Melissa Etheridge

Loaded with clear-eyed, heartland honesty and driven by genuine guts, Melissa Etheridge is one of the most authentic voices in contemporary rock, known for her give-it-everything live performances and never-say-die drive. Signature tracks like "Bring Me Some Water" and "Similar Features" are feisty, tough, and passionate.

Etheridge never shies away from a full-on vocal blowout, emotions flying like bullets. But she hits an altogether gentler tempo on 1992's Never Enough, which favors introspective ballads over hard-and-fast rockers. "The Boy Feels Strange" is carried on a light, sad breeze and "Dance Without Sleeping" is exhaled like a long, heavy sigh.

Of all the current blues-rockers who transform pain into something transcendent, Etheridge stands like a mountain — the queen of catharsis. She squeezes every last drop of hurt from the wreckage of a long-term relationship and distills it into 2001's Skin. That cracking sound on "Down to One" is your own heart, breaking in empathy.

Nobody has a monopoly on love and pain, but Melissa Etheridge expresses life's extreme emotional experiences with more bare-faced honesty than just about anyone else in rock. Her life's highs and tribulations are there for us all to hear, from her self-outing as a lesbian to the best and worst of her relationships. Her hard-rocking 2005 GRAMMY performance has become legendary as Etheridge's kiss-off to the cancer that threatened her life. Truly inspirational.