In 2001, David Bowie was recording an album on a mountaintop when history walked into the room. Between the initial session and the overdubs was September 11, 2001. Bowie’s output from those sessions was Heathen, the 2002 album that reunited David Bowie with producer Tony Visconti after 22 years apart. […]
While the world debated the Britpop rivalry between Oasis and Blur, a new and quite different band took the stage. Placebo seemed to come out of nowhere and appeared to be the antithesis of Britpop. Their song “Nancy Boy” in 1997 announced them as “the Filthiest Band in Britain” full […]
What many fans consider The Smiths best song, “There is a Light That Never Goes Out,” was almost never a single at all. It sat as a deep cut on The Queen is Dead, the band’s 1986 masterpiece, for more than half a decade until 1992, five years after the […]
What are my favorite, top music documentaries of all time? A few on this list might surprise you. Today we’re doing a countdown inspired by a recent comment on my YouTube post covering Brian Jonestown Massacre. It’s no surprise I love digging into the history of bands, albums, and songs […]
Ray Davies of The Kinks held onto a melody for years before waking up one morning with the completed song at his fingertips. This is the basis for “Waterloo Sunset” from 1967, one of The Kinks’ most beloved songs. For this story we go back to the beginning, because “Waterloo […]
It’s time to look at one of the most petty songs around: “Unhappy Birthday” by The Smiths. Today we’re looking at a track off The Smiths’ final album, Strangeways, Here We Come from 1987. The album was released a few months after the band broke up. Despite the ongoing feud […]
Who Blind Melon was as a band often gets pigeonholed with “No Rain” and the Bee Girl video. But that read is inaccurate. Dig deeper into their music and you’ll discover a depth not often found in the 90s alt rock scene. “St. Andrew’s Fall” off their 1995 album Soup […]
Pull up any ranked list of top songs by The Smashing Pumpkins, and “Soma” is probably on it. Tucked near the midpoint of the band’s 1993 masterpiece Siamese Dream, the song was never a single, didn’t have a music video, and wasn’t promoted like Today or Disarm. Yet it’s a […]
In Radiohead’s early days, back when they were known as On A Friday, multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood had the most shocking beginning in the band: He couldn’t play. Yet from those early days, he has become one of the most cherished and influential rock musician and film composers in the modern […]
This has to be one of the funnier stories in indie rock history, and it all centers around one of the more pleasant indie pop bands out there: Belle And Sebastian. After the success of their first two albums in 1996, the Scottish band ventured to London with Arab Strap. […]
