Starchild

Starchild or Star Child may refer to:

Companies:

Folklore and fictional characters:

Music:

Starchild (Teena Marie album)

Starchild is the sixth album by Teena Marie, released in 1984. Following the relative commercial failure of her previous album, Robbery, Starchild became the highest-selling album of Marie's career. It peaked at #9 on the US Black Albums chart and #31 on the Billboard Albums chart. Lead single "Lovergirl" became a major hit, reaching #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 (Marie's only top 30 hit on that chart). The track "My Dear Mr. Gaye" is a tribute to Marvin Gaye, who had been fatally shot and killed by his father on April 1, 1984. It has been rereleased by SoulMusic Records in 2012 as an Expanded Edition, containing 5 mixes as bonus tracks (see track listing below).

Track listing

All songs written by Teena Marie, except where noted.

Spore (2008 video game)

Spore is a 2008 multi-genre single-player god game developed by Maxis and designed by Will Wright, released for Windows and Mac OS X. Covering many genres including action, real-time strategy, and role-playing games (RPG), Spore allows a player to control the development of a species from its beginnings as a microscopic organism, through development as an intelligent and social creature, to interstellar exploration as a spacefaring culture. It has drawn wide attention for its massive scope, and its use of open-ended gameplay and procedural generation. Throughout each stage, players are able to use various creators to produce content for their games. These are then automatically uploaded to the online Sporepedia and are accessible by other players for download.

Spore was released after several delays to generally favorable reviews. Praise was given for the fact that the game allowed players to create customized creatures, vehicles and buildings. However, Spore was criticized for its gameplay which was seen as shallow by many reviewers; GameSpot remarked: "Individual gameplay elements are extremely simple". Controversy surrounded Spore for SecuROM, its DRM software, which can potentially open the user's computer to security risks.

Wintersun

Wintersun is a metal band from Helsinki, Finland and was originally created by guitarist, keyboardist, bassist, songwriter and vocalist Jari Mäenpää as a side project to folk metal band Ensiferum for whom he was lead singer and guitarist. In 2003, Mäenpää began pulling together songs that he had been working on since 1995. These songs followed specific themes described by Mäenpää as majestic, "spacy", and melodic. Wintersun is known for creative folk harmonies, fast tempos and both harsh and clean vocals. While Mäenpää planned to perform and record each instrument for the first album himself, he still required a drummer. He sent demos to Kai Hahto, former member of Rotten Sound, who agreed to perform the drums.

After obtaining a record deal, Mäenpää scheduled studio time to record the first album. Ensiferum's tour to support their 2004 release was scheduled at the same time, which forced Mäenpää to request time off from the band. The band instead fired him, and Mäenpää was free to go ahead with the production of his self-titled album, Wintersun.

Wintersun (album)

Wintersun is the debut self-titled studio album by metal artist Jari Mäenpää of Wintersun. The style presented is somewhat of a departure from the more folk-oriented sounds heard on Ensiferum, the band in which Mäenpää was previously a member, though traces still remain. Instead, Wintersun's approach is more rooted in melodic death metal, mostly through the genre's inherent harmonies, mixed with the blast-beating speed and atmosphere of black metal and the riffing approach of power metal.

The Japanese edition of the album was released with the original three demo tracks used to obtain a contract with Nuclear Blast.

History

Wintersun was a project eight years in the making. Jari Mäenpää began writing the music for Wintersun in 1995, before joining folk metal band Ensiferum in 1996 as lead singer and guitarist. In 1997, Mäenpää served in the Finnish military as part of his national defense duty, during which he contracted tuberculosis. The diagnosis was late, and Mäenpää required surgery to remove part of his lung, hospitalizing him for months. The song "Beautiful Death" would later be inspired by this event.

Wintersun (disambiguation)

Wintersun may refer to the following: