Releasing his sixth studio album on March 30, 2010, Usher’s Raymond v. Raymond, has already become his third consecutive album to debut at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart.
Achieving success is nothing new to Usher, born Usher Raymond, October 14, 1978. Usher has achieved ten #1 singles worldwide, with nine on the Billboard Hot 100. He has achieved fifteen Top 10 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, thirteen as a lead artist, and two as a featured artist. In the UK he has proven himself quite successful as well with 11 Top 10 singles on the UK Singles Chart. Usher is also the first artist to have a number-one single on the UK Singles Chart and the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1990s, 2000s and the 2010s.
Usher Raymond was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1978 and moved to Atlanta, Georgia when he was 12. As with many rising stars, he started singing with his church choir. While he was still in school, L.A. Reid signed him to La Face records. His self-titled debut record was produced by P. Diddy and released in 1994. Although his first album didn’t come out with a bang, Usher made a big enough impact to get noticed by Coca-Cola who asked him to record jingles for the 1996 Summer Olympics. At that time, he joined with other vocalists and formed the group Black Men United, which recorded the song “U Will Know”. The song reached No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100 in late 1994 and No. 5 on the Hot R&B Hip Hop Charts.
Still in High School, Usher pushed forward. He produced the album “My Way” after graduating from school, co-writing six of the nine tracks. The album was released in 1997 and served as a breakthrough album for him, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the R&B album charts.
Usher followed this successful album with a number of hit singles that include: “You Make Me Wanna”(1997), “My Way” (1998), and “Nice & Slow (1998). His albums My Way and 8701 were his most successful. Usher also tried his hand at acting, appearing in TV series such as The Bold and The Beautiful and Moesha, and movies such as The Faculty and She’s All That.
Usher received his first Grammy Award nomination as Best Male R&B Vocal Performance for “You Make Me Wanna”, which also won him for Best Male R&B/Soul.
On a personal level, Usher founded New Look, a non-profit charity organization which was created to provide young people with a new look on life through education and real-world experience. The charity was started to help rebuild and revitalize city blocks in New Orleans. Usher partnered with Armani Exchange in creating “Love 4 Life” dog tags to raise money for the project.
Usher’s latest album Raymond v. Raymond is expected to follow in the success of his album Confessions. The album was released only months after Usher’s divorce from Tameka Foster. The single “Papers” was released as the first promotional single for the album in October 2009 on iTunes. The single reached the top of Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs for two consecutive weeks, becoming his tenth number one single on that chart. The song also peaked at No. 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States.
Raymond v Ramond album singles so far are seeing more success than those of Here I Stand. On March 20, 2010, Usher released his first international single and third official single “OMG”. It reached number-one in Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.
Usher may have started his career in 1994, but he is still going strong now in 2010 and possibly into years to come.
Jeff Bachmeier is owner of 977music.com, an online music and <a href=”http://www.977music.com”>online radio</a> station network providing live streaming Internet Radio channels with music from the 50’s thru Today. Users can also choose to create their own customized on demand playlist through their own social media profile. For more information please visit http://www.977music.com.

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Rick Astley’s Rick Roll is one big hit which was originally created in the 80′s, but gained massive popularity only within the last few years as an 80s online streaming radio sensation. This artist, and more precisely the song they created in the 80′s, has been seen on YouTube over 36 million times in just the last few years. Even spawning its own internet meme, “Never Gonna Give You Up” by
Also known as Mainstream Top 40 and Contemporary Hits Radio,
Top 40 Music is a diverse and widely popular music format for just about any age group. It could be argued that there’s no one right way to program the format, which is what makes it so popular. There are a few specific CHR categories that most hit radio fall under the following genres.
What makes the Hits Channel format so popular right now is the vast variety of music released for the format. Akon, Beyonce, Lady Gaga,
Adult Contemporary music, also called AC, mix music online, or The Mix, is a category of mainstream music geared towards 25 to 54 year olds. The Mix is generally divided into three categories that satisfy sub-groups within this demographic: Soft (or lite) AC, Hot AC, and Urban AC. Individual tracks in streaming music “club mix” radio stations, for example, often overlap between categories, but on-the-air radio as well as Satellite radio stations, cater to each of these four categories, sometimes with overlaps as musical tastes evolve and as artists begin to cross over into multiple formats.
After MTV made its debut, Vh3 was born as an Adult Contemporary version of its big brother. During the mid 80s you could see artists on Vh3 that fit into the AC category, which made it very inviting 30 to 40 year olds who did not feel as comfortable with the MTV format. Videos by
Born in the 1970s and evolving through the 80s, this has been the longest running AC format, and is still popular today. A combination of middle-of-the-road (MOR), easy listening, and soft rock, its appeal is to an older demographic of listeners in mix music online.
Hot AC is another area where the balance of music includes sounds from the early 60s to today’s mainstream hits. It seems that each Hot AC station has its own formula for determining format, where some stations include more classics than new mix music online, or visa versa. Today the format can often be harder to define as more and more music falls into “cross over” categories. Still, certain genres remain outside Hot AC programming such as Alternative, which is too far from the taste of mainstream listeners.
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