Average White Band – Pick Up the Pieces
Average White Band’s Pick Up the Pieces (Atlantic, 1974): Arif Mardin, Hot 100 No. 1 in 1975, near-instrumental funk.
Homework – Da Funk from a Paris bedroom
On 20 January 1997, Daft Punk released Homework on Virgin and Soma, a debut cut mostly at Daft House in Paris after early Soma 12-inches.
Us3 – Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia)
Blue Note's 1992 jazz-rap single built on Herbie Hancock's Cantaloupe Island, with Rahsaan Kelly's freestyle hook and Gerard Presencer's trumpet.
What if Michael Jackson had been Russian?
In August 1958 Michael Jackson is born Mikhail Iosifovich Jackson in a Moscow communal flat, and the King of Pop grows up between Melodiya, bootleg Motown, and a moonwalk first tested at Luzhniki.
Afterlife Interview with David Bowie
Riffs and Beats finds David Bowie on a station platform that never announces arrivals, still treating personas like working clothes after Blackstar.
Rod Stewart – Hair, heart and hits
With football in his veins and a harmonica in his pocket, he developed in Highgate. Rod Stewart, the son of a Scottish master builder raised in London, had working-class pride.
Wire – 12 X U
Wire close Pink Flag with 12 X U: under two minutes at Advision, Harvest, November 1977, a coded breakup packed into a hard stop.
Guns N’ Roses – Welcome To The Jungle
Welcome to the Jungle opens Appetite for Destruction, the Guns N' Roses debut Geffen released on 21 July 1987, with Mike Clink producing.
Madness – Camden ska with a comic punch
Madness took Camden ska into the UK charts with comic videos and a rhythm section that never winked.