Kings Will Be Crowned: Queen’s ‘Queen II’ at 50
Queen’s 1974 sophomore album, Queen II is an overlooked progressive rock masterpiece that predicted so much of their later work. It’s also still enormous fun.
Queen’s 1974 sophomore album, Queen II is an overlooked progressive rock masterpiece that predicted so much of their later work. It’s also still enormous fun.
Madvillain’s Madvillainy remains an unforgettable underground hip-hop album, combining Madlib’s distinctive beats with MF DOOM’s precisely designed rhymes.
Steely Dan’s 50-year-old third album, Pretzel Logic, conceals its dark satirical vision of modern society beneath immaculate studio production.
Miles Davis was a shapeshifter, and in his restlessness, he urged and created the groundwork for protean music that reflected shapes and shifts.
In 1989, XTC released Oranges & Lemons, one of their finest. There are nods to trippy 1960s touchstones, but it’s more of a lush, power-pop celebration.
As these 1964 albums from the Animals and the Hollies show, the music of the beat boom was characterized by excitement, reverence, and sound.
Morphine saxophonist Dana Colley looks back at the alt-rock band’s career and discusses the newly expanded vinyl reissues for The Night and Like Swimming.
Nellie McKay is appealing but with an edge, offering hooks but also barbs, looking back at the past and ahead of her time. She could be a pop star in 2024.
Marilyn Monroe’s performative femininity as Sugar in Some Like It Hot is just as artificial as Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon’s drag characters’, only better.
Brian Eno’s approach captured the best of what we wanted from punk, new wave, prog, glam, and classic ’60s pop and channeled their excesses by relying on chance.
For decades, Buffy Sainte-Marie was celebrated as America’s most famous Indigenous musician. Recent revelations force a reconsideration of her music.
While the shift from folk to jazz-rock on Joni Mitchell’s Court and Spark may seem like commercial ambition, it was layered and signaled a profound change.