In 1984, funk rock legend Prince combined music and film into a major extravaganza called Purple Rain, and it went to the top of the charts for 24 weeks in a row.
The current resurgence of Britpop could trigger nostalgia for late 1990s big beat like Lo Fidelity Allstars, while trip-hop remains a vital influence.
Tom Waits’ 1983 album Swordfishtrombones signified a seismic shift in the singer-songwriter’s sound. His music would never be the same again.
The Judgment Night soundtrack blazed the path that led the evolution of rock and roll into nu-metal of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Jim Morrison, a startlingly seductive figure, was at once impish and grandiose, the sly trickster enemy of all the straight moralists and self-righteous prigs, a confident voice ready to be summoned to your side of the argument.
Billy Joel’s An Innocent Man laid the foundation for him to become a vessel for nostalgia that would far outlast the album’s 1950s references.
Liz Phair’s indie rock landmark Exile in Guyville is truly sui generis, a one-of-a-kind moment in history where everything aligned at just the right time and place.
Kiss’ four solo albums marked the beginning of the end of the band’s soaring popularity. But Ace Frehley’s electric 1978 solo debut has only grown in stature.
Jets to Brazil’s Orange Rhyming Dictionary received generally good-to-great reviews and is now considered a pivotal record in the evolution of emo and indie rock.
The “anything goes, no guardrails” mentality of Styx’s The Serpent Is Rising is precisely what early 1970s rock and roll was supposed to be all about.
Early 1970s Britain was blighted by high inflation, industrial action, and power cuts, and the three-day work week. Tubular Bells‘ turbulent emotions mirror the era’s deep anxieties.
In 1998, Rufus Wainwright seemed like someone new: a pop-rock performer on a major label who didn’t have to come out because he had never been in the closet.
