[Coachella Artist Spotlights] Heavy Hitters, Part 2: The Chemical Brothers, Kanye West, Jimmy Eat World

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Believe this: Coachella 2011 will be packed with all kinds of music lovers and one of the biggest draws are the “Heavy Hitting” artists like The Chemical Brothers, Kanye West, and Jimmy Eat World.

These are the kind of artists–if you are a diehard fan–you wait for five hours in the front of the tent to see, ignoring dehydration, hunger, heat stroke, and the fact that a ton of other great bands are playing.

These are  living musical legends.

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Funky British trip-hop duo, The Chemical Brothers, are the veritable godfathers of the big beat electronic era and were inspired by artists like New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, Public Enemy, and My Bloody Valentine. Sharing similar tastes in music and aspirations, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons started off as Manchester club DJs spinning sets of techno, house, and electronica in 1991 (in the middle of the Mancunian rave scene). A year later, the pair started a group called The Dust Brothers, started their own record label, Diamond Records, and continued University. Eventaully, Rowlands and Simons would released an EP called Fourteenth Century Sky which featured one of their first hits and a still sampled tracked called “Chemical Beats, which led them to officially change their name to The Chemical Brothers.

After gaining extensive popularity in the United Kingdom–including almost remixing Oasis‘ “Wonderwall”–The Dust Brothers began an international tour in 1995 and released their debut album, Exit Planet Dust, which sold over a million copies worldwide. Picking up on their success, the duo was signed by Virgin Records and given their own label called, Freestyle Dust.

Over the years, The Chemical Brothers have become one of the first and only arena-sized electronica acts, have released seven hit albums since 1995, and have featured a wide-array of famous guest vocalists including Beth Orton, Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips, Q-Tip, the Klaxons, Richard Ashcroft of The Verve, Noel Gallagher from Oasis, Hope Sandoval from Mazzy Star and many more.

One of our favorite Chemical Brothers songs is “Hey Girl Hey Boy.”

Heavy Hitter #2: Kanye West

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Controversial and ground-breaking hip-hop producer and performer, Kanye West, started out as a local Chicago producer who eventually gained recognition working at Roc-A-Fella Records and with artists such as Jay-Z, Common, Alicia Keys, and John Legend, with his name being most noticed for his work on Jay-Z’s 2001 album, Blueprint.

Even though West became a huge success as a producer, he had a hard time getting a record deal and West would regularly play his demos to record executives to no avail. Eventually, Jay-Z gave in and signed West as a rapper to Roc-A-Fella–the place where his career first took off as a producer. In 2004, West finally released his début album, The College Drop-Out,  which proved all the naysayers wrong and was triple certified platinum. In the past years, West has worked with many artists, but says his favorite music is rock ‘n roll and cites KROQ-friendly bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Killers, U2, and the Rolling Stones as inspirations.

Despite the profundity of his personal life (as chronicled by the media), West has become a huge success despite attacks and hardships. He has released six studio albums, his most recent being My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and his recent collaboration album with Jay-Z called Watch The Throne.

This weekend, West released a new video from My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy for his song, “All Of The Lights.”

Heavy Hitter #3: Jimmy Eat World