THE CORRS

Formed: 1991, Dundalk, Ireland

Members: Andrea Jane Corr, lead vocals, tin whistle (born Dundalk, Ireland, 17 May 1974); Caroline Georgine Corr, drums, bodhran, backing vocals (born Dundalk, Ireland, 17 March 1973); James Steven Corr, acoustic and electric guitars, keyboards, backing vocals (born Dundalk, Ireland, 31 July 1968); Sharon Helga Corr, violin, backing vocals (born Dundalk, Ireland, 24 March 1970)

Genre: Rock

Best-selling album since 1990: In Blue (2001)

Hit songs since 1990: "So Young," "Breathless," "When the Stars Go Blue" (duet with Bono)

The impossibly good-looking family band the Corrs, composed of three sisters and a brother, rose to popularity during the mid- to late 1990s with an accessible blend of traditional Irish instruments and splashy, bright pop music. Less politically oriented than their fellow Irish rockers U2 and not as prone to preach as the Cranberries, the Corrs strike a pleasant chord and have sold millions of records worldwide. The Corrs' albums have topped Billboard 's U.S. and U.K. record charts.

Growing up in Dundalk, county Louth, the four off-spring of Jean and Gerry Corr were a musical lot. Jim took guitar and piano lessons, Andrea studied the penny whistle, Caroline worked at the piano until she switched to drums once the band became seriously ambitious, and Sharon learned the violin, commonly referred to in Irish music as the fiddle. Despite the fact that the family grew up in a town halfway between Belfast and Dublin, near the border of Northern Ireland and home to a branch of the Irish Republican Army, politics rarely surface in their music. Instead, it seems that the Corrs, who write their own material, usually focus on sunny pop songs with touches of their native instruments combined with lovely harmonies.

The band had already hit it big in the U.K., Ireland, Asia, and Australia when it attempted to launch itself on U.S. airwaves. Oddly, its second album, Talk on Corners, was a sales dud in America until it was retooled several months later after the group toured with the Rolling Stones. Talk on Corners: Special Edition (1997), with its cavernous remixes and glossy production, enjoyed some airplay. The album's sales were buoyed by the danceable pop song "So Young," an ebullient anthem, and the revvedup cover of the Fleetwood Mac song "Dreams." But the first two Corrs albums made nary a mark on the American pop audience. It was not until their third album, In Blue (2000), co-produced by Robert Lange and Mitchell Froom, that the Corrs gained their hold on American shores.

The group's fortunes were spurred by the pop radio masterpiece "Breathless," an airy, upbeat celebration of new-found love, in which Andrea sings in her rich, powerful alto, "So go on, go on, come on / Leave me Breathless / Tempt me, tease me, until I can't deny this / Lovin' feeling / Make me long for your kiss." The song landed on a handful of Billboard charts, including the number seven position in the Adult Top 40. In Blue was not all whistles and fiddles, though, as the Corrs stretched their sound with the country-tinged torch song "All the Love in the World," which could easily have been recorded by the country/pop singer Trisha Yearwood. The Corrs do know how to write beautiful weepers that hold their own against other contemporary Irish bands, although they significantly speed up the tempo of their laments, such as on "Radio" from In Blue. Despite the overly cheery tone of the album, there are some darker moments, including the melancholy "All in a Day," which laments a miscarriage.

According to some critics, success in America came at the expense of the Corrs's Irish roots; the band nearly dispensed with the traditional sounds featured so prominently on their prior albums. The criticism did not really harm the band though—In Blue went on to top the charts in eighteen different countries. Two years later, the band released a live album and a duet with Bono of U2, a cover of the Ryan Adams song "When the Stars Go Blue"; it hit number eighteen in the Billboard Adult Top 40, signaling their continued appeal.

The Corrs began their career as a family band that took the best of their native country's music and added a high-octane dose of radio-friendly pop music to prove to the rest of the world that Ireland could still produce amazing musical success stories.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Forgiven Not Forgotten (Lava/Atlantic, 1995); Talk on Corners (Atlantic, 1997); Unplugged (Atlantic, 1999); In Blue (Atlantic, 2000); VH-1 Music First Presents the Corrs Live in Dublin (Atlantic, 2002).

carrie havranek