We are heading toward the end of 2021 and it has been…real. As Shakespeare said, “If music be the food of love, play on.” The following records have kept our bellies full and our hearts pumping. Listen in hopes of better times. In no particular order, here are our top ten rock albums of the… Read more
Photo Credit: Gabriele Giussani This deep into the 21st century, one could be forgiven if they felt as though rock and roll were now, finally, well and truly dead. Turn on the radio now, anywhere in the world, you will get a thousand examples of homogenized pop in almost as many languages, electronic dance music… Read more
In the rock era alone, there have been many, many cover versions recorded and released. From live-only interpretations to deep album cuts, to #1 hits (even the Beatles, who we’ll get back to in a minute, started as a cover band). In some cases, artists’ cover songs are well-known just because the original already proved… Read more
We put together a list of ten vocalists – from a variety of music genres – who we feel might just be among the most unique of all time. Not necessarily the best, or most commercially successful, or even the most influential, but rather those that a listener can hear and instantly realize that it… Read more
R&B from its very beginning has been a genre that has never been a monolith. Its ever-evolving sounds and artists, from the smooth slow jams of Barry White to the powerhouse that is Alicia Keys, have proved that the genre is here to stay and will be until the end of time. There are very… Read more
Photo Credit: Collages via Billboard Most people will tell you that the only success that translates financially is “success.” In music, certainly, it’s thought to be almost entirely mathematical: the more records an artist has sold, the more “successful” they are (of course, in recent decades the number of downloads and streams would also have… Read more
It’s widely debated if – or at least to what degree – rap is rock ‘n’ roll. In New York City, where hip-hop originated, a few rock bands were among the first to recognize the significance of rap, as shown by the Tom Tom Club’s single “Wordy Rappinghood” and of course Blondie’s number one smash… Read more
Photo Credit: MTV VMAs This year’s MTV Video Music Awards (which aired live on September 12th) tell us pretty much all we need to know about how the state of rock ‘n’ roll is 2021. Actually, we can even go all the way back to 1997: The award category that had once been “Best Heavy… Read more
Every now and then you might wonder what the ten biggest-selling albums of all time might be. As it turns out, it’s not an exact science: while we’re pretty sure a couple of people did buy Michael Jackson’s Thriller, different outlets have different ways of measuring overall album sales, say nothing of the fact that with the… Read more
10 Standout Moments in MTV History #10. Van Halen Reunion(ish) (1996) Photo Credit: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic A decade after leaving, original lead singer David Lee Roth reunited with Van Halen… as presenters on MTV’s annual VMAs (Video Music Awards). They received a standing ovation, but the real drama came in the aftermath: when it was announced… Read more