Interview of Madonna (1984)
On American Bandstand in January 1984, Madonna talks with Dick Clark after dancing Holiday, still early in the burn of her debut album.
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Donna Summer’s 1977 Casablanca hit I Feel Love, built on Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte’s Munich Moog sequence, rewired disco toward electronic dance music.
Recto Verso – Paradis
Paradis’s 2016 debut Recto Verso mixes French chanson vocals with house-leaning grooves, recorded late in a Paris apartment by Simon Mény and Pierre Rousseau.
Rage Against The Machine – Killing in the Name
Rage Against The Machine’s Killing in the Name (1992): Morello drop-D figure, Wilk/Commerford bounce, Epic debut, UK radio fight.
The Velvet Underground – Kings of the underground
In mid-1960s New York, Lou Reed and John Cale built a band that wrote about drugs, S&M imagery, and city boredom, sold almost nothing on release, and taught half of rock music how to work.
Billy Paul – Your Song
Billy Paul’s Your Song (360 Degrees, 1972) slows Elton John’s ballad into Philly soul at Sigma Sound with Gamble and Huff.
London Calling – The Clash
By the late summer of 1979, punk's first uniform had started to pinch, and The Clash answered by recording a double album that refused to stay in one lane.
Gibson SG – Double-cutaway Solid Guitar, 1961
In 1961 Gibson replaced the single-cut Les Paul, which had sold poorly and been discontinued in 1960, with a thinner double-cutaway solid-body. Early examples were still labelled Les Paul. The body was mahogany, lighter than the previous Les Paul, with pointed horns improving upper-fret access.
The Specials – Gangsters
In January 1979 at Horizon Studios in Coventry, The Specials cut Gangsters for about £700 and launched Jerry Dammers' 2 Tone label.
Ozzy Osbourne – A howl that learned the dark
The farewell was a black throne at Villa Park, Birmingham, on 5 July 2025, a short walk from where Sabbath started.