October Project - Be My Hero

October Project's music is dominated by distinctive and powerful female lead vocals (nothing to do with waif-like, breathy whisperings). Indeed, Mary Fahl's deep voice has an earthy sensuality that looms larger than life on the band's two albums, both filled with superb chorus hooks and haunting melodies. October Project also features keyboardist/vocalist Marina Belica, guitarist David Sabatino, keyboardist Emil Adler (piano, keyboards and harmonium) as well as his wife Julie Flanders who, although not a musician per se, writes the band's lyrics. They released two fine albums in the mid '90's before getting dumped by their record company in 1996, at which point they simply broke off. Like an afterthought, some of the band members later resurfaced as the November Project but reverted back to their former name and released a self-produced E.P. in 2003. Deemed more pop than prog, the music of October Project is perhaps best described as 'vocal-dominated symphonic prog', something akin to Renaissance for the orchestral textures, although Mary Fahl does not sound at all like Annie Haslam. The band's first two albums, which focus primarily on her rich, sultry vocals, feature intense melancholy ballads that ride on a combination of lush keyboards, strings and guitars. Keyboards and acoustic guitar are emphasized on the eponymous "October Project" whereas on "Falling Farther In", an album of slightly more linear compositions with pared-down arrangements, the electric guitar is more prominent. The E.P. "Different Eyes", which features the late reunion of some of the band members (sans Mary Fahl), showcases some reworked material from the band's early days.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2190

Tori Amos - A Sorta Fairytale

A Sorta Fairytale is the first single from Tori Amos' 2002 album Scarlet's Walk, a concept album in which Scarlet, a character loosely based on Amos, travels across post-9/11 America. In A Sorta Fairytale, Amos refers to how relationships with other people, whether long or short, are part of who you are, which means that you are never completely alone. The music video features Amos as a head attached to a disembodied leg and Adrian Brody as a head attached to a disembodied arm. The pair meet and fall in love, but Brody laughs at Amos' crooked fifth toe; she runs away to a beach, where Brody find her and they share a kiss. In response, their bodies emerge from their disembodied parts, making them into whole people through their love.
Notes for Parents: The lyrics of this song are suitable for all ages, but they are poetic and metaphorical and may require some explaining for younger girls. The tone of the lyrics seems very bittersweet, focusing on the loss of relationships, but the video shows a more optimistic view, with the lovers made whole by each other. The video images are strange, and some younger children may find them disturbing; there is also a scene revealing the emerging bodies of the pair. Nevertheless, the video is fascinating and provides an excellent illustration of the idea that the right person will love you despite what others consider flaws.  From: https://www.amightygirl.com/a-sorta-fairytale

Tori Amos is an American pianist and singer-songwriter. Her music walks the fine line between baroque pop and straightforward alternative rock. She has ventured off into other territories, like electronic (From the Choirgirl Hotel, To Venus and Back, Abnormally Attracted to Sin), funk/soul/gospel (The Beekeeper), big band ("Pink and Glitter"), adult contemporary (Scarlet's Walk, certain songs on The Beekeeper), country ("Not Dying Today", "Drive All Night") and even folk ("Wedding Day"). She has written about many topics, including rape, masturbation, war, religion, feminine sexuality, homosexuality (and related topics), betrayal, and... other things. Richard Croft said it best about the public's perception of her: "The image of Tori Amos most widely known in pop culture is sort of like an American Björk, a modern Kate Bush, a feminist icon, a screeching, red-haired banshee who flails wildly at the piano and sings all sorts of man-hating anthems for her throngs of similarly screeching, red-haired fans." Note that this description was tongue-in-cheek; she is not misandric, and her fans have a variety of hair colors.  From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/ToriAmos

Arabs in Aspic - Syndenes Magi

Arabs in Aspic is a heavy progressive rock band from Trondheim, Norway, with their musical roots planted firmly in the golden era of rock. Their sound is a sweet mixture of loud, heavy guitars and drums, 12 string acoustics, funky bass and percussion, screaming hammond organs, soft Rhodes, mellotrons and 70's synths, topped with a bucket of vocal harmonies.
Arabs in Aspic emerged in 1997 from Norway led by guitarist and vocalist Jostein Smeby and rythm guitarist & Theremin player, Tommy Ingebrigtsen. Since they met through their common love for 1970s heavy rock music, especially Black Sabbath, they've been playing together with different personnel, each playing different kinds of heavy music until Arabs in Aspic surged. They said goodbye to playing covers and the band was ready with Hammond organ player Magnar Krutvik, drummer Eskil Nyhus and his brother, bass player Terje Nyhus. The quartet was later joined by Stig Arve Jorgenson on backing vocals and Hammond organ, as Magnar changed to playing acoustic guitar and synth. After a few years and two releases (Progeria EP and Far Out in Aradabia CD) the band was put on hold due to various reasons. In 2006 Jostein, Eskil and Stig hooked up with bass player Erik Paulsen and formed what was known as Arabs in Aspic II. The new spirit and musicianship led to some serious songwriting, and numerous demos were recorded during the following years. In 2009 the band entered legendary TNT guitarist Ronni LeTekro's studio and recorded the critically aclaimed "Strange Frame of Mind", which was mastered by Tommy Hansen in Jailhouse Studios, Denmark. Before the vinyl release of "Strange Frame" in 2012 they decided to cut the "II" in the band name and go back to just Arabs in Aspic.  From: https://www.arabsinaspic.org/bio--info.html

Cream - Tales of Brave Ulysses

Cream switched to a more psychedelic sound for their second album Disraeli Gears, which was helmed by producer Felix Pappalardi, who pushed them in this direction. Their first album, Fresh Cream, was produced by Robert Stigwood and was filled with Blues material. "Tales Of Brave Ulysses" is one of the trippiest songs on the album, thanks in part to the wah-wah pedal Eric Clapton used on his guitar. According to Pappalardi, their first attempts to record the song fell flat. Taking a break, he and Clapton went to Manny's Music store, where they found some wah-wah pedals - Clapton only agreed to use them because he heard Jimi Hendrix was experimenting with one (he was - Hendrix used one on his song "The Burning Of The Midnight Lamp"). This guitar effect became a distinguishing feature of the song. An Australian painter named Martin Sharp helped Clapton write this. Sharp painted the album cover of Disraeli Gears. Clapton was in his phase where he was experimenting with distortion devices on his guitar. He used a fuzz-box and wah-wah pedal on this, as well as some echo. This was Eric Clapton's first use of the wah-wah pedal. He used it again for background effects and an extended solo on "White Room."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/cream/tales-of-brave-ulysses

The Velvet Underground - Heroin

The Velvet Underground was easily one of the most important rock bands of all time pushing the boundaries of acceptable music. They were far beyond their time, taking rock music to a whole other level; they never went on to become part of the mainstream but were critical in the forming of other bands. Their legacy has continued to last after their short run as an active band shaping the works of Patti Smith, David Bowie, the Sex Pistols, Talking Heads, U2, R.E.M., Roxy Music, Sonic Youth and many others. They were more progressive than other rock bands during the era of flower power by writing about social taboos such as sexual deviancy in the song "Venus in furs" and drug addiction in the song "Heroin" and "White Light/White Heat". They also wrote about paranoia, social alienation, violence, hopelessness and urban demimonde in several other songs. Sterling Morrison, Maureen Tucker, John Cale, and Lou Reed played their first show together in 1965. Just a few months after that, in a little Cafe in Greenwich Village in New York City the pop artist Andy Warhol saw them perform and took the group under his wing and they soon became the house band at his infamous studio the Factory. He made them the centerpiece for his "Exploding Plastic Inevitable,” a series of multimedia events that included screenings of Warhol's films and musical performances from the band, as well as dancing and other performances. Their debut album, The Velvet Underground and Nico (featuring the German singer/actress Nico) dwindled in record-label red tape for a year before finally being released in 1966. The album's tracks proved to be one of the most cutting edge of it’s time. The group and Warhol had a falling out after they performed in Boston without Nico and the rest of the Inevitable cast, who arrived later. They were then forced to take on Steve Sesnick as their manager and without Warhol's connections and publicity they soon faded away. Empty theaters and unsuccessful album launches plagued the rest of the Velvets career, yet their extreme versatility showed that they were a force to be reckoned with.  From: https://sites.google.com/site/mississippijohnhurtproject/home/the-velvet-underground  

The Dead Weather - I Cut Like a Buffalo

A more compelling and accomplished effort than what most ostensible supergroups come up with, the Dead Weather’s Horehound is a thick, skuzzy record that sounds slathered in boot-blacking and axle grease. Given the band’s roster (the Kills’s Alison Mosshart, the Raconteurs’s Jack Lawrence, Queens of the Stone Age’s Dean Fertita, and Jack White), it’s no surprise that Horehound is steeped in blues formalism, but the extent to which the band has embraced the seedy “Devil’s music” underbelly of the blues genre makes for a far darker, more aggressive record than any of its members’ day-job bands have recorded. From the Oedipal dare of “Treat Me Like Your Mother” to a gender-swapping take on Bob Dylan’s “New Pony,” the content of the songs plays into this aesthetic, but it’s the instrumentation and arrangements that do the heavy lifting. Fertita uses the same metal-flecked guitar techniques White employed on the White Stripes’s “Seven Nation Army” and “Icky Thump” but are taken to a far more severe degree, while White, for his part, bangs out drumlines that remain purposefully off-balance. When the band takes risks with this aesthetic (as on the arrhythmic opener “60 Feet Tall” and the phenomenal “I Cut Like a Buffalo,” on which White half-raps with a surprising swagger), the album works. But there are moments, such as on dirge-like lead single “Hang You from the Heavens” and the nearly identical “No Hassle Night,” when the thickness of their sound becomes turgid. It doesn’t help that Mosshart, though a capable frontwoman, is often more effective as a Shirley Manson-style vamp than a PJ Harvey-style belter: Her voice simply doesn’t have the heft to project the necessary menace. Despite these occasional missteps, though, Horehound establishes the Dead Weather as a fully realized band with a sufficiently distinctive point of view that deserves serious consideration as more than just a one-off side project.  From: https://www.slantmagazine.com/music/the-dead-weather-horehound/

The Pentangle - Wedding Dress

Were The Pentangle a folk group, a folk-rock group, or something that resists classification? They could hardly be called a rock & roll act; they didn't use electric instruments often, and were built around two virtuoso guitarists, Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, who were already well-established on the folk circuit before the group formed. Yet their hunger for eclectic experimentation fit into the milieu of late-'60s progressive rock and psychedelia well, and much of their audience came from the rock and pop worlds, rather than the folk crowd. With Jacqui McShee on vocals and a rhythm section of Danny Thompson (bass) and Terry Cox (drums), the group mastered a breathtaking repertoire that encompassed traditional ballads, blues, jazz, pop, and reworkings of rock oldies, often blending different genres in the same piece. Their prodigious individual talents perhaps ensured a brief lifespan, but at their peak they melded their distinct and immense skills to egg each other on to heights they couldn't have achieved on their own, in the manner of great rock combos like the Beatles and Buffalo Springfield.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/pentangle-mn0000838559/biography

By 1971, the strain of working together and of working in the music business in general, was starting to take its toll on members of Pentangle. The atmosphere between the band and their record label was souring rapidly and alcohol was playing an ever increasing part in the creative process. On the plus side, this album was recorded on state of the art 16 track equipment, improving the sound quality of the finished product enormously. After the entirely traditional "Cruel sister", here the band revert to a mixture of band compositions and traditional material, the 11 minute feature (title) track being one of those written by the band.
The opening "Wedding dress" has a real bluegrass feel, Jackie McShee sounding a little like Emmylou Harris (the song is similar to Harris' "Deeper well"). "Omie Wise" returns us to the Atlantic's eastern shores, John Renbourn delivering this traditional folk song without great embellishment. "Will the circle be unbroken" is undoubtedly the best known of the traditional numbers here. The song was first made famous by the Carter Family, but has since been covered by almost as many artists as "Yesterday"! McShee's pure voice is perfect for this pleasantly mournful piece which inevitably invites audience participation on the infectious chorus. "When I get home" is the first of the band compositions. The song has the feel of one of Fairport Convention's early Bob Dylan covers, but to these ears sounds decidedly ordinary among its peers. On the other hand, "Rain and snow" is a personal favourite, this light traditional air offering McShee an opportunity to do her best Joni Mitchell impersonation.
The second side (of the original LP) is altogether more reflective. "Helping hand" is a drifting, downbeat affair with a west coat feel. "So clear" continues in a similar vein, perhaps with hints of Simon and Garfunkel. The lengthy title track takes us towards prog folk territories, the sparse violin and acoustic guitar conversation which opens the track eventually giving way to a fine multi-tracked vocal performance by McShee. The track however gradually settles down into a more orthodox soft folk number. In all, an enjoyable if rather understated album from this fine band. Those who enjoyed their previous works are sure to find this to their liking too.
From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=9925 

Haight-Ashbury - Blow Your Mind

The Glasgow trio Haight-Ashbury has quite possibly never sniffed a single whiff of proper incense-scented San Francisco air. But my, have they imbibed the spirit! Theirs is a huge wall of sound, consisting of twanging tablas and rattling tambourines, the ethereal twin vocals of Jennifer Ashbury and Kirsty Heather Ashbury (possibly not their real names) and a serious addiction to Jesus & Mary Chain-type guitar textures. Huge fun.  From: https://julietippex.com/roster/haight-ashbury

 Haight-Ashbury are a trio, like Peter Paul and Mary, Crosby Stills and Nash and Motorhead (when they were good). Haight-Ashbury don't necessarily sound like any of them, though. They play beautiful West Coast sunshine pop, full of the sort of close harmonies and sweeping melodies that, when it all comes together, make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Listening to their borderline-kosmische neo-hippie pop, you may imagine that they formed when the moon was in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars, with the intention to herald the Age of Aquarius. That isn't necessarily untrue. What definitely did happen was that best friends Kirsty and Jen were in bands together from their late teens. One night they had a gig at Glasgow University and the rest of the musicians couldn't make it, so Kirsty’s brother, Scott sat in on guitar while the girls sang. It was a great show. They formed a band.
“We did a Bangles cover. My favourite guitarist was Stephen Stills and that's what I wanted to sound like, nice open tunings, close harmonies,” says Scott. Scott had travelled that summer with a friend in America. “We spent a while specifically in San Francisco. I knew that a few of the bands I liked had roots there. I bought the first Jefferson Airplane album, and The Grateful Dead's records. When we came back wearing Haight Ashbury t-shirts, it was just one of the names in our heads. We didn't choose it because that was our sound, though our sound eventually came to be that. As we developed, we fell into that mold easier than we thought we would.”  From: https://www.a38.hu/en/artist/haight-ashbury

Sonic Youth - 100%

Sonic Youth emerged from the experimental no-wave art and music scene in New York before evolving into a more conventional rock band and becoming a prominent member of the American noise rock scene. Sonic Youth have been praised for having "redefined what rock guitar could do,” using a wide variety of unorthodox guitar tunings while preparing guitars with objects like drum sticks and screwdrivers to alter the instruments' timbre. The band was a pivotal influence on the alternative and indie rock movements. After gaining a large underground following and critical praise through releases with SST Records in the late 1980s, the band experienced mainstream success throughout the 1990s and 2000s after signing to major label DGC in 1990 and headlining the 1995 Lollapalooza festival. In 2011, following the separation and subsequent divorce of vocalist bassist Kim Gordon and vocalist guitarist Thurston Moore, the band played its final shows in Brazil.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_Youth

100%: This is a mournful song with a creepy undercurrent, made sadder and more tender by the way the lyrics address a dead friend in the present tense. This present tense isn’t in denial — maybe there is the tiniest glimmer of denial in “I been waiting for you just to say the zaftig girl is mine” but beyond that the lyrics more consistently acknowledge that this charming friend who “[rocked] the girls” was “shot dead,” that they’re “blasting the underworld,” that they are undeniably and irrefutably dead. Instead, to me (a person very much prone to projecting) that present tense feels like a natural progression for a friendship that’s been suddenly impacted by tragedy. That tragedy is violent — a shooting — but there’s also a dark little predatory feeling throughout the song. Musically, it’s both driving and alluring. The song is the musical incarnation of a violent eighties horror in which some cool zombies pursue their victims. A stark contrast to the lyrics! But fitting when you consider how the song mourns these friends’ pursuit of girls, which isn’t necessarily predatory, but does feel decisively prowling. The most mournful lyrics are still aggressive. The lyrics consider revenge, and sure that is violent, but capturing pain by saying “I stick a knife in my head thinking about your eyes” is such a very specific, physical, disturbing manifestation of grief. Not dishonest at all! But rarely articulated.  From: https://medium.com/@pkeene27/capsule-reviewed-dirty-by-sonic-youth-a1986ef54850

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath

Listening to Black Sabbath’s self-titled 1970 album is a lesson in heavy metal history. Though bands such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple influenced the formation of the genre, Black Sabbath is often considered the first true heavy metal band, perhaps because they were the first to devote their focus to the darker themes that became an often controversial element of metal. Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin also has been quoted as saying he thought Black Sabbath was the first true heavy metal band. Living in an impoverished English town where career choices for most were limited to factory worker or criminal, the boys of Black Sabbath could not relate to the idealistic hippie music that was popular when the band formed in 1968, considering themselves a blues band. Guitarist Tony Iommi, observed the lines that formed at the local movie theater whenever it showed horror films and remarked that if people were so willing to pay to be scared, perhaps they should try playing evil-sounding music. With that in mind, they took their name from a Boris Karloff film.
The title track exemplified Sabbath’s goal of capturing horror in music. It began with atmospheric sounds of heavy rain, thunder, and a single, tolling bell. Then Iomi played a slow, ominous riff based on the “devil’s tritone,” an interval notoriously avoided in medieval music because its dissonance evoked a sense of evil - perfect for Sabbath’s purposes. Though speedy, seemingly effortless shredding has become nearly synonymous with heavy metal, the slogging pace of this formative song was truly heavy, creating a feeling of immense weight and pressure intensified by the dread-soaked vocals of Ozzy Osbourne in his prime. The story of being dragged to hell by a figure in black was not conveyed so much by the lyrics as by the despair in Osbourne’s voice when he moaned, “Oh no, no, please God help me.” The song was haunting in a way that most listeners in 1970 had no idea how to process. This dire sound eventually became the primary influence of the doom metal subgenre in the early 1980s.  From: https://www.classicrockhistory.com/black-sabbath-album-review/

Dead Pirates - UGO

Dead Pirates roared into existence in 2009 as the “band” behind “Wood (Dirty Melody),” an infectious slice of garage punk that soundtracked an animated music video by the French illustrator Matthieu Bessudo — better known as McBess. At the time, the “band” was just McBess himself, a chance for him to stretch his creative muscles beyond the Max Fleischer-inspired artwork and videos for which he’s become known. McBess created the video for “Wood” during his day job at Oscar-winning VFX studio The Mill. “What I wanted to do was make music,” he says. “It didn’t really matter if I became famous or anything like that. It just started to get bigger and bigger.”
It happened quickly; after the release of “Wood (Dirty Melody),” a friend asked Mcbess to play a private Christmas party, so he put together a rudimentary group, including his younger brother, Tristan, flown in from Berlin, on guitar. In 2010, a Dead Pirates 7” was recorded to accompany a McBess-penned comic book entitled Malevolent Melody. Two more EPs followed in 2011 and 2014, along with shows in London and Europe, and a tour to South America in 2015. “It was strange,” says McBess, explaining how his band ended up playing to a crowd of 500 people in Buenos Aires. “I went to South America to do an exhibition, and a friend of mine there was into some good music and said it would be easy to set up a tour. He landed us like six or seven dates.”
Now, Dead Pirates are gearing up to release their debut LP, “Highmare,”a collection of ultra-heavy psychedelic jammers as indebted to ‘70s classics as McBess’ artwork is to Betty Boop. And they’ve had no trouble finding an audience — the first pressing of Highmare is almost completely sold out on Bandcamp. McBess is ready for the attention. “Before this I was never 100% certain of what we were doing, he says. “But this one is different. Nobody is taking it lightly.”  From: https://daily.bandcamp.com/features/dead-pirates-interview

Infant Annihilator - Blasphemian

For anyone who's been indoctrinated into the heavier side of metal, grindcore sweethearts and one-time boy band Infant Annihilator may be a familiar name to you. For those of you who just looked up the name in order to prove you already know them, welcome to the shit show. No hipster bullshit here. Infant Annihilator was formed in 2012 by drummer Aaron Kitcher and guitarist Eddie Pickard. Since then, they’ve released three albums and a few loose singles. That’s all you’re getting, look the rest up on Wikipedia. Now, on to the butt-fuckery. Infant Annihilator is a band full of dudes who like taking the piss in a traditional post-modern way on the surface, but once you’ve looked past the superficial you learn very quickly that these boys are incredibly talented in such a way that it actually frustrates you that they don’t seem to take it all that seriously.
In the early days, vocalist Dan Watson set the tone for the brutality with an impressive array of grunt-styles to really set the tone for the pounding you’re meant to take. Coupled with the near machine-like drumming of Kitcher and the impressive and sometimes soulful solos of Pickard, you’d almost think they’re an incredibly talented Grindcore band that only improves on the pre-established legacy. Then you watch a video and holy shit, these dudes really just don’t give a fuck and go all in. Decapitation Fornication (2012) tells a Cannibal Corpse-style story of a deranged person viciously murdering their victim and then disposing of the body. The video, on the other hand, showcases the band’s love for one another, in sometimes graphic detail, complete with thrusting and black box action. Not my kind of good time, but hey, metal is a judgment-free zone.  From: https://sinneth.com/do-you-know-infant-annihilator/

Love - 7 and 7 is

One of the best West Coast folk-rock/psychedelic bands, Love may have also been the first widely acclaimed cult/underground group. During their brief heyday - lasting all of three albums - they drew from Byrds-ish folk-rock, Stones-ish hard rock, blues, jazz, flamenco, and even light orchestral pop to create a heady stew of their own. They were also one of the first integrated rock groups, led by genius singer/songwriter Arthur Lee, one of the most idiosyncratic and enigmatic talents of the '60s. Stars in their native Los Angeles and an early inspiration to the Doors, they perversely refused to tour until well past their peak. This ensured their failure to land a hit single or album, though in truth the band's vision may have been too elusive to attract mass success anyway.
Love was formed by Lee in the mid-'60s in Los Angeles. Although only 20 at the time, Lee had already scuffled around the fringes of the rock and soul business for a couple of years. In addition to recording some flop singles with his own bands, he wrote and produced a single for Rosa Lee Brooks that Jimi Hendrix played on as session guitarist. Originally calling his outfit the Grass Roots, Lee changed the name to Love after another Los Angeles group called the Grass Roots began recording for Dunhill. Love's repertoire would be largely penned by Lee, with a few contributions by guitarist Bryan MacLean.
Inspired by British Invasion bands and local peers the Byrds, Love built up a strong following in hip L.A. clubs. Soon they were signed by Elektra, the noted folk label that was just starting to get its feet wet in rock (it had recorded material by early versions of the Byrds and the Lovin' Spoonful, and had just released the first LP by Paul Butterfield). Their self-titled debut album (1966) introduced their marriage of the Byrds and the Stones on a set of mostly original material and contained a small hit, their punk-ish adaptation of Bacharach/David's "My Little Red Book."
Love briefly expanded to a seven-piece for their second album, Da Capo (1967), which included their only Top 40 hit, the corkscrew-tempoed "Seven & Seven Is." The first side was psychedelia at its best, with an eclectic palette encompassing furious jazz structures, gentle Spanish guitar interludes, and beautiful Baroque pop with dream-like images ("She Comes in Colors"). It was also psychedelia at its most reckless, with the whole of side two taken up by a meandering 19-minute jam. It was still a great step forward, but by mid-1967, the band was threatening to disintegrate due to drugs and general disorganization.
The group was in such sad shape, apparently, that Elektra planned to record their third album with session men backing Lee (on his compositions) or MacLean (on his compositions). Work on two tracks actually commenced in this fashion, but the shocked band pulled themselves together to play their own material again, resulting in one of the finest rock albums of all time, Forever Changes. An exceptionally strong set of material graced by captivating lyrics and glistening, unobtrusive horn and string arrangements, it was not a commercial hit in the U.S. (though it did pretty well in Britain) but remains an all-time favorite of many critics.
Just at the point where they seemed poised to assert themselves as a top band, Love's first and best lineup was broken up in early 1968, at Lee's instigation. Several albums followed in the late '60s and early '70s that, though credited to Love, are in reality Lee and backup musicians - none of whom had skills on the level of Bryan MacLean or the other original Love men. Lee largely forsook folk-rock for hard rock, with unimpressive results, even when he was able to get Jimi Hendrix to play on one track. The problems ran deeper than unsympathetic accompaniment: Lee's songwriting muse had largely deserted him as well, and nothing on the post-Forever Changes albums competes with the early Elektra records.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/love-mn0000314600/biography

Frank Zappa & The Mothers - Live at The Fillmore east June 1971

That’s right, you heard right, the secret word for tonight is “Mud Shark.” But for this bawdy tale from the not-so-briny shoals of Seattle, Washington alone, this is required listening. Of course, instrumental fans who hunger for something more filling from Fillmore will find it in tracks like “Lonesome Electric Turkey” and the evergreen “Peaches En Regalia.” This live record (one of the last from the Fillmore East if memory serves) is one of my favorites from the Flo & Eddie experiment, showcasing their unique stage presence on the dialogue-driven “Do You Like My New Car?” and cascading into a delirious version of The Turtles’ “Happy Together.” Unlike some of Frank Zappa’s live releases, Fillmore East retains the atmosphere of a live show from beginning to end, with a minimum of post-doctoring and a maximum of spontaneous energy (or as spontaneous as a band playing a tortuous track like “Little House I Used To Live In” can get). Among the other Zappa/Mothers albums out there, Fillmore East reminds me most of the 200 Motels soundtrack, where a similar mix of complicated instrumentals and humorous dialogue songs co-existed happily (although I understand that Uncle Meat tasted about the same too). As an oral history of rock stars and the groupies who love them, Fillmore East puts Professors Flo & Eddie at the podium, overshadowing the rest of the band much of the time. Ordinarily, their monkeyshines steal the spotlight from the erstwhile top banana (Frank) and his phenomenal fretwork. But Fillmore East finds a better balance than Just Another Band From L.A., for example, alternating between the profane and the musically profound in a way that satisfies both camps.  From: https://progrography.com/frank-zappa/mothers-fillmore-east-june-1971-1971/

The Mothers of Invention were an American band active from 1966 to 1969. Throughout, their output was primarily directed by composer and guitarist, Frank Zappa (1940–1993). Their albums combined a broad span of genres and utilised diverse instrumentation. Their lyrics were generally humorous, with frequent style-parodies of contemporary Pop music (with doo-wop love ballads endlessly lampooned), bountiful surreal imagery, cartoonish vocals and oblique, satirical protest songs. Their diversity and insincerity makes their classification difficult, but Zappa's increasingly ambitious and avant-garde compositions towards the end of the 1960s share many features of Free Jazz and 20th Century Classical music. The group's output, particularly Absolutely Free, also proved enormously influential on the then-nascent genre of progressive rock.
Zappa disbanded the original Mothers of Invention line-up in 1970 to create music under his own name, but shortly reformed an entirely new band sometimes known as "The Mothers." This new incarnation had a strong vaudeville style and were much bawdier than before, with new vocalists Flo & Eddie, previously of the Turtles, taking the lead. After Zappa was pushed offstage at the Rainbow Theatre in 1971, he broke up this second band and concentrated on a jazzier style with a short-lived big band called the Grand Wazoo, but returned with a third lineup of the Mothers in 1973. This reformed group retained musical similarities to the previous group and the chamber music of the late '60s Mothers, but with a tighter, funkier sound; George Duke's soulful vocals being perhaps the most memorable addition.  From: https://www.last.fm/music/The+Mothers+of+Invention/+wiki

Dead Can Dance - Children Of The Sun

Dead Can Dance have been included in a wide variety of musical subgenres within rock. Due to their name, image, and electronic-drum-driven ethereal sound, many defined the band as part of the dark, gothic style when they began to achieve notice in the early 1980s. Indeed, the media have called the work of Dead Can Dance everything from “world music” to “unclassifiable.” Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, the core of Dead Can Dance, have said their creations come from pure inspiration. “No two people ever make the same music naturally, not if they’re really honest with their music,” Perry told Ann Marie Aubin in Strobe. “What we try to do is draw very deep inside us, in regions that are normally connected with the subconscious - a willful immersion in trance-like states and improvisation, then bring down a whole gamut of influences we don’t really have conscious control over.” Perry and Gerrard met in 1980 in Melbourne, Australia. They decided to name their project Dead Can Dance after a ritual mask from New Guinea. “The mask, though once a living part of a tree, is dead,” Perry explained. “Nevertheless, it has, through the artistry of its maker, been imbued with a life force of its own.”  From: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/dead-can-dance 

Dead Can Dance combine elements of European folk music - particularly music from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance - with ambient pop and worldbeat flourishes, touching on everything from Gaelic folk and Gregorian chant to avant-garde pop and darkwave. Originating in Australia, the group relocated to London in the early 1980s and signed with 4AD, for which they released a string of acclaimed albums, including the popular 1991 compilation A Passage in Time, which introduced the project's distinctive medieval art-pop to the United States before ceasing operations in 1998. They reunited in 2005 for a short tour, and officially re-formed in 2012 and issued their 12th studio LP, Anastasis, with Dionysus arriving six years later. Over the course of their career, Dead Can Dance have featured a multitude of members, but two musicians have remained at the core of the band - guitarist Brendan Perry and vocalist Lisa Gerrard. Perry had previously been the lead vocalist and bassist for the Australian-based punk band the Scavengers, a group that was never able to land a recording contract. In 1979, the band changed its name to the Marching Girls, but still wasn't able to get a contract. The following year, Perry left the group and began experimenting with electronic music, particularly tape loops and rhythms. In 1981, Perry formed Dead Can Dance with Lisa Gerrard, Paul Erikson, and Simon Monroe. By 1982, Perry and Gerrard decided to relocate to London; Erikson and Monroe decided to stay in Australia. Within a year, Dead Can Dance had signed a record deal with 4AD. In the spring of 1984, they released their eponymous debut album, comprised of songs the pair had written in the previous four years. By the end of the year, the group had contributed two tracks to It'll End in Tears, the first album by This Mortal Coil, and had released an EP called Garden of the Arcane Delights. In 1985, Dead Can Dance released their second album, Spleen and Ideal. The album helped build their European cult following, peaking at number two on the U.K. indie charts. For the next two years, Dead Can Dance were relatively quiet, releasing only two new songs in 1986, both which appeared on the 4AD compilation Lonely Is an Eyesore. Within the Realm of a Dying Sun, the group's third album, appeared in 1986. In 1988, the band released its fourth album, The Serpent's Egg, and wrote the score for the Agustí Villaronga film El Niño de la Luna, which also featured Lisa Gerrard in her acting debut.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/dead-can-dance-mn0000225948/biography  

Pink Floyd - Arnold Layne

On March 10th, 1967, Pink Floyd made their mark in musical history when they released their first single Arnold Layne. The avant-garde song, written by Syd Barrett and recorded at Chelsea’s Sound Techniques studio, fused together psychedelic rock and trippy sound effects with a hint of pop. Arnold Layne tells the story of the title character, a transvestite who would steal women’s clothes, who Barrett says was based on a real person. Seen as controversial at the time, Pink Floyd faced difficulty gaining airplay with the track. But Barrett wasn’t concerned with mainstream popularity. “If more people like them dislike us, more people like the underground lot are going to dig us,” Barrett once said. “So we hope they’ll cancel each other out.” When the single was released it was backed by the tune Candy and a Currant Bun and credited as “The Pink Floyd” on the initial pressings, but the “The” was quickly dropped. Pink Floyd clearly made a great choice for their first single which foreshadowed to the world the mind-blowing music that was to come from one of the greatest British psychedelic rock bands.  From: https://www.955klos.com/2022/03/10/55-years-ago-pink-floyd-makes-their-debut-with-arnold-layne/

Genesis - Looking For Someone

Definitely not to be confused with the happy-slappy Genesis of the 1980s by any means! Somewhere in the English countryside, circa 1970, five lads from a prestigious boarding school were hard at work in a small house (courtesy of gracious parents), recovering from wounds (namely having their debut album, From Genesis To Revelation flop and then nearly throwing in the towel altogether) and redoubling their creative efforts. Armed with a steely resolve, a recently acquired Mellotron, a contract with the fledgling Charisma Records label, a sympathetic producer in John Anthony and ambitious new material, Genesis set it's sights on upsetting the apple cart of ordinary music. No longer were they going to be pegged as "Moody Blues wannabes". What emerged was an important, yet largely unheralded milestone in the development of progressive rock as we know it. Here, the essential building blocks of the classic Genesis sound were coming to the fore, although they had yet to fully gel and integrate, but you could tell that even greater, more startling things were to come.
"Looking For Someone" leads off with a piercing Gabriel vocal and smoky organ, the protagonist looking for meaning and purpose in a world that doesn't seem to have any. The band charges in with full force, exercising newly found ambition and ability. Gabriel's slightly raspy and soulful singing carries this songs mood so strongly, supported by plaintive guitar statements from Anthony Phillips and frantic propulsion from Banks, Rutherford and drummer John Mayhew.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=2448  

PJ Harvey - Wang Dang Doodle

PJ Harvey, in full Polly Jean Harvey, is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist whose mythically pitched, fanatically intense recordings and concerts set new standards for women in rock. Harvey, born to countercultural parents in rural England, seems to have grown up with a sense of rock as simply another elemental force within the landscape. “Sheela-na-gig,” for instance, a single from her first album, Dry (1992), took as its central image the female exhibitionist carvings with gaping genitals found throughout Ireland and the United Kingdom, whose origins are the subject of debate. The song, like many others by Harvey, treats female sexuality as a ravaging, haunted force, but, instead of acting the victim, she theatrically embodies her obsessions, equates them with the alluring menace of rock and the blues, and builds herself into an archetype.  From: https://www.britannica.com/biography/PJ-Harvey

"Wang Dang Doodle" is a blues song written by Willie Dixon. Music critic Mike Rowe calls it a party song in an urban style with its massive, rolling, exciting beat. It was first recorded by Howlin' Wolf in 1960 and released by Chess Records in 1961. In 1965, Dixon and Leonard Chess persuaded Koko Taylor to record it for Checker Records, a Chess subsidiary. Taylor's rendition became a hit and "Wang Dang Doodle" became a blues standard and has been recorded by various artists.
"Wang Dang Doodle" was composed by Willie Dixon during the second part of his songwriting career, from 1959 to 1964. During this period, he wrote many of his best-known songs, including "Back Door Man", "Spoonful", "The Red Rooster" (better-known as "Little Red Rooster"), "I Ain't Superstitious", "You Shook Me", "You Need Love" (adapted by Led Zeppelin for "Whole Lotta Love"), and "You Can't Judge a Book by the Cover". In his autobiography, Dixon explained that the phrase "wang dang doodle" "meant a good time, especially if the guy came in from the South. A wang dang meant having a ball and a lot of dancing, they called it a rocking style so that's what it meant to wang dang doodle". Mike Rowe claimed that Dixon's song is based on "an old lesbian song" – "The Bull Daggers Ball" – with "its catalogue of low-life characters only marginally less colorful that the original". Dixon claimed that he wrote it when he first heard Howlin' Wolf in 1951 or 1952 but that it was "too far in advance" for him and he saved it for later. However, Howlin' Wolf supposedly hated the song and commented, "Man, that's too old-timey, sounds like some old levee camp number":

    Tell automatic slim, to tell razor totin' Jim
    To tell butcher knife totin' Annie, to tell fast talkin' Fannie
    We gonna pitch a wang dang doodle all night long

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wang_Dang_Doodle 

Sophie - Faceshopping

Sophie Xeon, stylized as Sophie, was an avante garde singer and producer behind some of the biggest names in pop music.  Before the artist’s unexpected death at 34 on Jan. 31, 2021, Sophie had pioneered the hyperpop subgenre - a radical blend of trance, electronic and hip hop music - and collaborated frequently with pop stars like Charli XCX. As a transgender artist, Sophie also inspired many LGBTQ+ listeners and queer musicians.
Sophie’s music is liberating in its absurdity and unconventionality. The sounds challenge the conventions of mainstream music, experimenting with auto-tune, vocal distortions and a complete abandonment of acoustic instruments. One of the most intriguing parts of Sophie’s music is how it simultaneously critiques and contributes to the pop industry. In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, Sophie noted that hyperpop strove not to make fun of pop music, but to push its boundaries and urge experimentation.
In the song “Faceshopping,” Sophie sings, “I’m real when I shop my face,” in a reference to Adobe Photoshop and the ability it provides to alter the way one is percieved. The dissonance that Sophie feels between the self that is physically presented and the self in Sophie’s mind can only be remedied by editing or surgery. Sophie validates body modification as a way of self-determination — an experience unique to the trans community and to those who experience gender dysphoria.
Sophie’s music is a peek into the future of pop. It’s deeply personal, openly critical and unabashedly fun. It uses machine-like sounds to reveal a true, human self. In a world where the digital and authentic are seen as antithetical, Sophie has shown us that real and synthetic can exist simultaneously, and we have the power to create our truest selves.  From: https://www.thedartmouth.com/article/2021/02/li-sophie

Aimee Mann - I Should've Known

Aimee Mann is from Virginia, and is one of many successful Berklee College of Music dropouts. She is known for her straightforward but somewhat sorrowful style of Pop-Rock. Her albums often tell stories, sometimes a different tale with each song, and sometimes with concept albums based on a particular storyline, as with The Forgotten Arm (2005). She experimented with different musical styles in the 1980s, first dropping out of college to perform with her punk band Young Snakes, then founding new wave act 'Til Tuesday with Michael Hausman. 'Til Tuesday's best-known song is the anthemic breakup ballad "Voices Carry." She went on to record three full albums with 'Til Tuesday before embarking upon a solo career. Mann’s songwriting style has taken on a signature morose tone over the years since her foray into New Wave. Known for collaborations with independent creatives in film and comedy such as P.T. Anderson and Paul F. Tompkins respectively, Mann explores the dark sides of human nature in her songs. She says, "There is always a fair amount of moments where I write something that I suddenly realize is a very apt description of a situation that's uncomfortable or horrible, but that the very accuracy of it makes me laugh, even though I can't really expect that other people will. It's a bit of a gallows humor, maybe."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/aimee-mann