities know that the soul of the Art is lost in mechanisation. It cannot be otherwise because the quality of music is dependent on the mood of the artist, upon the human contact, without which the essence of intellectual stimulation and emotional rapture is lost.[6]Since legislation introduced to help protect performers, composers, publishers and producers, including the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992 in the United States, and the 1979 revised Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in the United Kingdom, recordings and live performances have also become more accessible through computers, devices and internet in a form that is commonly known as music-on-demand.In many cultures, there is less distinction between performing and listening to music, as virtually everyone is involved in some sort of musical activity, often communal. In industrialized countries, listening to music through a recorded form, such as sound recording or watching a music video, became more common than experiencing live performance, roughly in the middle of the 20th century.Sometimes, live performances incorporate prerecorded sounds. For example, a DJ uses disc records for scratching, and some 20th-century works have a solo for an instrument or voice that is performed along with music that is prerecorded onto a tape. Computers and many keyboards can be programmed to produce and play MIDI music. Audiences can also become performers by participating in Karaoke, an activity of Japanese origin which centres around a device that plays voice-eliminated versions of well-known songs. Most karaoke machines also have video screens that show lyrics to songs being performed; performers can follow the lyrics as they sing over the instrumental tracks

Reception and audition

The field of music cognition involves the study of many aspects of music including how it is processed by listeners.Music is experienced by individuals in a range of social settings ranging from being alone to attending a large concert. Musical performances take different forms in different cultures and socioeconomic milieus. In Europe and North America, there is often a divide between what types of music are viewed as a "high culture" and "low culture." "High culture" types of music typically include Western art music such as Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and modern-era symphonies, concertos, and solo works, and are typically heard in formal concerts in concert halls and churches, with the audience sitting quietly in seats.On the other hand, other types of music such as jazz, blues, soul, and country are often performed in bars, nightclubs, and theatres, where the audience may be able to drink, dance, and express themselves by cheering. Until the later 20th century, the division between "high" and "low" musical forms was widely accepted as a valid distinction that separated out better quality, more advanced "art music" from the popular styles of music heard in bars and dance halls.However, in the 1980s and 1990s, musicologists studying this perceived divide between "high" and "low" musical genres argued that this distinction is not based on the musical value or quality of the different types of music. Rather, they argued that this distinction was based largely on the socioeconomic standing or social class of the performers or audience of the different types of music.For example, whereas the audience for Classical symphony concerts typically have above-average incomes, the audience for a hip-hop concert in an inner-city area may have below-average incomes. Even though the performers, audience, or venue where non-"art" music is performed may have a lower socioeconomic status, the music that is performed, such as blues, hip-hop, punk, funk, or ska may be very complex and sophisticated.Deaf people can experience music by feeling the vibrations in their body, a process which can be enhanced if the individual holds a resonant, hollow object. A well-known deaf musician is the composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who composed many famous works even after he had completely lost his hearing. Recent examples of deaf musicians include Evelyn Glennie, a highly acclaimed percussionist who has been deaf since the age of twelve, and Chris Buck, a virtuoso violinist who has lost his hearing.