M.I.A. - MAYA (2010)

There are moments during MAYA when it seems like M.I.A.'s next move might involve walking into a laundromat, filling the dryers with bricks and silverware, pulling the fire alarm, blaring a drop-forge beat from a tinny boombox, and recording the result. Much of the singer’s third album is situated to prove, if anything, that motherhood and a comfortable living situation have not softened her. She does so with a load of mostly unorganized noise produced alongside Switch, Blaqstarr, Rusko, Diplo, John Hill, and Derek E. Miller. Clever-clever wordplay, assaultive sound effects, and ear-fatiguing beats are amplified at the expense of singalong hooks and swinging, energizing rhythms. “Steppin Up,” heavy with assorted needling drills and buzzing guitar, anchored by stilted percussion, could be a cover of a Flight of the Conchords M.I.A. parody: “I light up like a genie and I blow up on the song/Rub-a-dub a-dub dub, rub-a-dub a-dub dub/Aladdin, no kiddin’, boy I need a rub.” Sift through the stray wheezing, piercing, and squawking of “Tekqilla,” and you’ll hear a reference to her son’s father (the son of the heir to the Seagram’s fortune) with “When I met Seagram’s, sent Chivas down my spine.” The most willfully grating track, “Meds and Feds,” carries an oppressive industrial beat, liberally echoed handclaps, yet more cheap guitar buzz, and her most XTRMNTR-era Primal Scream-like lyrics (“While we become workers, you become golfers -- the modern day coppers”). All that said, there is a brilliant -- if brief -- EP in here. “Born Free,” owing much to Suicide’s “Ghost Rider,” is, nonetheless, one of M.I.A.'s most creative, instantly satisfying songs. It rapidly works itself into a blitz of relentless drums, prodding keyboards, and a vocal that is elatedly baleful and anthemic. “Lovalot,” a sinister production, is made all the more riveting with M.I.A.'s droning, slippery delivery, in which “Obama” can be heard as “a bomber” and “love a lot” can be heard as “love Allah.” While it is the quietest song on the album, it is also one of the most tense and unsettling of the lot, demonstrating that M.I.A. really does not need all that cluttered bluster. 

by Andy Kellman

Tracklist:

1. The Message
2. Steppin’ Up
3. XXXO
4. Teqkilla
5. Lovalot
6. Story to Be Told
7. It Takes a Muscle
8. It Iz What It Iz
9. Born Free
10. Meds and Feds
11. Tell Me Why
12. Space
13. XXXO (Blaqstarr Dirty Mix) [Bonus]

Hellyeah - Stampede (2010)

Bringing together members of Damageplan, Pantera, Nothingface, and Mudvayne, Hellyeah are as close to a groove metal supergroup as the world has seen since Down. Given Hellyeah's pedigree, it comes as no surprise that their second album, Stampede, is an almost nonstop cavalcade of huge, slithering groove riffage. While the album lets a couple of ballads slip through the cracks by way of “Better Man” and “Hell of a Time,” Hellyeah do their best to stick to what they do best, delivering track after track of fist-pumping, down-and-dirty metal in the grand Southern tradition. It’s this simplicity that makes Stampede an ultimately fun record. There are no chin-stroking prog arrangements to puzzle over, knotty guitar acrobatics or deep lyrics to dissect -- just pure and simple old-school heavy metal aggression without pretension. Hellyeah’s membership is seasoned enough that they know exactly what they’re doing when they deliver mosh pit anthems like “It’s On!” and “Stampede,” odes to aggression guaranteed to work a crowd into a frenzy of rebellious aggression with their thunderous, detuned guitars and furious drumming (courtesy of former Pantera  drummer Vinnie Paul). As long as you know what you’re getting into, Stampede  is a great piece of heavy metal escapism that invites the listener to throw on a sleeveless T-shirt, drink a beer or twenty, and simply enjoy the ride. 

by Gregory Heaney

Tracklist:

1. “Cowboy Way”
2. “Debt That All Men Pay”
3. “Hell Of A Time”
4. “Stampede”
5. “Better Man”
6. “It’s On!”
7. “Pole Rider”
8. “Cold As A Stone”
9. “Stand Or Walk Away”
10. “Alive And Well”
11. “Order The Sun”

Korn III: Remember Who You Are (2010)

Taking a cue from the Van Halen playbook, the III in the title of Korn III: Remember Who You Are isn’t a numbering device, it signifies an opening of another phase in Korn’s career. Somehow, the band has bypassed a Korn II altogether in their discography, but it’s commonly acknowledged that the tail-end of the 2000s found the group floundering a bit, going so far as to flirt with the Matrix in an attempt to figure out which direction to go now that they’ve hit middle age. This is where the subtitle comes in: the group has certainly remembered who they are, ditching all the affectations that crippled their muddled 2007 eponymous album and rediscovering their voice. They’ve gone back to the coiled, furious sputter of their debut, but there’s no disguising that Korn is an older band, substituting precision for frenzy without diluting their power. That’s a crucial difference: they’re not desperately attempting to re-create their youth, they’re reconnecting with their passions and re-interpreting them from the perspective as veterans. Sometimes they stumble -- in many ways, Jonathan Davis has the trickiest problem by putting actual words to their emotions -- but as sheer galvanizing force, Korn III delivers due to that combination of raw aggression and musical finesse. 

by Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Tracklist:

1. Oildale (Leave Me Alone)
2. Pop A Pill
3. Fear Is A Place To Live
4. Move On
5. Lead The Parade
6. Let The Guilt Go
7. The Past
8. Never Around
9. Are You Ready To Live?
10. Holding All These Lies

The Beach Boys (Biography)

Beginning their career as the most popular surf band in the nation, the Beach Boys finally emerged by 1966 as America's preeminent pop group, the only act able to challenge (for a brief time) the overarching success of the Beatles with both mainstream listeners and the critical community. From their 1961 debut with the regional hit "Surfin," the three Wilson brothers -- Brian, Dennis, and Carl  -- plus cousin Mike Love and friend Al Jardine constructed the most intricate, gorgeous harmonies ever heard from a pop band. With Brian's studio proficiency growing by leaps and bounds during the mid-'60s, the Beach Boys also proved one of the best-produced groups of the '60s, exemplified by their 1966 peak with the Pet Sounds LP and the number one single "Good Vibrations." Though Brian's escalating drug use and obsessive desire to trump the Beatles (by recording the perfect LP statement) eventually led to a nervous breakdown after he heard Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the group soldiered on long into the 1970s and '80s, with Brian  only an inconsistent participant. The band's post-1966 material is often maligned (if it's recognized at all), but the truth is the Beach Boys continued to make great music well into the '70s. Displayed best on 1970's Sunflower, each member revealed individual talents never fully developed during the mid-'60s -- Carl  became a solid, distinctive producer and Brian's replacement as nominal bandleader, Mike  continued to provide a visual focus as the frontman for live shows, and Dennis  developed his own notable songwriting talents. Though legal wranglings and marginal oldies tours during the '90s often obscured what made the Beach Boys great, the band's unerring ability to surf the waves of commercial success and artistic development during the '60s made them America's first, best rock band.

Ozzy Osbourne (Biography)

Though many bands have succeeded in earning the hatred of parents and media worldwide throughout the past few decades, arguably only such acts as Alice Cooper, Judas Priest, and Marilyn Manson have tied the controversial record of Ozzy Osbourne. The former Black Sabbath frontman has been ridiculed over his career, mostly due to rumors denouncing him as a psychopath and Satanist. Despite his outlandish reputation, however, one cannot deny that Osbourne has had an immeasurable effect on heavy metal. While he doesn't possess a great voice (it's thin and doesn't have much range), he makes up for it with his good ear and dramatic flair. As a showman, his instincts are nearly as impeccable; his live shows have been overwrought spectacles of gore and glitz that have endeared him to adolescents around the world. Indeed, Osbourne has managed to establish himself as an international superstar, capable of selling millions of records with each album and packing arenas across the globe, capturing new fans with each record.

The Roots (Biography)

Though popular success has largely eluded the Roots, the Philadelphia group showed the way for live rap, building on Stetsasonic's "hip-hop band" philosophy of the mid-'80s by focusing on live instrumentation at their concerts and in the studio. Though their album works have been inconsistent affairs, more intent on building grooves than pushing songs, the Roots' live shows are among the best in the business.

The Roots' focus on live music began back in 1987 when rapper Black Thought (Tariq Trotter) and drummer ?uestlove (Ahmir Khalib Thompson) became friends at the Philadelphia High School for Creative Performing Arts. Playing around school, on the sidewalk, and later at talent shows (with ?uestlove's drum kit backing Black Thought's rhymes), the pair began to earn money and hooked up with bassist Hub (Leon Hubbard) and rapper Malik B. Moving from the street to local clubs, the Roots became a highly tipped underground act around Philadelphia and New York. When they were invited to represent stateside hip-hop at a concert in Germany, the Roots recorded an album to sell at shows; the result, Organix, was released in 1993 on Remedy Records. With a music industry buzz surrounding their activities, the Roots entertained offers from several labels before signing with DGC that same year.

The Black Keys (Biography)

It’s too facile to call the Black Keys counterparts of the White Stripes: they share several surface similarities -- their names are color-coded, they hail from the Midwest, they’re guitar-and-drum blues-rock duos -- but the Black Keys are their own distinct thing, a tougher, rougher rock band with a purist streak that never surfaces in the Stripes. But that’s not to say that the Black Keys are blues traditionalists: even on their 2002 debut, The Big Come Up, they covered the Beatles’ psychedelic classic “She Said She Said,” indicating a fascination with sound and texture that would later take hold on such latter-day albums as 2008’s Attack & Release, where guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney teamed up with sonic architect Danger Mouse. In between those two records, the duo established the Black Keys as a rock & roll band with a brutal, primal force, and songwriters of considerable depth, as evidenced on such fine albums as 2003’s Thickfreakness  and 2004’s Rubber Factory.

Frank Zappa (Biography)

Composer, guitarist, singer, and bandleader Frank Zappa was a singular musical figure during a performing and recording career that lasted from the 1960s to the '90s. His disparate influences included doo wop music and avant-garde classical music; although he led groups that could be called rock & roll bands for much of his career, he used them to create a hybrid style that bordered on jazz and complicated, modern serious music, sometimes inducing orchestras to play along. As if his music were not challenging enough, he overlay it with highly satirical and sometimes abstractly humorous lyrics and song titles that marked him as coming out of a provocative literary tradition that included Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and edgy comedians like Lenny Bruce. Nominally, he was a popular musician, but his recordings rarely earned significant airplay or sales, yet he was able to gain control of his recorded work and issue it successfully through his own labels while also touring internationally, in part because of the respect he earned from a dedicated cult of fans and many serious musicians, and also because he was an articulate spokesman who promoted himself into a media star through extensive interviews he considered to be a part of his creative effort just like his music. The Mothers of Invention, the '60s group he led, often seemed to offer a parody of popular music and the counterculture (although he affected long hair and jeans, Zappa was openly scornful of hippies and drug use). By the '80s, he was testifying before Congress in opposition to censorship (and editing his testimony into one of his albums). But these comic and serious sides were complementary, not contradictory. In statement and in practice, Zappa was an iconoclastic defender of the freest possible expression of ideas. And most of all, he was a composer far more ambitious than any other rock musician of his time and most classical musicians, as well.

Prince (Biography)

Few artists have created a body of work as rich and varied as Prince. During the '80s, he emerged as one of the most singular talents of the rock & roll era, capable of seamlessly tying together pop, funk, folk, and rock. Not only did he release a series of groundbreaking albums; he toured frequently, produced albums and wrote songs for many other artists, and recorded hundreds of songs that still lie unreleased in his vaults. With each album he released, Prince has shown remarkable stylistic growth and musical diversity, constantly experimenting with different sounds, textures, and genres. Occasionally, his music can be maddeningly inconsistent because of this eclecticism, but his experiments frequently succeed; no other contemporary artist can blend so many diverse styles into a cohesive whole.

The Rolling Stones (Biography)

By the time the Rolling Stones began calling themselves the World's Greatest Rock & Roll Band in the late '60s, they had already staked out an impressive claim on the title. As the self-consciously dangerous alternative to the bouncy Merseybeat of the Beatles in the British Invasion, the Stones had pioneered the gritty, hard-driving blues-based rock & roll that came to define hard rock. With his preening machismo and latent maliciousness, Mick Jagger became the prototypical rock frontman, tempering his macho showmanship with a detached, campy irony while Keith Richards and Brian Jones wrote the blueprint for sinewy, interlocking rhythm guitars. Backed by the strong yet subtly swinging rhythm section of bassist Bill Wyman and drummer Charlie Watts, the Stones became the breakout band of the British blues scene, eclipsing such contemporaries as the Animals and Them. Over the course of their career, the Stones never really abandoned blues, but as soon as they reached popularity in the U.K., they began experimenting musically, incorporating the British pop of contemporaries like the Beatles, Kinks, and Who  into their sound. After a brief dalliance with psychedelia, the Stones re-emerged in the late '60s as a jaded, blues-soaked hard rock quintet. The Stones always flirted with the seedy side of rock & roll, but as the hippie dream began to break apart, they exposed and reveled in the new rock culture. It wasn't without difficulty, of course. Shortly after he was fired from the group, Jones  was found dead in a swimming pool, while at a 1969 free concert at Altamont, a concertgoer was brutally killed during the Stones' show. But the Stones never stopped going. For the next 30 years, they continued to record and perform, and while their records weren't always blockbusters, they were never less than the most visible band of their era -- certainly, none of their British peers continued to be as popular or productive as the Stones. And no band since has proven to have such a broad fan base or far-reaching popularity, and it is impossible to hear any of the groups that followed them without detecting some sort of influence, whether it was musical or aesthetic.

The Kinks (Biography)

Although they weren't as boldly innovative as the Beatles or as popular as the Rolling Stones or the Who, the Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion. Like most bands of their era, the Kinks began as an R&B/blues outfit. Within four years, the band had become the most staunchly English of all their contemporaries, drawing heavily from British music hall and traditional pop, as well as incorporating elements of country, folk, and blues.

Throughout their long, varied career, the core of the Kinks remained Ray (born June 21, 1944) and Dave Davies (born February 3, 1947), who were born and raised in Muswell Hill, London. In their teens, the brothers began playing skiffle and rock & roll. Soon, the brothers recruited a schoolmate of Ray's, Peter Quaife, to play with them; like the Davies brothers, Quaife played guitar, but he switched to bass. By the summer of 1963, the group had decided to call itself the Ravens and had recruited a new drummer, Mickey Willet. Eventually, their demo tape reached Shel Talmy, an American record producer who was under contract to Pye Records. Talmy helped the band land a contract with Pye in 1964. Before signing to the label, the Ravens replaced drummer Willet with Mick Avory.

Eminem (Biography)

To call Eminem hip-hop’s Elvis  is correct to a degree, but it’s largely inaccurate. Certainly, Eminem was the first white rapper since the Beastie Boys to garner both sales and critical respect, but his impact exceeded this confining distinction. On sheer verbal skills, Eminem was one of the greatest MCs of his generation -- rapid, fluid, dexterous, and unpredictable, as capable of pulling off long-form narrative as he was delivering a withering aside -- and thanks to his mentor Dr. Dre, he had music to match: thick, muscular loops that evoked the terror and paranoia Em’s music conjured. And, to be certain, a great deal of the controversy Eminem courted -- and during the turn of the millennium, there was no greater pop cultural bogeyman than Marshall Mathers -- came through in how his violent fantasias, often directed at his mother or his wife, intertwined with flights of absurdity that appealed to listeners too young to absorb the psychodramas Eminem explored on his hit albums, The Slim Shady LP and The Marshall Mathers LP. With hits “My Name Is” and “The Slim Shady,” he ruled the airwaves, but it wasn’t long before some detractors acknowledged his depth, helped in part by singles like the mournful “Stan,” written from the perspective of an obsessed fan. Eminem capitalized on this forward momentum by crossing over onto the big screen with 8 Mile, earning acclaim for his performance and an Oscar for the film’s anthem “Lose Yourself,” but a number of demons led him to shut down for the second half of the decade, an absence that proved life is indeed empty without Em, before he returned in 2009 with Relapse.

Neil Young (Biography)

After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic. From the beginning of his solo career in the late '60s until the late '90s, he never stopped writing, recording, and performing; his official catalog only represented a portion of his work, since he kept countless tapes of unreleased songs in his vaults.

Miles Davis (Biography)

Throughout a professional career lasting 50 years, Miles Davis played the trumpet in a lyrical, introspective, and melodic style, often employing a stemless Harmon mute to make his sound more personal and intimate. But if his approach to his instrument was constant, his approach to jazz was dazzlingly protean. To examine his career is to examine the history of jazz from the mid-'40s to the early '90s, since he was in the thick of almost every important innovation and stylistic development in the music during that period, and he often led the way in those changes, both with his own performances and recordings and by choosing sidemen and collaborators who forged new directions. It can even be argued that jazz stopped evolving when Davis wasn't there to push it forward.

Bob Dylan (Biography)

Bob Dylan's influence on popular music is incalculable. As a songwriter, he pioneered several different schools of pop songwriting, from confessional singer/songwriter to winding, hallucinatory, stream-of-consciousness narratives. As a vocalist, he broke down the notion that a singer must have a conventionally good voice in order to perform, thereby redefining the vocalist's role in popular music. As a musician, he sparked several genres of pop music, including electrified folk-rock and country-rock. And that just touches on the tip of his achievements. Dylan's force was evident during his height of popularity in the '60s -- the Beatles' shift toward introspective songwriting in the mid-'60s never would have happened without him -- but his influence echoed throughout several subsequent generations, as many of his songs became popular standards and his best albums became undisputed classics of the rock & roll canon. Dylan's influence throughout folk music was equally powerful, and he marks a pivotal turning point in its 20th century evolution, signifying when the genre moved away from traditional songs and toward personal songwriting. Even when his sales declined in the '80s and '90s, Dylan's presence rarely lagged, and his commercial revival in the 2000s proved his staying power.

Rush (Biography)

 Over the course of their decades-spanning career, the Canadian power trio Rush emerged as one of hard rock's most highly regarded bands; although typically brushed aside by critics and although rare recipients of mainstream pop radio airplay, the group nonetheless won an impressive and devoted fan following while their virtuoso performance skills solidified their standing as musicians' musicians.

Elvis Presley (Biography)

Elvis Presley may be the single most important figure in American 20th century popular music. Not necessarily the best, and certainly not the most consistent. But no one could argue with the fact that he was the musician most responsible for popularizing rock & roll on an international level. Viewed in cold sales figures, his impact was phenomenal. Dozens upon dozens of international smashes from the mid-'50s to the mid-'70s, as well as the steady sales of his catalog and reissues since his death in 1977, may make him the single highest-selling performer in history.

Eddie Cochran (Biography)

Somehow, time has not accorded Eddie Cochran quite the same respect as other early rockabilly pioneers like Buddy Holly, or even Ricky Nelson or Gene Vincent. This is partially attributable to his very brief lifespan as a star: he only had a couple of big hits before dying in a car crash during a British tour in 1960. He was in the same league as the best rockabilly stars, though, with a brash, fat guitar sound that helped lay the groundwork for the power chord. He was also a good songwriter and singer, celebrating the joys of teenage life -- the parties, the music, the adolescent rebellion -- with an economic wit that bore some similarities to Chuck Berry. Cochran was more lighthearted and less ironic than Berry, though, and if his work was less consistent and not as penetrating, it was almost always exuberant.

Buzzcocks (Biography)

Formed in Manchester, England, in 1975, the Buzzcocks were one of the most influential bands to emerge in the initial wave of punk rock. With their crisp melodies, driving guitars, and guitarist Pete Shelley's biting lyrics, the Buzzcocks were one of the best, most influential punk bands. The Buzzcocks were inspired by the Sex Pistols' energy, yet they didn't copy the Pistols' angry political stance. Instead, they brought that intense, brilliant energy to the three-minute pop song. Shelley's alternately funny and anguished lyrics about adolescence and love were some of the best and smartest of his era; similarly, the Buzzcocks' melodies and hooks were concise and memorable. Over the years, their powerful punk-pop has proven enormously influential, with echoes of their music being apparent in everyone from Hüsker Dü to Nirvana.

David Bowie (Biography)

The cliché about David Bowie says he's a musical chameleon, adapting himself according to fashion and trends. While such a criticism is too glib, there's no denying that Bowie demonstrated remarkable skill for perceiving musical trends at his peak in the '70s. After spending several years in the late '60s as a mod and as an all-around music-hall entertainer, Bowie reinvented himself as a hippie singer/songwriter. Prior to his breakthrough in 1972, he recorded a proto-metal record and a pop/rock album, eventually redefining glam rock with his ambiguously sexy Ziggy Stardust persona. Ziggy made Bowie an international star, yet he wasn't content to continue to churn out glitter rock. By the mid-'70s, he developed an effete, sophisticated version of Philly soul that he dubbed "plastic soul," which eventually morphed into the eerie avant-pop of 1976's Station to Station. Shortly afterward, he relocated to Berlin, where he recorded three experimental electronic albums with Brian Eno. At the dawn of the '80s, Bowie was still at the height of his powers, yet following his blockbuster dance-pop album Let's Dance in 1983, he slowly sank into mediocrity before salvaging his career in the early '90s. Even when he was out of fashion in the '80s and '90s, it was clear that Bowie was one of the most influential musicians in rock, for better and for worse. Each one of his phases in the '70s sparked a number of subgenres, including punk, new wave, goth rock, the new romantics, and electronica. Few rockers ever had such lasting impact.

Chuck Berry (Biography)

Of all the early breakthrough rock & roll artists, none is more important to the development of the music than Chuck Berry. He is its greatest songwriter, the main shaper of its instrumental voice, one of its greatest guitarists, and one of its greatest performers. Quite simply, without him there would be no Beatles, Rolling Stones, Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, nor a myriad others. There would be no standard "Chuck Berry guitar intro," the instrument's clarion call to get the joint rockin' in any setting. The clippety-clop rhythms of rockabilly would not have been mainstreamed into the now standard 4/4 rock & roll beat. There would be no obsessive wordplay by modern-day tunesmiths; in fact, the whole history (and artistic level) of rock & roll songwriting would have been much poorer without him. Like Brian Wilson said, he wrote "all of the great songs and came up with all the rock & roll beats." Those who do not claim him as a seminal influence or profess a liking for his music and showmanship show their ignorance of rock's development as well as his place as the music's first great creator. Elvis  may have fueled rock & roll's imagery, but Chuck Berry was its heartbeat and original mindset.

Bee Gees (Biography)

No popular music act of the '60s, '70s, '80s, or '90s attracted a more varied audience than the Bee Gees. Beginning in the mid- to late '60s as a Beatlesque  ensemble, they quickly developed as songwriters and singers to create a style of their own that carried them from psychedelia to progressive pop. Then, after hitting a popular trough, they reinvented themselves as perhaps the most successful white soul act of all time. What remained a constant throughout their history is their extraordinary singing, rooted in three voices that were appealing individually and melded together perfectly.

The group was also music's most successful brother act. Barry Gibb, born on September 1, 1946, in Manchester, England, and his fraternal twin brothers Robin Gibb and Maurice Gibb, born on December 22, 1949, on the Isle of Man, were three of five children. The three of them gravitated toward music, encouraged by their father, who saw his sons at first as a diminutive version of the Mills Brothers. The three Gibb brothers made their earliest performances at local movie theaters in Manchester in 1955, singing between shows. The family moved to Australia in 1958, resettling in Brisbane. Now known as the Brothers Gibb -- with Barry writing songs -- they attracted the attention of a local DJ, and eventually got their own local television show. It was around this time that they took on the name the Bee Gees (for Brothers Gibb). The trio was astoundingly popular in the press and on television, but actual hit records eluded them.

AC/DC (Biography)

AC/DC's mammoth power chord roar became one of the most influential hard rock sounds of the '70s. In its own way, it was a reaction against the pompous art rock and lumbering arena rock of the early '70s. AC/DC's rock was minimalist -- no matter how huge and bludgeoning their guitar chords were, there was a clear sense of space and restraint. Combined with Bon Scott's larynx-shredding vocals, the band spawned countless imitators over the next two decades and enjoyed commercial success well into the 2000s.

AC/DC were formed in 1973 in Australia by guitarist Malcolm Young after his previous band, the Velvet Underground, collapsed (Young's band has no relation to the seminal American group). With his younger brother Angus serving as lead guitarist, the band played some gigs around Sydney. Angus was only 15 years old at the time and his sister suggested that he should wear his school uniform on-stage; the look became the band's visual trademark. While still in Sydney, the original lineup featuring singer Dave Evans cut a single called "Can I Sit Next to You," with ex-Easybeats Harry Vanda and George Young (Malcolm and Angus' older brother) producing.

ABBA (Biography)

The most commercially successful pop group of the 1970s, the origins of the Swedish superstars ABBA dated back to 1966, when keyboardist and vocalist Benny Andersson, a onetime member of the popular beat outfit the Hep Stars, first teamed with guitarist and vocalist Bjorn Ulvaeus, the leader of the folk-rock unit the Hootenanny Singers. The two performers began composing songs together and handling session and production work for Polar Music/Union Songs, a publishing company owned by Stig Anderson, himself a prolific songwriter throughout the 1950s and 1960s. At the same time, both Andersson  and Ulvaeus  worked on projects with their respective girlfriends: Ulvaeus  had become involved with vocalist Agnetha Faltskog, a performer with a recent number one Swedish hit, "I Was So in Love," under her belt, while Andersson  began seeing Anni-Frid Lyngstad, a one-time jazz singer who rose to fame by winning a national talent contest.

Shakira (Biography)

After achieving superstardom throughout Latin America, Colombian-born Shakira became Latin pop's biggest female crossover artist since Jennifer Lopez. Noted for her aggressive, rock-influenced approach, Shakira maintained an extraordinary degree of creative control over her music, especially for a female artist; she wrote or co-wrote nearly all of her own material, and in the process gained a reputation as one of Latin music's most ambitiously poetic lyricists. When she released her first English material in late 2001, she became an instant pop sensation, thanks to her quirky poetic sense and a sexy video image built on her hip-shaking belly dance moves.

Latin Music

Latin music is a catch-all term for a number of diverse styles from different regions and countries in Latin America. Often, the term refers to Latin pop — either dance-based or pop oriented-music sung in Spanish or Tejano. Tejano has a number of different styles, from romantic ballads to the narrative nortenos, and they're usually performed by large groups with acoustic instruments and horns. In the '80s and '90s, Tejano has also adopted smooth production techniques from American pop-rock and soft rock. Latin America is also known for such dance music as salsas and sambas, which have layers of percussion, blaring horns and an infectious sense of style. A related style to salsa is the bossa nova, a cool, laid-back style that crossed dance music with jazz. With the exception of tejano and mariachi, which is folk and pop based, most Latin music is defined by its strong rhythms.

Italian Jazz (Essay) (by Francesco Martinelli)

Italy and Jazz go a long way back together. Around 1895 Joe Alexander (Alessandra) was already playing syncopated music in New Orleans. The first jazz record included Nick La Rocca, leader of the ODJB, the first band to record "Tiger Rag," and Tony Sbarbaro; Louis Armstrong took inspiration from Caruso's records for the projection of his trumpet sound.

At the end of the First World War General Pershing's orchestra played in Italy ragtimes and foxtrots. With his musicians played another Italian, guitarist Vittorio Spina, who met a 5-year-old Django Reinhardt when around 1915 the gypsy caravan wandered until Rome.

New Orleans Jazz (Essay) (by Scott Yanow)

Arguably the happiest of all forms of music is New Orleans jazz and its later descendant Dixieland. The sound of several horns all improvising together on fairly simple chord changes with definite roles for each instrument but a large amount of freedom cannot help but sound consistently joyful.

In New Orleans jazz, the emphasis is on ensembles rather than solos. The style overlaps with Dixieland and classic jazz; to confuse matters more, all three idioms have often been called "traditional jazz" while the charts of Billboard Magazine classify any style of jazz with a walking bass as "traditional!" New Orleans jazz usually features a trumpeter (or a cornetist) in the lead and not wandering far from the melody. The trombonist plays harmonies (occasional saxophonists have similar roles) while the clarinetist is free to supply countermelodies and fills around the brass. While the tuba player (or string bassist) emphasizes the first and third beats of the bar, the drummer amd the banjoist (or guitarist) accent the second and fourth and the pianist often pounds chords on all four beats. The most exciting New Orleans jazz groups are fairly dense during the ensembles (with so much going on that they resemble a three-ring circus) while remaining quite coherent and purposeful.

Chicago Jazz 1980-2000 (Essay) (by Eugene Chadbourne)

There have been times when the Chicago jazz scene has seemed like a burned out office building., but it wasn't always like that. The significant and in depth research carried out by the Jazz Institute of Chicago tells the story of the 30's, 40's and 50's, decades when a magnificent series of players interacted in clubs and recording studios with as much regard for genre restrictions as a jackrabbit might have for fenced in property.

Yet by the time Anthony Braxton was a young man in the late 50's and early 60's it was common for jazz players to complain bitterly about the lack of outlets. The important cooperative Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians came about largely out of total frustration with the Chicago jazz scene. Veterans mainstream players were putting their saxophones in the closet and going to work for banks. As for Braxton and his associates such as Roscoe Mitchell, Leo Smith, Leroy Jenkins or Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, a typical concert was commonly described as "chick gigs", meaning the only audience were the musician's girlfriends, one of whom would also required to take up the door.

A Brief History of Jazz (Essay) (by Scott Yanow)

One of the major questions that will go forever unanswered is "How did jazz start?" The first jazz recording was in 1917 but the music existed in at least primitive forms for 20 years before that. Influenced by classical music, marches, spirituals, work songs, ragtime, blues and the popular music of the period, jazz was already a distinctive form of music by the time it was first documented.

The chances are that the earliest jazz was played by unschooled musicians in New Orleans marching bands. Music was a major part of life in New Orleans from at least the 1890's with brass bands hired to play at parades, funerals, parties and dances. It stands to reason that the musicians (who often did not read music) did not simply play the melodies continuously but came up with variations to keep the performances interesting.