What if Bob Dylan had never recorded Nashville Skyline?
Blocked from Nashville in 1969, Bob Dylan records a rough winter album near Woodstock. The next decade follows that record.
Oasis – Cloudburst
Oasis put Cloudburst on the Live Forever single, 8 August 1994: Creation B-side, five minutes of pre-stadium volume, ahead of the Definitely Maybe campaign.
Afterlife Interview with George Harrison
Riffs and Beats finds George Harrison in Friar Park at dawn, gardening hat on, sitar and guitar on a bench, treating the afterlife like another quiet morning.
Moon Martin – Bad News
Bad News sits on Moon Martin's Street Fever (Capitol, 1980): lean pop-rock after Rolene and the Palmer cover story.
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, and sold almost nothing on release.
What if Johnny Cash had met Rick Rubin in 1976?
Johnny Cash leaves a solo album of guitar and voice on a Manhattan shelf in 1976. The adult Rick Rubin finds it a decade later.
Concept albums or singles: which form tells an era better?
Side-long stories versus three-minute hits: which shape holds a decade?
Liam Gallagher – I’ve All I Need
Liam Gallagher closes 2017’s As You Were with I've All I Need: slow beat, soft chords, less sneer than Oasis-era punch.
The Who – Sound carved in stone
The Who rose from Shepherd's Bush pubs to Tommy, Live at Leeds, and Who's Next: volume, Mod fury, and rock-opera ambition with Townshend, Daltrey, Entwistle, and Moon.
Afterlife Interview with Tom Petty
At dusk in Florida, on a highway with the exit signs gone, Riffs and Beats catches Tom Petty with his Rickenbacker.