Tom Tom Club is an American new wave band founded in 1980 by Talking Heads alumni Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz, a married couple.

The Modern Lovers were an American rock band led by Jonathan Richman in the 1970s and 1980s. The original band, billed simply as "The Modern Lovers", existed from 1970 - 74 but their recordings were not released until 1976 or later. It featured Richman and bassist Ernie Brooks with drummer David Robinson (later of The Cars) and keyboardist Jerry Harrison . The sound of the band owed a great deal to the influence of The Velvet Underground, and is now sometimes classed as "protopunk". It pointed the way towards much of the Punk, New Wave and Indie rock music of later decades. Their only album, the eponymous The Modern Lovers, contained stylistically unprecedented songs about dating awkwardness, growing up in Massachusetts, and love of life and the USA. Later, between 1976 and 1988, Richman used the name Modern Lovers for a variety of backing bands, always billed as "Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers." These bands were quieter and featured more low-key, often near-childlike, songs, as Richman drew on folk-rock and other genres. Out of Richman's original bandmates, only Robinson was part of any of the other Modern Lovers incarnations.

Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno (born 15 May 1948), commonly known as Brian Eno, is an English musician, composer, record producer, music theorist and singer, who, as a solo artist, is best known as the father of ambient music. Art school-educated and inspired by minimalism, Eno became prominent in the early 1970s as the keyboards and synthesiser player of the glam rock and art rock band Roxy Music. Upon leaving the group, he recorded four influential rock albums, including Another Green World, his first venture into more abstract musical territory. Eno then concentrated on sound landscapes in records such as Discreet Music and Ambient 1/Music for Airports, continuing to make ambient music over the next several decades. Before and After Science was Eno's last solo album emphasising his own singing until 2005's Another Day on Earth. From 1976 to 1979 Eno worked with David Bowie on the avant-garde "Berlin Trilogy"; helped to popularise the band Devo and the punk rock-influenced "No Wave" genre; and introduced the concepts of chance music to wider audiences, partly through his collaborations with popular musicians. Eno has worked frequently with Harold Budd, John Cale, Cluster, Robert Fripp and David Byrne. He produced three albums by Talking Heads including Remain in Light, six albums by U2 including No Line on the Horizon, and albums by James, Laurie Anderson and Coldplay.As an artist, Brian Eno pursues ventures in parallel to his music career: art installations, a newspaper column in The Observer, and "Oblique Strategies", with Peter Schmidt, a deck of cards wherein each card has a cryptic remark or random insight meant to resolve a dilemma. In 2008, he released Everything That Happens Will Happen Today with David Byrne, designed the sound for the video game Spore and wrote a chapter to Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, edited by Paul D. Miller .

Gorillaz is a virtual band created in 1998 by Damon Albarn of alternative rock band Blur, and Jamie Hewlett, co-creator of the comic book Tank Girl. The band is composed of four animated band members: 2D, Murdoc, Noodle and Russel. The band's music is a collaboration between various musicians; Albarn being the only permanent musical contributor. Their style is broadly alternative rock, but with a large number of other influences including: britpop, dub, hip-hop, and pop music. The band's first album, 2001's Gorillaz, sold over seven million copies and earned them an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records as the Most Successful Virtual Band. It was nominated for the Mercury Prize 2001, but the nomination was later withdrawn at the band's request. Their second studio album, Demon Days, was released in 2005 and included the singles "Feel Good Inc.", "Dare", "Dirty Harry" and "Kids with Guns"/"El Mau00F1ana". Demon Days went five times platinum in the UK, double platinum in the United States and earned five Grammy Award nominations for 2006 and won one of them in the Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals category. Gorillaz have also released two B-sides compilations and a remix album. The combined sales of Gorillaz and Demon Days had, by 2007, exceeded 15 million albums. The group is currently working on their third studio album.

Charles Arthur Russell, Jr. (May 21, 1951 - April 4, 1992) was an American cellist, composer, singer, and disco artist. While he found the most success in dance music, Russell's career bridged New York's downtown, rock, and dance music scenes; his collaborators ranged from Philip Glass to David Byrne to Nicky Siano. Relatively unknown during his lifetime, a series of reissues and compilations have raised his profile in the 2000s.

Martina Michu00E8le "Tina" Weymouth (born on November 22, 1950 in Coronado, California) is an American musician, best known as a founding member and bassist of the influential New Wave group Talking Heads and its side project Tom Tom Club .

Chris Frantz (born Charlton Christopher Frantz, May 8, 1951 in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, United States) is an American musician and producer. He was the drummer for both Talking Heads and the Tom Tom Club.

The Cars were an American rock band that emerged from the early New Wave music scene in the late 1970s. The band consisted of singer and rhythm guitarist Ric Ocasek, singer and bassist Benjamin Orr, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson. The band originated from Boston, Massachusetts, and were signed to Elektra Records in 1977. The Cars were at the forefront in merging 1970s guitar-oriented rock with the new synth-oriented pop that was then becoming popular and which would flower in the early 1980s. Robert Palmer, music critic for The New York Times and Rolling Stone described The Cars' musical style by saying: "they have taken some important but disparate contemporary trends - punk minimalism, the labyrinthine synthesizer and guitar textures of art rock, the '50s rockabilly revival and the melodious terseness of power pop - and mixed them into a personal and appealing blend." The band broke up in 1988, and Ocasek has always discouraged talk of a reunion since then. Easton and Hawkes, however, joined with Todd Rundgren in 2005 to form a spin-off band, The New Cars, which performs classic Cars (and Rundgren) songs alongside new material on tour.

The Ramones' were an American rock band often regarded as the first punk rock group. Formed in Forest Hills, Queens, New York, in 1974, all of the band members adopted pseudonyms ending with "Ramone", though none of them were actually related. They performed 2,263 concerts, touring virtually nonstop for 22 years. In 1996, after a tour with the Lollapalooza music festival, the band played a farewell show and disbanded. A little more than eight years after the breakup, the band's three founding members - lead singer Joey Ramone, guitarist Johnny Ramone, and bassist Dee Dee Ramone - were dead. The Ramones were a major influence on the punk rock movement both in the United States and the United Kingdom, though they achieved only minor commercial success. Their only record with enough U.S. sales to be certified gold was the compilation album Ramones Mania. Recognition of the band's importance built over the years, and they are now cited in many assessments of all-time great rock music, such as the Rolling Stone lists of the 50 Greatest Artists of All Time and 25 Greatest Live Albums of All Time, VH1's 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock, and Mojos 100 Greatest Albums. In 2002, the Ramones were ranked the second greatest band of all time by Spin magazine, trailing only The Beatles. On March 18, 2002, the Ramones - including the three founders and drummers Marky and Tommy Ramone - were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Adrian Belew (born Robert Steven Belew, December 23, 1949, in Covington, Kentucky) is an American guitarist and singer perhaps best known for his work as a member of the progressive rock group King Crimson, which he joined in 1981. Widely recognized as an "incredibly versatile player, Belew released a number of solo albums for Island Records and Atlantic Records which blend Beatles-inspired pop-rock with more experimental fare. Belew's vocals are known for their distinct, sometimes manic feel -- his singing voice is often compared to that of Talking Heads singer David Byrne, an easy comparison after his early 80's work with that band. Belew has also worked extensively as a session musician, most notably with Talking Heads, David Bowie, Frank Zappa, and Nine Inch Nails. His 2005 single "Beat Box Guitar" was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rock Instrumental Performance category, and Belew has his own Parker Fly signature guitar.

Blondie is an American rock band that first gained fame in the late 1970s and has so far sold over 30 million albums. The band was a pioneer in the early American new wave and punk rock scenes. Their first two albums contained strong elements of these genres, and although successful in the United Kingdom and Australia, Blondie was regarded as an underground band in the United States until the release of Parallel Lines in 1978. Over the next three years, the band achieved several hit singles and was noted for its eclectic mix of musical styles incorporating elements of disco, pop and reggae, while retaining a basic style as a new wave band.In spite of their hits, several factors weakened the group. Deborah Harry achieved a level of celebrity that eclipsed that of other band members. Their album "The Hunter", released in 1982, was poorly received. Core member Chris Stein was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. These factors led to the dissolution of the group in 1982.As members pursued other projects, Blondie's reputation grew over the following decade and the group reformed in 1997, achieving renewed success and a number one single in the United Kingdom with "Maria" in 1999. The group toured and performed throughout the world over the following years, and was inducted into both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the RockWalk of Fame in 2006.

Professor Daniel J. Levitin, Ph.D. (born December 27, 1957, San Francisco) is an American cognitive psychologist, neuroscientist, record producer, musician, and writer. He is currently James McGill Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada with additional appointments in Music Theory, Computer Science, and Education.He has published scientific articles on absolute pitch, music cognition and neuroscience and is more widely known as the author of two best-selling books, This Is Your Brain On Music: The Science of a Human Obsession, and The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature . He worked as a producer and sound designer on albums by Blue u00D6yster Cult, Chris Isaak, and Joe Satriani as a consultant to Steely Dan and Stevie Wonder; and as a recording engineer for Santana and The Grateful Dead. Records and CDs to which he has contributed have sold in excess of 30 million copies. From September, 2006 to April 2007 he served as a weekly commentator on the CBC Radio One show Freestyle, and he has appeared frequently on NPR.

David Byrne (born May 14, 1952) is a Scottish-American musician and artist perhaps best known as a founding member and principal songwriter of the new wave band Talking Heads, which was active between 1974 and 1991. Since then, Byrne has released his own solo projects on record, and worked in a variety of media, including film, photography, opera, and Internet-based projects. He has received Grammy, Oscar, and Golden Globe awards for his achievements.

Jonathan Richman (born 16 May 1951) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. In 1970 he founded The Modern Lovers, an influential proto-punk band, but since the mid-1970s has worked either solo or with low-key, generally acoustic backing. He is known for his wide-eyed, unaffected and child-like outlook, and music that, while rooted in rock and roll, often draws on influences from around the world.

Devo (-voh or //diu02D0ˈvoʊ/ -VOH), often spelled DEVO or DEV-O, is an American rock group formed in Akron, Ohio in 1973. They are best known for their 1980 hit "Whip It", which made it to #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Their style has been variously classified as punk, art rock and post-punk, but they are most often remembered for their late 1970s and early 1980s New Wave sound. Devo's music and stage show mingle kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor, and mordantly satirical social commentary via sometimes-discordant pop songs that often feature unusual synthetic instrumentation and time signatures, and their work has proved hugely influential on subsequent popular music, particularly New Wave, industrial and alternative rock artists. Devo was also a pioneer of the music video, creating many memorable clips for the Laser Disc format, with "Whip It" getting heavy airplay in the early days of MTV. Their use of the video medium dates right back to their very first appearance on stage at Kent State University in 1973, which was recorded with an early black-and-white portable video system.