“It’s not really rocket science,” she says. “The music is intended to inspire people to feel a certain way about themselves, so they’ll be able to encompass, in their own lives, a sense of inner fame that they can project to the world, and the carefree nature of the album is a reflection of that aura. I like to funnel interesting ideas to the rest of the world through a pop lens.”

Her debut album, The Fame (Interscope), reveals the Lady’s fun-filled approach to dance music, mixing together elements of Madonna, Gwen Stefani, and Britney Spears to synthesize a highly infectious pop world of her own. Flaunting an elastic voice that can turn on a dime from emotional wailing to coy falsetto, she’s already conquered the dance charts with the single “Just Dance,” which has won her a Grammy nod for Best Dance Recording.

Further time spent with The Fame reveals a singer/songwriter not shy about Peaches-styled double (or even single) entendres on the spoken-word “Poker Face,” and the self-evident joyous hedonism of high-energy tracks like “Love Game,” with its declaration, “I wanna take a ride on your disco stick.”

Born 22 years ago as Joanne Stefani Germanotta, the future GaGa had taught herself to play piano by age four, and was a club fixture in New York throughout her teen years before being signed as a songwriter to Interscope by age 20. After penning tunes for the likes of Pussycat Dolls and New Kids on the Block, her “Just Dance” demo convinced the label to forge ahead with her recording career.

“I was always an entertainer,” she says. “I was a ham as a little girl and I’m a ham today.”

The “ham” in this case goes beyond impressing with her voice: GaGa has also become well-known for her fashion sense, evinced by designing and wearing her own eye-catching clothes.

“Fashion is everything,” she declares. “When I’m writing music, I’m thinking about the clothes I want to wear on stage. It’s all about everything all together — performance art, pop performance art, fashion. I want the imagery to be so strong that fans will want to eat and taste and lick every part of us.”

Okay then. As for her nom de stage — she’s the first Lady to conquer the dance clubs since Deee-Lite’s Lady Miss Kier back in the early ’90s — she admits to lifting it from Queen’s hit “Radio Gaga.”

“I always loved rock and pop and theater,” she affirms. “When I discovered Queen and David Bowie is when it really came together for me and I realized I could do all three.”

Like those artists, she remained committed to her self-defined mission of revitalizing dance-pop.

“What has been lost in pop music these days is the combination of the visual and the imagery of the artist, along with the music — and both are just as important,” she says. “With my music, it’s a party, it’s a lifestyle, and it’s about making the lifestyle the forefront of the music.”

A native of Detroit, Sheard of course grew up in church. At just six, “Kiki,” as she was called, started singing in the choir at Greater Emmanuel Institutional Church of God in Christ, where her father served as pastor. Early on, Sheard displayed a seemingly innate ability to execute the signature “Clark sound,” filled with strong runs and soulful groans.

At 10, Kiki was singing alongside her mom on “The Will of God,” the show-stopper from Karen Clark’s 1997 solo debut, Finally Karen. For that she earned her first trophy: a Stellar Award for Best Children's Performance. Kiki performed with her mom several more times, and by 2003 she’d created enough of a demand that a bidding war erupted between record companies in hopes of signing her. Her debut, I Owe You, was released in 2004 on EMI Gospel.

While Sheard’s premiere was proof that she’d continue her family’s legacy, it was equally her own, reflecting the sound of a new generation influenced by hip-hop, neo-soul and secular r&b. Exuberant and youthful, the album’s pop influences were strengthened by appearances of such people as Rodney Jerkins, Mary Mary and Tonex. The album seized the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Gospel chart and also performed well on the R&B/Hip-Hop chart, peaking at No. 29. Sheard was now a bona fide crossover success, allowing her to minister to a wider audience.

If her debut made her a crossover, her remix album, Just Until, in 2005, moved her out of any last box. Meant initially to whet her fan’s appetites for more music until her next project — hence the name — the project peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Gospel chart. Additionally, the album became a monster hit internationally, especially in Japan, where it remained on r&b charts for weeks.

Her second album, This Is Me, came in 2006. That, too, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Gospel chart, and earned her a Grammy nomination.

In recent years, Sheard has embarked on important personal journeys. She began pursuing degrees in English and entertainment law at Detroit’s Wayne State University, and started a youth organization called Bold Right Life. In November of 2008, Sheard dropped her third studio album, Bold Right Life, which entered at No. 3 on Billboard’s Top Gospel Albums chart, stamping the princess of the Clark-Sheard family as an important artist in her own right.

Oh, and another thing: she is no longer Kiki.

“I’m a woman now,” Sheard told Billboard. “I want people to hear what I have to say when I minister and not think of me as a little girl.”

She had her first job at the age of 15, as the vocalist of a versatile group, and her love for music grew. The group was invited to compete in a radio competition, and something sparked. Erika began her career as a radio personality at Radio Costa 780, where she remained for 10 years. She has worked in both México and the U.S. in such radio stations as Televisa Radio (Guadalajara), Ke Buena (DF), ABC Radio (DF), Que Buena (Los Ángeles, CA), La Nueva (Los Ángeles), and Estereo Sol (San Francisco), and is currently with “Cadena Tricolor” on the afternoon show “La Potranca Por Las Tardes.” She has always combined her talents as a radio host and songwriter to chieve success.

Among the artists who have recorded her songs are: El Chalinillo, Rocío Sandoval La Peligrosa, Jorge Luis Cabrera, Alacranes Musical, and Priscila y Sus Balas de Plata, She currently has two singles in the top 10 most-played songs: "Sentí" (Conjunto Primavera) and "Maldito Licor" ( El Chapo de Sinaloa).

Erika Vidrio is preparing her first album as a singer/songwriter, soon to be on the market for anyone who loves banda music.

With guitar slung high up on his tall frame and his long red locks flowing, Dennen performs soul-drenched folk narratives with thoughtful lyrics and mellow grooves that captivate audiences wherever he goes. Those performances caught the eye of Rolling Stone magazine, which named him one of the “10 Artists to Watch in 2008.”

His new release, Hope for the Hopeless (Dualtone), includes the infectious first single “Make You Crazy,” featuring Afrobeat artist Femi Kuti. After just one listen, you’ll find yourself singing the ultra-catchy tune, one of 11 produced by multi-platinum hitmaker John Alagia (John Mayer, Dave Matthews Band) — but it’s so good that it won’t make you, well, crazy.

Says Brett of his Top 10 AAA track: “I made the song catchy but it’s about all the injustice in the world –—‘it’s enough to make you go crazy . . . and I’m amazed I haven’t yet’.”

Hopeless, which made an impressive debut at number 1 on the iTunes folk chart and 8 on its overall albums chart, is also enjoying success on the Billboard 200.

Raised in Northern California, the former camp counselor took his fireside performances and self-made disc to the west coast coffee-house circuit in 2004, where a devoted following began. His 2006 breakthrough album, So Much More, placed him firmly on the folk-rock map and helped him gain the attention of music critics, programmers and established artists like Michael Franti and Jason Mraz.

His passion for reaching out to young people led Dennen to be involved in the Mosaic Project, an organization that teaches kids of varied backgrounds about diversity. He also founded Love Speaks, a non-profit that provides community groups and activists a place to express their views at his live shows.

Dennen, who has shared the stage with John Mayer, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Ben Folds and the John Butler Trio, has just announced his own three-month headlining tour starting in January 2009.

Dana Rodriguez

As progenitors of Rock en Español, Café Tacvba (initially spelled “Café Tacuba”) was among the first Mexican rock bands to fuse influences of punk and electronic music with indigenous folk sounds. Since their 1994 release Re, a masterpiece of metal, punk, disco-pop and boleros that is often compared to The Beatles' White Album, the band has become increasingly inclusive, referencing everything from hip-hop to Banda Sinaloense; tango to speed metal. On Sino, they launch into a classic rock motif that sounds more like Rush than Radiohead, a band Café Tacvba is often compared to, given their encyclopedic span of influences.

The members of Café Tacvba are Rubén Isaac Albarrán Ortega on vocals and guitar, Emmanuel "Meme" del Real Díaz on keyboards, guitar, vocals and programming, José Alfredo "Joselo" Rangel Arroyo on guitar and vocals, and vocalist/bassist Enrique “Quique” Rangel Arroyo. (Alejandro Flores and Luis Ledezma, violin and drums, respectively, are considered honorary members.) Their legacy began when, in a tribute to the Martin Scorcese film Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, the band adopted the moniker of "Alicia Ya No Vive Aquí.” As students in Mexico City, they appropriated the name of an historic Mexico City restaurant.

Reflecting dizzying genre shifts, lead vocalist Albarrán changes his image and his name for each release, as he is known among other names as "Juan," "Pinche Juan," "Cosme," "Masiosare," "Anónimo," "Nrü," "Amparo Tonto Medardo In Lak'ech" (shortened to "At Medardo ILK"), "G3," "Gallo Gasss," "Élfego Buendía," "Rita Cantalagua," "Sizu Yantra," "Ixxi Xoo" and "Cone Cahuitl." MySpace currently credits him as "Ixaya Mazatzin Tleyótl." Even as he continues imagining his new character, this name expired upon the launch of the band’s latest CD. He now calls himself Cone Cahuitl.

Producer/composer/musician Gustavo Santaolalla is a key architect in the band’s ever-changing incarnations. “He's an incredible producer; he can see the big picture and then translate this to the heart of the band,” the band’s Emmanuel "Meme" del Real Díaz told the Detroit Free Press.

With an Aztec ancestry, colonial past and modern-day chaos, Mexico City is a complex and paradoxical metropolis. Like their adopted hometown, Café Tacvba — named “Best Alternative Artist” at the 2008 MTV Latin America Awards and nominated for a phenomenal six Latin Grammy Awards for Sino — continues to epitomize a vivid musical alchemy of absolute transformation.

“It’s all about the real Latin groove and the dancer,” explains the Latin Grammy winner. Paying homage to the stars of salsa, from Celia Cruz and Willie Colon to Ruben Blades and The Fania All Stars, Torres integrates a wealth of musical influences into a heady mélange of effortless melody and fiery rhythms that echo Cuban dance music, Puerto Rican bomba and plena, the Brazilian samba, merengue from the Dominican Republic, Colombia cumbia and the rhythms of Panama, all ingredients in the rich stew that heated up in New York to become modern-day salsa.

Joined by a group of talented young musicians, Torres tracked half of the project in Puerto Rico. “To record live, and to do so in Puerto Rico, is a real homecoming for me,” he enthuses. “It was like it used to be, when everybody recorded at the same time, before ProTools. But, we also kept the production state of the art, using the latest technology to create music that moves forward, pointing the way to a future where that which is universal transcends today’s tendency to taste the ‘flavor of the minute’.”

Salsa is the soul of Nouveau Latino, says Torres. “The blessing of having been part of the New York salsa scene at its best cannot be expressed in words. Finally, the time is right for me to celebrate and share with my fans — and the world — a part of the legacy I owe so much to.”

Dan Kimpel

Unbeknownst to many, the former child/teen actor — who starred in such ’80s classics as The Lost Boys, Gremlins and Stand By Me — is also a singer/songwriter.

He and his band Truth Movement are set to release their sophomore effort, Technology Analogy, on Feldman’s own newly launched label, Cifi Records. The 13-track smorgasbord of rock, house and techno is actually Feldman’s fourth album and features the environmentally friendly single “Green Is the Colour.”

Co-written by Jon Carin of Pink Floyd fame, the track urges listeners to go green and is already creating a buzz on the Internet, with environmental groups adopting it as their theme song. In fact, the go-green theme is a key element of the entire album, which boasts being made with 100 percent biodegradable materials.

Ranked number 8 on VH-1’s “100 Greatest Kid Stars” list, Feldman’s rise to fame began at the age of 3 after landing a McDonald’s commercial. His breakthrough role in 1985’s The Goonies opened Hollywood’s doors and eventually led to his fateful pairing with Lost Boys co-star Corey Haim.

The duo, whose on-screen chemistry sparked their friendship, reunited in 2006 to star in the A&E reality show aptly named The Two Coreys. The now-canceled series also featured his real-life wife Susie Feldman, whom he married on an episode of his other reality show stint, The Surreal Life.

With musical roots dating back to 1989’s Dream A Little Dream, Feldman also contributed songs to Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever and composed the score to 1995’s Dream A Little Dream 2. Other movies on the actor’s resume include License To Drive, The Burbs and Friday the 13th IV. His latest film, Terror Inside, debuted at the recent Ft. Lauderdale Film Festival, where he earned a Crystal Reel Award for best actor.

Over the years, Feldman’s career was often overshadowed by his struggle with drugs (he’s been sober since 1991), his friendship with Michael Jackson (remember that molestation trial?) and his short-lived relationship with Drew Barrymore (he later married and divorced General Hospital star Vanessa Marcil).

Feldman, who vows to keep his 4-year-old son, Zen, out of the entertainment business, is now devoting much of his time to his musical career as well as continuing his passion for acting.

Now you know.

Dana Rodriguez

Foster’s on-the-spot melody evolved into “After The Love Has Gone,” the Earth, Wind & Fire hit that would capture the 1979 Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues song. Today, some 30 years after his fateful meeting with Gordy, Foster is renowned worldwide as a go-to man for the regal likes of Barbra Streisand, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan, Mariah Carey, Andrea Bocelli, Natalie Cole and more. A three-time Oscar nominee, Foster’s mantle veritably buckles under the weight of 15 Grammys and seven Juno awards. He has performed on — and/or composed songs for — some the world’s best-selling albums, including Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Lionel Richie’s Can’t Slow Down and The Bodyguard original soundtrack. A key player in the discovery and development of Celine Dion and Josh Groban, Foster’s WEA-distributed 143 Records label is home to Groban, Michael Bublé and American Idol alumna Katherine McPhee, among distinguished others.

In short, music has been very good to David Foster. But while he remains an in-demand producer, arranger, keyboardist and songwriter, some critics have labeled Foster a purveyor of “elevator music,” an accusation the composer himself shrugs off. “I’m not apologetic for it at all,” Foster says of his balladeer reputation. “What better honor than to hear your music in an elevator? That’s the melodies that people are humming.”

While Foster is probably the world’s premier producer and writer of hit serenades, the record shows he is a master composer of many styles. His 1978 breakthrough hit, “Got To Be Real,” is a timeless funk jam that launched the career of r&b vocalist Cheryl Lynn. Foster also co-composed The Tubes’ 1983 Top 10 rock hit, “She’s A Beauty,” as well as Al Jarreau’s bouyant soul-pop hit, “Mornin’.” As these and other up-tempo tracks attest, Foster is no One-Note Johnny.

But in a contemporary music world increasingly dominated by the rough-and-tumble sounds of rock, hip-hop and country, Foster has stepped in to fill the void for unabashedly sentimental pop. His pianistic songs hearken back to the starlight balladry of George Gershwin and Irving Berlin, while Foster’s symphonic arrangements and epic productions reconcile pop with neo-romantic classical music. Indeed, his melodies reflect an admiration for European composers such as Beethoven, Rachmaninoff and Puccini. “I grew up with classical music, and it’s just my take on things,” Foster says. “Just as when Bruce Springsteen picks up a guitar and pounds out this three chord jam, when I sit down at the piano, what comes out is what comes out.”

Foster’s method of operation is elegantly simple: Find the world’s finest vocalists, supply them with the most caressing, hummable melodies possible, then collaborate with acclaimed lyricists including Cynthia Weil, Carole Bayer Sager, Linda Thompson and Tom Keane. “For my soul, I need to work with great singers,” Foster says. “If you look at my history — Peter Cetera, Kenny Loggins, Chaka Khan, Whitney Houston, Celine Dion, Josh Groban, Michael Bublé, Natalie Cole, Justin Timberlake — you’ll hardly find anybody in there that’s not a great singer. And that’s by design.”

Of the dozens of hit melodies he has composed, Foster is partial to the 1999 ballad “The Prayer,” which has been interpreted by Celine Dion, Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban (“It’s the closest to a real classical piece that I’ll ever write,” he says). He also confesses a soft spot for the 1980 Boz Scaggs hit, “Look What You’ve Done To Me” (“It’s my favorite melody that I’ve ever been a part of… I just love what Boz did with the lyric.”). Foster is so enamored of Chicago hits like “You’re The Inspiration,” “Hard To Say I’m Sorry” and “Love Me Tomorrow” that he’s hard-pressed to pick an absolute favorite.

Going forward, Foster’s star is set to rise even higher. He’s currently working with Seal, mezzo-soprano Katherine Jenkins and newcomer Charice Pempengco. Foster is also the star of his very own PBS career retrospective, David Foster & Friends, featuring live performances by Peter Cetera, Boz Scaggs, Katherine McPhee, Josh Groban, Andrea Bocelli and more.

Says Foster with a laugh: “It’s basically my funeral while I’m still alive.”

“A full diet of any one of them would probably drive me crazy. But about 50/50 is perfect,” he notes. “On the one hand, you have writing songs, making records and playing shows. And coming out of a punk-rock background, it’s traditionally very much a ‘screw you I’m going to do what I want’ type thing. Which is the opposite of film scoring, which is, ‘Of course I can do that’.”

“You really have to have a certain temperament to be in it,” points out Larson, whose scoring credits include Boys Don’t Cry, Prozac Nation, Choke and Palindromes. “The rock & roll thing is like, ‘Look at me!’ And this couldn’t be further than that. Your role is to sort of to be invisible. It’s a very different job.”

Shudder To Think rose out of the Washington, D.C. hardcore punk scene of the mid-to-late 1980s, eventually recording for Dischord Records, the label headed by Ian MacKaye of Fugazi. “One among the many ways that we stood apart from the other Dischord bands was our ethic, or our goals and ambitions for our music, which were always very, very unabashedly and outwardly commercial,” explains Wedren. “We never, ever — any of us — had any qualms with the idea of our music going global, for lack of a better word.”

The band got that shot when they signed with Epic Records in the early 1990s, and Larson joined the group on guitar after a stint playing bass in the band Swiz. Shudder To Think’s 1994 major label debut, Pony Express Record, didn’t reach a mass audience even if it and its follow-up did earn the group esteem in musical and fan circles.

Both Wedren and Larson began scoring films through what Larson calls “a fluke,” being part of a tight-knit creative community in New York City in the 1990s. Wedren’s work with director David Wain came as a result of a lifelong friendship with him that included attending New York University together. Wedren and Larson also began delving into film work when Shudder To Think contributed songs to and appeared in Velvet Goldmine and scored High Art.

“We just happened to know folks who were filmmakers,” Larson notes. “We sort of stumbled into it.” Both now have long lists of credits to their names as composers for film and television.

Wedren finds that working within two very different musical realms has a positive effect on the creative processes of both. “Because the structure is obviously so different from a two-to-five-minute pop or rock song, it really develops very different skills and gets you out of your usual songwriting habits,” he observes of scoring. “The joy and challenge of a film score forces you out of your own ways. And it brings a whole new bag of tricks to songwriting that break you out of old habits. Then you have to go back to doing film soundtracks to get out of them.

“And the reverse is also true,” Wedren adds. “After working on soundtracks for a while you really do get your bag of tricks and your sound and the way you do things. And going back to a rock band has its effect on the next scores you may do.”

The break Wedren and Larson took from Shudder To Think for most of this decade ended when the band reunited with drummer Kevin March for a New York City club show in September 2007. From August through November of this year the band will have played 10 shows — some with March on drums, others (listed below, on the West Coast) with earlier drummer Adam Wade, while Jesse Krakow handles bass duties and Mark Watrous guitar throughout — from which they hope to come up with the recordings to issue a live album. The shows include dates at the Showbox in Seattle on Oct. 30, the El Rey Theater in L.A. on Nov. 1 and the Fillmore in San Francisco on Nov. 2. Larson will also be releasing an album in early 2009 by A Camp, the group he has with his wife, Swedish rock singer Nina Persson, formerly of The Cardigans.

For Wedren, who won a BMI Film Music Award for his work on The School of Rock, it’s all part of being creative and inspiring others to do the same. “Our feeling was always to make people want to make things, whatever it is: music, movies, light bulbs, anything. As long as people leave our shows feeling that creative spark and a sense of possibility — that was our goal. I don't know what our musical legacy is or was or will be, but I definitely know that some kids we turned on back in the day are now turning other kids on.”

Oh, and did we mention that she also created a prototype for the first social network in the early 1990s, roughly a dozen years before MySpace and Facebook?

In case you hadn’t guessed, not every songwriter is Allee Willis, whose Wikipedia entry identifies her as “an American songwriter, artist, set designer, multimedia artist, writer, and director.”

Not bad for someone who in a recent profile declared, “If you ask me to sit down and even play the intro to any of [my songs], I would have no idea where even the first note was.”

For a career that spans not only writing such enduring hits as Earth, Wind & Fire’s “September” and “Boogie Wonderland,” the Pointer Sisters’ “Neutron Dance,” the theme song to TV’s Friends, “I’ll Be There for You,” and the Pet Shop Boys/Dusty Springfield duet “What Have I Done to Deserve This,” and also co-authoring Broadway smash The Color Purple, it comes as something of a surprise that Willis never took formal training.

She did, however, grow up in Detroit, and spent a significant amount of time on a lawn near Motown Studios, absorbing the sounds that would sometimes leak out. Moving to New York in 1969, Willis landed a copywriting job at Columbia and Epic Records before beginning to write her own songs. Moving to L.A. in the late ’70s, she secured a publishing deal with A&M that ultimately led to collaborations with everyone from Bob Dylan and James Brown to Herbie Hancock and Patti Labelle.

“[EWF leader] Maurice White heard about me, and then one day I got a phone call: ‘This is Maurice White. I want you to come write the next Earth, Wind & Fire album.’” The resulting collaboration helped cross EWF over to pop audiences, and gave Willis the momentum that’s since shown no signs of slowing down.

By the early ’90s she’d developed willisville, a combination of story-driven virtual world and social network, which in turn led to her helping Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner launch lilytomlin.com.

Willis’s latest multi-media project revolves around Bubbles, an artist who sold over 1,000 paintings and ceramic works before it was revealed in 2007 that she was, in fact, Willis’s alter ego. Now performing as “Bubbles & Cheesecake,” the virtual duo had a YouTube hit with their first music video, “It’s a Woman Thang,” while the current “Editing Is Cool” deconstructs the song- and video-making process.

“I’m way more interested in what it takes to get there than I am in final destinations,” Willis declares.

Which is just as well, as predicting just where Willis will show up next is impossible to guess.