Purple Rain begins with a funeral, but not with mourning: It’s a celebration — a gateway into new life and a new world, where “you can always…
Though the cumulative impact of The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan is considerable, and its achievement is towering, it remains a strangely difficult record to discuss by way…
The boozy, bloozy, cacophonous conclusion to Bob Dylan’s mid-60s “electric” trilogy, Blonde on Blonde feels every bit the culmination of…something. A wild fever dream of an album,…
Though lauded today for lending traction in the then up-and-coming genre of jazz fusion, In a Silent Way was received as heresy on its release. Miles Davis’s…
Samuel Gene Maghett entered Cobra’s recording studios in 1957 as “Good Rocking Sam,” and luckily for all of us, some other Samuel was already…
In late 1992, a newly formed Rage Against the Machine released their self-titled debut. In doing so, they created something that was considered unmarked territory up…
Pretty much all songs on all of Elliott Smith’s released recordings are immaculate on both the structural and engineering fronts, which doesn’t make them any…
Beginning with its titular event and ending with a funeral, Prince’s Parade is obsessed with love, sex and death. If that weren’t enough baggage, Parade also serves as the…
Wide Open Spaces can be counted more as a reboot than as a debut. Sisters Martie Seidel and Emily Robison had originated the Dixie Chicks with vocalist…
The debut album from America’s greatest songwriter contains a scant two originals alongside 11 covers, ensuring that it will always be somewhat overlooked or…
In a career marked by artistic triumphs, one might just as easily track Cecil Taylor’s long journey by highlighting his periods of exile. He was…
Erick Sermon and Parrish Smith nicked expensive names to big up their first effort as EPMD on debut Strictly Business. That was just how it was done back…
“Let’s approach this like it’s our last album,” Billy Corgan claims to have said to his bandmates, in so many words, before work began…
There were country music concept albums before In Search of a Song and there would be many after, from modern sounds in country & western music…
Recorded at the height of her powers, Mack the Knife — Ella in Berlin is the definitive answer to the question “Who is Ella Fitzgerald?” It’s an education spread…
“The cat record” is how I identified Tapestry at the age of five — initial fascination with my mother’s scruffy vinyl copy stemming less from its warm musicality…
When first stumbling my way through the world of jazz, falling in love with Thelonious Monk seemed only natural. His choices from note to note are…
Damning rock n’ roll for its racist and imperialist legacy while having the gall to simultaneously rock like hell, “Amnesia” stands at the thematic…