Rage Against the Machine were surprisingly successful in the 1990s – topping the Billboard 200 twice with albums espousing revolutionary left-wing politics. Rap rock has become a pejorative term, thanks to lesser bands like Limp Bizkit. There were other successful…
Congratulations to 2loud2old and Tony, who both scored 20/20 in last week’s greatest hits VII quiz. It is with an air of inevitability that we move on to greatest hits VIII. Can you identify the 20 bands responsible for these…
New York’s Talking Heads are one of my favourite bands of the new wave era. David Byrne was the nervy frontman, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth were a funky rhythm section, while Jerry Harrison filled out their sound on keyboards…
California’s Tom Waits is effectively the patron saint of this website. My Waits album ranking was the first post from this site to become popular, and it’s still one of its most-visited posts. With recently accounted reissues of Waits’ peak…
We’re up to number 7 in our series. Can you identify the greatest hits by its cover? Congratulations to 2loud2oldmusic and EclecticMusicLover, who tied last week on 18. This week’s challenge was a lot tougher, at least for me: …
Today’s records are both eclectic – Meshell Ndegeocello demonstrates an uncanny ability to play anything, from dub to jazz to spacy instrumentals. Canadian pop treasure Carly Rae Jepsen pushes the boundaries of her sugary and effervescent music. Meshell Ndegeocello The…
Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965-1968 and was…
Things are getting predictable on Aphoristic Album Reviews this week, as we move onto the sixth installment of greatest hits albums picture clicking. It’s another eclectic bunch of artists, from The Animals to Snoop Dogg. There were no 20/20s last…
Nic Jones emerged in the fertile folk scene of the late 1960s. While contemporaries like Richard Thompson, Sandy Denny, and John Martyn ventured into pop and rock music, Jones remained stubbornly traditional. His first two albums, 1970’s Ballads & Songs…
Ron and Russell Mael grew up in Pacific Palisades, California, surfing and modelling for mail order catalogues. They both studied film in college, but gravitated to music, recording their first record as Halfnelson in 1971, with Todd Rundgren producing. The…
