Other
This section holds album stories, birthdays, and anniversaries that don't sit neatly inside the twelve genres above: cabaret, reggae, blues, country, and similar corners of recorded music that deserve the same attention as anything else on the site. There's no single shared history to point to here, and that's the point: each story stands on its own, tied to a specific artist, record, or scene rather than a genre narrative. Expect the same kind of coverage as elsewhere — people and sessions behind a record, plus vinyl reissue news — gathered from wherever the story happens to be.
135 STORIES
How Ali Farka Touré Broke a Caste Rule and Found the Blues
Ali Farka Touré built a forbidden monochord from a tin can in Kanau on the Niger River, then became Mali's great singer and multi-instrumentalist.
· 4 min read
How Bring Me the Horizon Rushed Into Deathcore History
Bring Me the Horizon cut their 2006 debut in a Birmingham studio with only days to spare. The rush became the defining character of Count Your Blessings.
· 3 min read
Destiny's Child's 8 Days of Christmas at 25
Destiny's Child released their only holiday album, 8 Days of Christmas, on October 30, 2001. It arrived while the group was still riding the success of Survivor from earlier that year.
· 3 min read
How No Doubt Turned an After-Party Into a Global Hit
No Doubt released Hey Baby on October 29, 2001, as the lead single from Rock Steady. The track turned the dancehall music of their tour after-parties into a global hit.
· 4 min read
Kenny Rogers: How a Christmas Phone Call Became an Event
Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton released Once Upon a Christmas on October 29, 1984, after a rushed recording that spanned Los Angeles, Nashville and Dallas.
· 4 min read
Why Mariah Carey's Merry Christmas Still Rules the Season
Mariah Carey was three albums into a hit-making career when she decided to record her first Christmas album, and the whole project could have been a polite seas…
· 3 min read
Why Did the Sex Pistols' Only Album Scare Britain?
The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols arrived on October 28, 1977. A Nottingham record shop manager was arrested for displaying its sleeve.
· 4 min read
Why Did Freddie Mercury Sing Opera with Montserrat Caballé?
Freddie Mercury of Queen and soprano Montserrat Caballé released the single "Barcelona" on Polydor in October 1987. The duet began with a fan's wish spoken on Spanish television.
· 4 min read
Why Did Phil Collins Record Brother Bear in Five Languages?
Phil Collins wrote the Brother Bear songs with Mark Mancina and recorded them in five languages. He had already used the same multilingual approach on Tarzan.
· 3 min read
Why Did John Lennon's Wedding Album Baffle Everyone?
John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Wedding Album reached American stores on 20 October 1969. It was a boxed set of heartbeats, name-calling and hotel-room recordings rather than pop songs.
· 4 min read
How Did Hackney Diamonds Cut Through the Silence?
The Rolling Stones released Hackney Diamonds on 20 October 2023. It was their first album of original material since 2005 and the first finished after Charlie Watts's death.
· 4 min read
How Dannii Minogue Found Her Own Beat
Dannii Minogue's path from Young Talent Time and Home and Away to a dance-floor identity of her own ran through a sold-out fashion line. A Steve Silk Hurley remix helped her find a new sound.
· 4 min read
How The Beach Boys Topped the Chart with a Fake Live Album
The Beach Boys released Beach Boys Concert on 19 October 1964, and it became the first concert record ever to reach number one on the US pop chart.
· 3 min read
Why Fatboy Slim Couldn't Find the Man on His Album Cover
Fatboy Slim's second album You've Come a Long Way, Baby used a 1983 snapshot of a stranger from a Virginia festival on its cover. Norman Cook spent years trying to find him.
· 3 min read
How Insane Clown Posse Built a Carnival from Chaos
Insane Clown Posse's 1992 debut Carnival of Carnage sold just 17 copies on release day. It still launched the Dark Carnival mythology that defines the Detroit duo.
· 4 min read
How John Mayer Bet Everything on His Own Pop Sound
John Mayer left Atlanta duo LoFi Masters after a split over pop music, then built a solo career that led to Columbia Records and a first Grammy in 2003.
· 4 min read
How Did Bob Weir Survive Being Kicked Out of Grateful Dead?
Bob Weir was sidelined by Grateful Dead in 1968 when Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh played shows without him. He returned and stayed for nearly six decades.
· 3 min read
Jessie Ware and the Heart-Shaped Record That Started It All
Jessie Ware was born in Hammersmith on 15 October 1984 and grew up in Clapham. She sang backing vocals on tour with Jack Peñate before her own records reached the UK top five.
· 4 min read
Led Zeppelin Remasters: The 1990 CD Cash-In
Atlantic Records rushed Led Zeppelin's catalogue onto compact disc with Remasters. The three-vinyl set arrived on 15 October 1990, drawn from eight of the band's nine studio albums.
· 3 min read
Tito Jackson, the Guitarist Motown Wouldn't Let Play
Tito Jackson, the third of ten Jackson children, was the guitarist whose secret practice on his father's guitar set the family on its path to Motown fame.
· 4 min read
La Monte Young and the Chord That Would Not End
La Monte Young, born in Bern, Idaho on October 14, 1935, built a career from wind and transformer hum, from Trio for Strings to The Well-Tuned Piano.
· 4 min read
The Carpenters' Christmas Portrait at 48
The Carpenters released Christmas Portrait on A&M Records in October 1978. Richard Carpenter produced the 49-minute holiday album, with Karen Carpenter as associate producer.
· 4 min read
How Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Chose the Family Voice
Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was born on 13 October 1948 into a family that had made qawwali for nearly 600 years. His father, Ustad Fateh Ali Khan, wanted him to become a doctor or engineer.
· 3 min read
How Jean Cocteau Staged His Own Farewell
On 10 October 1963, the French singer Édith Piaf died. The next day, at his château in Milly-la-Forêt, the poet, playwright, filmmaker and designer Jean Cocteau…
· 3 min read