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DAVID ARCHULETA

David James Archuleta (born December 28, 1990) is an American singer-song writer. At ten years old he competed and won the children's division of the Utah Talent Competition leading to other television singing appearances. At twelve, he became the Junior Vocal Champion on Star Search 2. In 2007, at sixteen years old, he became one of the youngest finalists on the seventh season of American Idol. He rose up through the competition, and in May 2008, became the runner-up on the show receiving 44 percent of over 97 million votes.

In August 2008 Archuleta released "Crush", the first single from his self-titled debut album and the highest-ranking debut single release of any American Idol contestant. The album, released in November 2008, debuted at the number-two spot on the Billboard 200 chart; as of January 2009 it has sold over 610,000 copies in the United States.

Early life

David Archuleta was born in Miami, Florida, to Jeff Archuleta and Lupe Marie, a salsa singer and dancer from Honduras. Archuleta has four siblings. Archuleta's family moved to the Salt Lake Valley, to the city of Sandy, Utah, when Archuleta was six. He currently lives in Murray, Utah where he attended Murray High School. Archuleta is a member of the Boy Scouts of America.

Archuleta started singing at age six, inspired by a Les Misérables video. "That musical is what started all of this", he said. He started performing publicly at age ten when he participated in the Utah Talent Competition singing "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton; he received a standing ovation and won the Child Division.

Archuleta was inspired by watching both Tamyra Gray and Kelly Clarkson to "see what performing and really getting into a song was like" during the beginning weeks of the premiere season of American Idol. He later made his television debut, at eleven years old, singing "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" on The Jenny Jones Show show for future Latino stars alongside season one finalist A.J. Gil. Through A.J. Gil he was able to meet and sing for Gray who had sung the song on American Idol as well as Clarkson (that year's winner) and Justin Guarini (the runner up).

Musical influences

Archuleta's mother is from Honduras, and much of the music he listened to as a child was Latin-influenced including watching his mom sing at events with her sisters. She also "was big on dancing" according to Archuleta, and would "make" him dance to traditional music with his older sister. He also listened to jazz music, he said, from his father's collection as well as gospel, pop, rock and "soulful music." In a later interview, he revealed that his father was a jazz musician. Archuleta also said he enjoys Broadway musicals.

On his American Idol "Fast Facts" page, Archuleta cited his musical influences as Natalie Cole, Stevie Wonder, Kirk Franklin and Bryan Adams. When he listed his top pop music artists, he cited Natasha Bedingfield, Natalie Cole, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Bryan Adams, Kirk Franklin, and Robbie Williams. Like Elliott Yamin and another singer he admires, John Mayer, Archuleta tries to infuse his pop selections with a soulful vibe.In a Seventeen interview he cites Sara Bareilles as a clever singer-songwriter he looks up to.

Star Search

In 2003, at age twelve, Archuleta sang on several episodes of the television show Star Search. He ended up as the Junior Vocal Champion on Star Search 2. On one episode, he sang against then-11-year-old Alexandréa Lushington, who became a "top 20" semi-finalist on American Idol alongside Archuleta.

Around the second year of being on Star Search he started focusing on the lyrics, "I didn't even pay attention to the lyrics when I was 12, 13".

Archuleta's competing on Star Search led to appearances on The Jenny Jones Show and CBS' The Early Show, and meeting the finalists from American Idol's first season, for whom he performed a spontaneous a cappella rendition of "And I Am Telling You I'm Not Going" from Dreamgirls, and received enthusiastic praise from Season 1 winner Kelly Clarkson. The year after Star Search he found out he had partial vocal paralysis but declined risky surgery and has said he feels he is almost fully recovered. He limited his singing for specific occasions like Stadium of Fire, the Independence Day celebration at Brigham Young University Stadium.

Archuleta made initial attempts at songwriting and arranging music after his Star Search experience and has written at least three songs. His first singles in 2002 included "Dream Sky High" and "Don't Tell Me".

American Idol

Overview

Archuleta won his ticket to the Hollywood final auditions at the San Diego tryouts - held at Qualcomm Stadium at the end of July 2007 - with a performance of John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change" with judge Randy Jackson spontaneously joining in to sing the background "waiting" in the song.) He was 16 during the Hollywood auditions (where his renditions of Bryan Adams' "Heaven" and Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy" were well-received by the judges) and attended school while a part of American Idol's seventh season.[4 His parents were there because he was a minor. Archuleta also took advantage of the decision to allow contestants to play musical instruments when he accompanied himself on piano for his performances of "Crazy", "Another Day in Paradise", and "Angels."

A Los Angeles Times article speculated that Archuleta avoided singing the first verse of "Imagine": because "of his religion (Mormonism), he's unlikely to espouse the song's agnostic ideal . . . with the line about 'no religion too.'"[28 Archuleta did, however, sing the entire song on Good Things Utah when he was 13. During his first performance of "Imagine" on American Idol, when asked by judge Randy Jackson why he didn't sing the first verse, Archuleta said the third verse was his favorite because it has "a great message."

After his performance of "We Can Work It Out", which judge Simon Cowell called "a mess", Entertainment Tonight reported that Archuleta was feeling pressure from his father, Jeff Archuleta, who "reportedly yelled at" his son after a recording session the previous night. Jeff Archuleta, in an interview with Us Magazine, denied the claim. A May 2008 Associated Press article reported that Jeff Archuleta had his son add a lyric from the Sean Kingston song "Beautiful Girls" into a rendition of "Stand by Me" (from which "Beautiful Girls" samples its bass line), increasing the costs for licensing, and that this had resulted in Jeff Archuleta being banned from American Idol backstage rehearsals. David defended his father calling him "a great guy" who keeps him grounded.

During the Top 7 results show, the contestants were split into two groups. In one group was Syesha Mercado, Brooke White, and Kristy Lee Cook. In the other group was David Cook, Carly Smithson, and Jason Castro. Archuleta was the only one not sorted into a group. He was declared safe after the groups were formed, then was asked to choose the group he thought was safe. He refused, and sat down on the floor of the stage, much like Melinda Doolittle had done the previous season.

In the finale he sang "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me", "In This Moment" and "Imagine". Judge Simon Cowell declared that Archuleta won the evening and even David Cook, who ultimately won, thought Archuleta would win: "I have to concede it, the kid came out all three songs and nailed it", said Cook. In the final tally, Archuleta received 44 percent of the votes. During the finale show, identical commercials featuring Archuleta and fellow finalist Cook mimicked the Tom Cruise scene from Risky Business where he dances in his underwear playing an air guitar; they were promoting the game franchise Guitar Hero.

JAY CHOU





DOB: January 18, 1979

Birthplace: Taiwan

Hometown: Linkou

Family: Mom & Dad (divorced)

Pets: dog (lives with his grandma)

Musical Instruments: Piano, Cello, Guitar, Drums

Height: 173cm (about 5'7")

Weight: 60kg (132lbs)

Bloodtype: O

Education: Taipei Tan Jiang High School, graduated 1997

Clothing Style: Hooded sweatshirts, ball caps, cool jeans, sleeveless tees,

Musical Style: R&B, Rap, Ballad, Rock, Pop

Recording Company: Alfa Music

Person Jay owes most for his career: Former manager: Jacky Wu

Favorite Sport: Basketball

Favorite Food: Mom's cooking, and Kentucky Fried Chicken

First Released Single: He Sei You Mo (Black Humor)

Relationship status: Rumored to have dated Jolin Tsai for a while (never confirmed)

Jay is currently dating news anchor Patty Hou. He confirmed the relationship Feb. 18, 2005. Rumors surfaced in mid 2006 of Chou-Hou relationship on the rocks, and Jay dating various other celebs including Hebe Tian of S.H.E.

Jay Chou Biography [Last Updated: August 26, 2006]

by: stitchphil

Early Years

Jay Chou (Zhou Jie Lun) was born in Taiwan on January 18, 1979. At the tender age of three, he started to learn piano under constant supervision from his mom, Jay practiced piano diligently and eventually developed a love for the instrument and music. He went on to master a number of other instruments, including guitar, cello, jazz drum as well as the Chinese Dizi.

Jay's parents divorced when he was 13. Already a quiet boy to begin with, Jay grew even more secluded. He became independent rather quickly and was absorbed in his own music world. Whenever any musical ideas came to mind, he would jot them down. It wasn't before long he started writing his own songs.

Basketball was his other love and he often played with friends. In terms of school, Jay was not very strong academically, but he did manage to complete high school.

Road to Fame

By an interesting twist of fate, a schoolmate of Jay's signed up for a singing contest and wanted him to accompany her on the piano. The performance at the contest was by no means stunning, but somehow the host of the show, Jacky Wu, took notice of the musical score that Jay was playing from. And from then on, in the momentous year of 1998, the little boy who grew up in Linkou entered the entertainment industry primarily as a songwriter. Jay spent hours and hours on end in the studio, dreaming up melodies, and it soon became his second home. That was how he spent his first years in the industry. The songs he wrote for other artists were rejected fairly often at that time. After all, who was Jay Chou? No one really knew much about him. But over time, his songs were accepted and they paved the way for Jay's eventual successful musical career.

After working behind-the-scenes for some time, Jacky Wu was impressed with what Jay has to offer not only as a songwriter, but as a singer as well. And so, on November 1, 2000, he made his debut with the self-titled album Jay . His soulful voice and infectious tunes were well-received by listeners and “Jay Chou” soon became a household name. His unique musical style garnered him attention from fans and critics alike.

Music Career - The First Three Albums

Released on September 20, 2001, Jay's second musical effort Fantasy propelled him to stardom with numerous hits such as “Kai Bu Liao Kou”, “An Jing”, and “Shuang Jie Gun”, just to name a few. He earned many awards with this album, including five Golden Melody Awards . This was an astonishing feat by an artist who has just arrived on the scene for a short period of time. After the successes of his first two albums, Jay launched his first music concert series, known as the Fantasy Tour, showcasing his piano and cello skills in this concert, which was kept mainly within Asia .

After his first concert series, Jay released Eight Dimensions again wowing everyone with his sheer musical talent. After this album Jay went into his second tour again, this time known as The One concert tour, and this time, at a much larger scale as compared to the Fantasy tour. In The One concert, we have seen Jay grown as a live performer with his live singing skills, and even a few dance steps to make the entire concert successful.

In summer of 2003, Jay released his fourth studio album Ye Hui Mei , named after his mother, which show how much Jay treasures his mother. From that point onwards, it was clear that Jay had the plan of releasing one album annually. Jay fine-tunes each song to perfection and never fails to surprise and capture his audience with his innovative musical ideas. The growth from one album to the next has been evident to those who have traversed this journey of music with Jay.

His own unique Chinese R&B style is unparalleled by another and he continues to make breakthroughs as he takes risks in attempting new things. The way he intertwines Chinese and Western music makes his songs endearing to people both young and old. The fusion of the two cultures is not only fresh-sounding, but has also rarely been done by other musicians before. Together with his long time friend and lyricist Vincent Fang, Jay's compositions and Vincent's lyrics managed to reflect Jay's sensitivity to human emotions and the details of life. He manages to touch people's hearts with striking words as well as educate people's minds with important lessons.

Branching Off onto the Big Screen

After being in the entertainment industry for several years, Jay has started to branch off from music a bit and ventured into the realm of acting. An interesting thing to note is that a lot of his musical inspiration simply emerges from watching movies. You may have often found that his music gives very vibrant visual imagery and his music videos bring those images to life. It should come as no surprise that besides being a singer-songwriter, he has also dreamt of being a film director one day. In the movie “Hidden Track” (2003), Jay guest-starred as himself briefly and got a taste of what it is like to be part of a film. He also specially penned 2 songs for the movie released in the Hidden Track EP.

Back to His Roots

In summer 2004, Jay's much anticipated album Qi Li Xiang was released . Once again, he managed to turned heads of both the critics and fans. The production quality has been taken up a notch and his musical style has also matured significantly. Hence, it is not surprising that Jay has garnered more awards under his belt with this album. Jay also made it clear that he will continue to have at least one song on all his album with the Oriental style. With that album, Jay launched his next concert series known as the Incomparable to Jay concert series in that same year, which took Asia by storm, and even went as far as the United States in Los Angeles . The concert DVD and CD for his Taiwan Incomparable concert was released in early 2005.

The Big Breakthrough Role

Jay's first major movie role came in "Initial D" (2005) when he starred in the film directed by Andrew Lau and Alan Mak, the same duo that directed the Infernal Affairs trilogy. In the movie, Jay acts as the child prodigy, Takumi Fujiwara, a high school student in Japan with a tattered childhood. He plays along side other movie A-listers such as Anthony Wong, Edison Chen and Shawn Yue. Jay also composed two songs for the movie. The film has won numerous awards in Hong Kong, and more importantly, Jay won the award for Best Newcomer for his role in the movie during the 42nd Golden Horse Awards and also during the 25 th Hong Kong Film Awards . Jay was visibly delighted during the Golden Horse Awards when he accepted his award, in which he said in his acceptance speech, “I never thought that what I've not won in the Golden Melody Awards, I've got it back here” making reference to the Golden Melody Awards, which has been shutting him out from the Best Male Singer category year after year.

The movie has kept Jay very busy in most of the year, due to all the filming and promotional works for the movie. The movie also allowed Jay to break into the Japanese market, when he subsequently released his first compilation album called Initial J in Japan only, with the theme songs of the Initial D movie included in that album.

The Beat Goes On

With Jay so busy with the movie, it is understandable that his album for 2005 was delayed by a few months, and was only released in November of 2005. The album was titled November's Chopin . The album was named it as such because of all the songs Jay used to practice on the piano when he was a child, it was Chopin's compositions left a deep-lasting impression on him. Also in this album, Jay openly made his disgust of the paparazzi known by personally writing and composing a song to ‘attack' the paparazzi by calling them dogs, the song is titled Si Mian Chu Ge, or “Besieged from All Sides”.

Jay also made another landmark in his 6 th album by directing his own music videos for some of the MVs of this album. At the same time, Jay began directing Music Videos for other artistes as well, most notably, Taiwanese group S.H.E.

Working with His Idol & Yet Another Screen Debut

In early 2006, Jay managed to work with his long time idol, Jet Li by composing the theme song and directing the MV for the movie, titled Fearless , the same title of the movie. This song was released in the Fearless EP , together with the music videos of all the songs off the November's Chopin album. Jay managed to get his next major movie role as the year went on. This time in a movie directed by the internationally acclaimed director Zhang Yimou, in the film “The City of Golden Armour ” (the official English title of the movie has not been announced). Jay received lots of praises from his co-stars Chow Yun Fat and Gong Li, as well as praises from Zhang Yimou himself. All of them were amazed with Jay's acting skills and his determination and drive when he works on the set. The movie is set to be released Christmas 2006, or early next year. Again, Jay composed the movie's ending theme song for the film.

Still Jay, Still Fantasy

With Jay being so busy pursuing acting, directing, and various endorsements, many fans worry that Jay may have given up on music. But Jay assured his fans that music will always be his first love and he had no intentions of letting it go. With that said, it has been confirmed that Jay will be the leading actor in the film "Slam Dunk" where Jay plays the role of a leading basketball star. The film is set to be released in March 2007. Fans hope he won't over exert himself in his many endeavors.

His 7th album will be released on 8th September 2006, titled Still Fantasy , a throwback to his second album. As to what to expect from this album, fans can only wait eagerly in anticipation as all information relating to the album are kept tightly under wraps, but Jay will definitely not disappoint!