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
My Dying Bride Turn Loose the Swans at 33
My Dying Bride's second album, Turn Loose the Swans, arrived on 11 October 1993 through Peaceville Records. It stretched doom metal into something slower, sadder and heavier.
· 4 min read
How Orson Welles Left the Stage
Orson Welles died of a heart attack on 10 October 1985, hours after a television interview with Merv Griffin, at the age of sixty-nine.
· 3 min read
How Thin Lizzy's Chinatown Survived a Band in Chaos
Thin Lizzy began recording Chinatown at Good Earth Studios in January 1980. The sessions were torn apart by touring, lineup changes and a teenage keyboardist finding his place.
· 3 min read
How Sister Rosetta Tharpe Built Rock and Roll
Sister Rosetta Tharpe cut four songs in a single 1938 afternoon for Decca Records. Those sides made her one of America's first commercially successful gospel performers.
· 4 min read
How John Lennon Built Imagine
John Lennon recorded Imagine in 1971 with Yoko Ono and Phil Spector, and the sessions were filmed for a documentary that sat unseen for years.
· 4 min read
How Flying Lotus Turned a Cartoon Network Ad Into a Universe
Steven Ellison sent beats to an Adult Swim promo as Flying Lotus in 2006, and the reply launched a career spanning Warp Records, Brainfeeder and film.
· 3 min read
How Diahann Carroll Broke Broadway and Fought Hollywood
Diahann Carroll won a Tony for 'No Strings' in 1962, then lost the film version of the role to a white actress. She answered Hollywood by leading the NBC sitcom 'Julia'.
· 4 min read
How Mediopia Became Stone Music Entertainment
Mediopia opened in May 1993 as an electronics maker. It became a CJ Corporation affiliate in 2006 and today operates as Stone Music Entertainment, a Korean music distributor.
· 4 min read
Why Did Cissy Houston Give Away Midnight Train to Georgia?
Cissy Houston, born Emily Drinkard in 1933, recorded the original 'Midnight Train to Georgia'. She spent decades as a gospel, soul, and pop voice before her death in 2024.
· 3 min read
Les Claypool: Why the Primus Bassist Walked Away From Metallica
Les Claypool, born September 29, 1963 in Richmond, California, walked into a Metallica audition in 1986. He lost it by being 'too good,' freeing him to build Primus.
· 5 min read
Led Zeppelin Live: How One 1971 Set Rewired Rock
On September 29, 1971, Led Zeppelin played a set in Osaka that captured the band's live power months before their fourth album became an institution.
· 4 min read
Hebe Camargo: Brazil's Queen Who Sang Before She Spoke
Hebe Camargo, born in 1929 in Taubaté, built a career spanning singing, radio, cinema, and decades of daily television. She became Brazil's queen of the small screen.
· 4 min read
Why did Otis Rush play a guitar strung upside down?
Otis Rush, who died in 2018, built his approach to Chicago blues around a right-handed guitar flipped upside down. His technique influenced Eric Clapton, Peter Green, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.
· 4 min read
Mark Farner: How Grand Funk's Captain Steered to No. 1
Mark Farner, born in Flint, Michigan on September 29, 1948, wrote Grand Funk Railroad's first Top 40 single 'I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)'. It peaked at No. 22 in October 1970.
· 4 min read
How Ian McShane Became Hollywood's Favorite Bastard
Ian McShane, who turns 84 today, spent decades as a working actor before Deadwood made him the standard by which all television villains are measured.
· 4 min read
Portishead's Second Album Was Built on a Lie
Portishead's self-titled 1997 album credits a sample from a song that never existed, a deliberate joke that still guards the record's strangest secret.
· 3 min read
Jerry Lee Lewis: The Killer Who Shook Rock 'n' Roll
A piano stool kicked across the stage, a boot heel hammering the keys, a voice that sounded like it was trying to escape a burning building. That was Jerry Lee …
· 4 min read
Why did Auden renounce his most famous poem by 1973?
W. H. Auden died in Vienna on 29 September 1973, leaving behind a legacy split between his own revisions and the world's memory of 'Funeral Blues'.
· 4 min read
The poetry crisis that gave Lana Del Rey a new voice
After the creative wall that followed Lust for Life, Lana Del Rey turned to poetry. She published Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass and a spoken word album in 2020.
· 4 min read
Why did St. Vincent hand her guitar to Jack Antonoff?
Annie Clark's path from Berklee student to self-producing artist saw her hand guitar duties to Jack Antonoff on Masseduction. She reclaimed full control on All Born Screaming.
· 4 min read
Brigitte Bardot: The Sex Kitten Who Walked Away
Brigitte Bardot, born in Paris in 1934, became a global sex symbol with And God Created Woman. In 1973 she walked away from cinema to lead an animal rights foundation.
· 4 min read
Why Did Sylvia Kristel Keep Returning to Emmanuelle?
Sylvia Kristel became an erotic icon in 1974's Emmanuelle. She returned to the franchise five times across nearly two decades despite escaping it for Hollywood roles.
· 3 min read
Andy Ward: How Camel's Drummer Survived the Fall
Andy Ward, born in Epsom on 28 September 1952, helped define Camel's early sound. He survived a nervous breakdown with Marillion in 1983 and rebuilt his career through Canterbury scene connections.
· 6 min read
Greg Ham: The Flute That Made Men At Work Famous
Greg Ham, born September 27, 1953, gave Men At Work their signature sound. A flute phrase from a children's campfire song became one of pop's most recognizable melodies.
· 3 min read