൪ MADONNA, Live To Tell|Papa Don't Preach|Open Your Heart|Like A Virgin|True Blue|Causing A CommotionLa Isla Bonita|

Madonna (born Madonna Louise Ciccone on August 16, 1958) is an American recording artist, actress and entrepreneur. Born in Bay City, Michigan and raised in Rochester Hills, Michigan, Madonna moved to New York City in 1977, for a career in modern dance. After performing as member of the pop musical groups Breakfast Club and Emmy, she released her self-titled debut album in 1983, and then produced three consecutive number-one studio albums on the Billboard 200 in the 1980s and four more since year 2000.

Madonna is known for exploring religious symbolism and sexual themes in her work. This drew criticism from the Vatican in the late 1980s.[2] In 1992, she founded an entertainment company, Maverick, which published a book of photographs (Sex). She also released a studio album (Erotica) and starred in a film (Body of Evidence) with erotic themes. These works generated negative publicity and coincided with a fall in commercial sales in the 1990s.[3] Madonna's career was revived in 1998, when the release of her album Ray of Light garnered critical acclaim.

Madonna has acted in 22 films. Although most failed critically and commercially, she earned a Golden Globe Award for her role in the 1996 film Evita. In 1996 Madonna gave birth to a daughter, Lourdes Maria (also known as Lola) by personal trainer Carlos Leon before marrying film director Guy Ritchie in 2000. She and Ritchie have two sons, Rocco and David Banda, a Malawian boy they adopted in 2006, which caused media allegations they violated that country's adoption laws.

She has been regarded as "one of the greatest pop acts of all time" and dubbed the "Queen of Pop" by various sources. She is ranked by the Recording Industry Association of America as the best-selling female rock artist of the twentieth century and the second top-selling female artist in the United States with 63 million certified albums. Guinness World Records list her as the world's most successful female recording artist of all time and the top-earning female singer in the world with an estimated net worth of US$490 million, having sold over 200 million records worldwide. On March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Madonna released her third album, True Blue, in 1986, prompting Rolling Stone to say that "it sounds as if it comes from the heart". The album included the ballad "Live to Tell", which she wrote for the film At Close Range, starring her then-husband Sean Penn. True Blue produced five Top 5 singles on theBillboard charts: "Live to Tell", "Papa Don't Preach", "Open Your Heart", "True Blue" and "La Isla Bonita". In the same year, Madonna starred in the filmShanghai Surprise and made her theatrical debut in a production of David Rabe's Goose and Tom-Tom, both co-starring Sean Penn.

In 1987, Madonna starred in Who's That Girl, and contributed four songs to its soundtrack; including the title track and the U.S. Number-two single, "Causing a Commotion". In the same year, she embarked on the Who's That Girl Tour. It marked her first conflict with the Vatican, as Pope John Paul IIurged Italian fans not to attend her concerts. Later that year, Madonna released a remix album of past hits, You Can Dance. In 1988, city officials in the town of Pacentro began to construct a 13-foot (4 m) statue of Madonna in a bustier. The statue commemorates the fact that her ancestors had lived in Pacentro. In 1988, Madonna starred as Karen in a play by David Mamet called Speed-the-Plow. [wikipedia]

൪ LYNYRD SKYNYRD, fREE Bird|Sweet Home Alabama|Simple Man|That Smell|Every Mother's Son|

Lynyrd Skynyrd (pronounced LEN-ərd-SKIN-ərd) is an American rock band. The band became prominent in the Southern United States in 1973, and rose to worldwide recognition before several members, including lead vocalist and primary songwriter Ronnie Van Zant, died in an airplane crash in 1977. The band reformed in 1987 for a reunion tour with Ronnie's younger brother Johnny Van Zant as the frontman, and continues to record music today. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 13, 2006.

In 1972 the band was discovered by musician, songwriter, and producer Al Kooper of Blood, Sweat, and Tears, who had attended one of their shows at a club in Atlanta. They changed the spelling of their name to "Lynyrd Skynyrd", and Kooper signed them to MCA Records, producing their first album the following year "Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd". 1973's featured the hit song "Free Bird", which received national airplay, eventually reaching #19 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts, and is still considered a rock and roll anthem today.

Lynyrd Skynyrd's fan base continued to grow rapidly throughout 1973, largely due to their opening slot on The Who's Quadrophenia tour in the United States. Their 1974 follow-up, Second Helping, was the band's breakthrough hit, and featured their most popular single, "Sweet Home Alabama" (#8 on the charts in August 1974), a tongue in cheek response to Neil Young's "Alabama" and "Southern Man." (Young and Van Zant were not rivals, but fans of each other's music and good friends; Young even wrote the song "Powderfinger" for the band, but they never recorded it). The album reached #12 in 1974, eventually going multi-platinum. In July of that year, Lynyrd Skynyrd was one of the headline acts at The Ozark Music Festival at the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia, Missouri.

In 1987, Lynyrd Skynyrd reunited for a full-scale tour with crash survivors Gary Rossington, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson and Artimus Pyle and former guitarist Ed King. Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother, Johnny, took over as the new lead singer and primary songwriter. Due to Collins' paralysis from the 1986 car accident, he was only able to participate as the musical director, choosing Randall Hall, his former bandmate in the Allen Collins Band, as his stand-in. As part of his plea deal, Collins would be wheeled out onstage each night to explain to the audience why he could no longer perform (usually before the performance of "That Smell," which had been partially directed at him). Collins was stricken with pneumonia in 1989 and died on January 23, 1990.

In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked the group #95 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. On November 28, 2005, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame announced that Lynyrd Skynyrd would be inducted alongside Black Sabbath, Blondie, Miles Davis, and the Sex Pistols. They were inducted in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Manhattan on March 13, 2006. Lynyrd Skynyrd had been nominated 7 times.On March 13, 2006, Lynyrd Skynyrd was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the 21st annual induction ceremony. The inductees included Ronnie Van Zant, Allen Collins, Gary Rossington, Ed King, Steve Gaines, Billy Powell, Leon Wilkeson, Bob Burns, and Artimus Pyle. [wikipedia]

The pronounciation of the band's name may be mouthful but they do produced great songs..

൪ LOVE AFFAIR, Everlasting Love|Rainbow Valley|A Day Without Love|One Road|Bringing On Back The Good Times|Wake Me I'm Dreaming|

Love Affair were a London based pop, soul, R&B group formed in 1966. They had several UK Singles Chart Top 10 hits, including the number one success "Everlasting Love". Their first single, "She Smiled Sweetly", written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, released on Decca Records flopped, but they reached the top of the UK Singles Chart in January 1968 with "Everlasting Love". By this time the group had relocated to CBS Records. The song was first recorded by Robert Knight, whose version had reached No. 13 in the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the autumn of 1967, and it was previously offered to the Marmalade, who turned it down as they thought it too pop-oriented for them.

Four further Top 20 hits followed, "Rainbow Valley #6" , "A Day Without Love #6" (both 1968), "One Road#16" and "Bringing On Back The Good Times #9" (both 1969). Love Affair sold more singles in 1968 in the UK than any other band, except for The Beatles. At the end of that year they released an album, Everlasting Love Affair.

The band primarily featured the following —
Steve Ellis (born Stephen John Ellis, 7 April 1950, Edgware, London) — (vocals)
Rex Brayley (born Rex Charles Brayley, 3 January 1948, London) — (guitar)
Lynton Guest (born 28 November 1951, Leicester) — (keyboards 1967 to 1968)
Morgan Fisher (born Stephen Morgan Fisher, 1 January 1950, Mayfair, London) — (keyboardist from 1968 to 1971)
Maurice Bacon (born 26 January 1952, Southgate, London) — (drummer)
Mick Jackson (born Michael Jackson, 27 January 1950, Bradford, Yorkshire) — (bass)

My Love Affair with music and that's how it started with this very song that sparked the whole blog affair, that's how the blog title came about but later trimmed to 'Bringing Back The Good Times' after a great suggestion by a fellow blogger himself, my buddy Justin Choo.

As Ellis wrote in the booklet notes to a later compilation CD, Singles A's and B's, "In an attempt to break the mould we recorded a song far removed from the anthemic-like previous hits. The song was called "Baby I Know". Released at the end of 1969, competing with releases from other big names for a place in the charts over Christmas, it failed completely. Ellis felt the band had run its course, and he left in December 1969 for a solo career: "It felt like a mountain had been lifted from my shoulders". The rest of the band soldiered on without any further success, continuing briefly as LA with new vocalist, August Eadon (aka Gus Yeadon). Further releases likewise never charted. [wikipedia]