From Lauryn Hill to Radiohead, My Bloody Valentine to Janet Jackson, Nirvana to Wu-Tang Clan, and so many more, these are the albums that changed music forever.
For the first time in 17 years, we’ve completely remade our list of the best songs ever. More than 250 artists, writers, and industry figures helped us choose a brand-new list full of historic favorites, world-changing anthems, and new classics.
In partnership with filmmaker Lauren Tabak and writer/consulting producer Barry Walters, we dive into the music career of Sylvester, starting from church choir in South Central LA to his early years in San Francisco.
The singer has foregrounded his story as a young gay man in his music, to unprecedented commercial success. But can he break through to pop's top tier?
The latest album from the dystopian cartoon band -- whose lone consistent musical member is the British musician Damon Albarn -- emphasizes real suffering and salvation in a contemporary setting.
The Magnetic Fields' 50 Song Memoir is, just as the title says, an autobiography of songwriter Stephin Merritt, with one song for each year of his life, and a tribute to finding salvation in music.
Rock and pop typically divides along the means of production: Rock is largely made whole cloth by self-sufficient bands, whereas pop is usually crafted by hired songwriters and players. Leon Russell is a renegade in that regard. (Originally published April 2, 2013.)
To LGBT folk, lovers of New Wave, dance-pop addicts, followers of British reality TV, and much of the U.K. public, Pete Burns -- who passed away Oct. 23 from a heart attack -- was a singular star emblematic of a time when even the most eccentric musicians could achieve significant international sales and radio play with the right brain-embedding hook.
Looking back on teenage musical education, lines in the sand and the birth of punk, a.k.a. the moment in 1976 when Ramones bopped its way onto a scene that wasn't ready and into musical history.
From 10cc to XTC, from London to Lagos, from 7” singles to side-long epics, and from punk to prog to ambient to disco, our list of the greatest songs from one of music’s greatest decades.
"Freetown Sound" captures Devonté Hynes at a crucial moment in the building not just of a distinguished career, but also of an artistic persona that bares the complications of an uncommon star.
The mourning process reminds those who love to dance together that to gather on a dance floor is to open one's arms to life. We asked 11 writers to share the club song that changed their lives.
If you're LGBT, waking up to learn that the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history had happened the night before in a gay nightclub is akin to being a parent and reading about Sandy Hook, or being African-American and finding out that yet another black church has been burned down.
Thirty-nine-year old Madonna Louise Ciccone could easily have hacked out an album of Babs-and-Celine-style schmaltz and laughed all the way to the ashram. Instead, says Barry Walters, she delivered 'Ray of Light,' the riskiest, most revealing record of her career.
As anyone who's seen her in concert can attest, Adele Adkins is one of the most self-aware pop acts ever. Nearly every time she sings, the 27-year-old Londoner accesses the kind of acutely tangible pain that sometimes claims the lives of superstars who attain her astronomical level of success.
Grace Jones is perched on a ledge above the dancefloor of New York’s 12 West, the state-of-the-art, members-only gay disco, about to take the stage for one her first performances. The year is 1977, and no one is prepared for what’s about to hit them.
“I always feel terrible when I talk to young guys who have no idea what The Saint was like,” says Susan Tomkin, former assistant to the ultimate gay disco’s principal owner Bruce Mailman. “They go to dance clubs that are just little tiny places. The Saint was so spectacular."
His name is synonymous with a sound defiled in the mainstream almost as much as it's been celebrated, and only once has he reached the U.S. Top 40 with a record released under that moniker. But few have exerted more influence over today's music than the Italian producer/songwriter, Giorgio Moroder.
A defense of the monumental, enduring, deceptively complex Swedish pop quartet, and the underlying emotion that has helped its hooks connect with fans for generations.
New York has rap. Washington has go go. Chicago's got house, the boldest dance music on the planet. Put a little tickle on the jones' head, and jack yo' body.