The Cranberries

Brothers Noel and Mike Hogan along with their friend Fergal Lawler in Limerick founded this Irish rock band in 1990. Originally, they named it The Cranberry Saw Us, and took Niall Quinn - but he left the rockers for his own project. The musicians announced the search for the new vocalist and Dolores O'Riordan answered their advertisement. Not only the girl's writing talent astonished the artists - she wrote lyrics for their future hit Linger for one night - but also her strong and unusual voice, surprising for her delicateness. O'Riordan was taken into the band without any hesitation. The group made three hundred tapes with their songs and distributed them among the local shops. The tapes were sold out in a short time; the musicians contracted their title to The Cranberries and started to look for a label to record their debut. The recording studious began a bidding war for the band. The Cranberries chose Island Records and signed to it.

However, all proved to be not that good - the artists had serious tension in the band and with their manager, which almost resulted in a split up, while their first single Uncertain was a real flop. Nevertheless, in 1993 the collective released the first disc titled Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We? with the rock single Dreams. The second single Linger became a hit in the USA after The Cranberries toured there. In 1994, Dolores married to their tour manager Don Burton. The same year The Cranberries released their sophomore attempt, the mature and masterful album No Need To Argue that brought the band to fame on the wave of such singles as piercing Zombie and Ode To My Family. Light rock with the Celt folk elements gave place to the sharper sound on the To The Faithful Departed disc of 1996 with the aggressive and tense song Salvation. In 1999, The Cranberries came back to the softer sound on the Bury The Hatchet full-length. This turn is definitely noticeable on the dreamful single Just My Imagination.

After the issue of the Bury The Hatchet long-play, the band went on a tour that finished in 2000. In 2001, they recorded the album called Wake Up And Smell The Coffee with songs Analyse, Time Is Ticking Off and This Is The Day, fulfilled in the recognizable stylistics of The Cranberries. In spite of the working process over the new studio album, in 2003 the band announced the hiatus in their activity. Bright personality and unique vocals of Dolores O'Riordan often ignited the press rumours about her wish to leave The Cranberries and start a solo career. However, Dolores recorded the debut disc Are You Listening? in 2007 - without leaving her colleagues. During the hiatus two of the artists married - Noel Hogan is the only bachelor in the band for now. Around the same time, the members of The Cranberries concentrated on their side projects and solo careers. To the gladness of their fans, in March 2008 - according to the official site of the band - The Cranberries got down to the mastering of their new studio attempt.