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
B.B. King: How a $15 Guitar and a Fire Named Lucille
Born on a Mississippi cotton plantation in 1925, Riley B. King became B.B. King, the most important electric guitarist of the second half of the twentieth century, according to AllMusic.
· 5 min read
DJ Shadow: A Beat Built From Other Records
Two years in a Davis, California bedroom with an Akai MPC60 MKII and a wall of vinyl produced DJ Shadow's Endtroducing....., a debut album made entirely from other people's records.
· 4 min read
Why Did Queen Record an Album Without Freddie Mercury?
Queen + Paul Rodgers released their lone studio album The Cosmos Rocks in September 2008. Roger Taylor floated the idea to Brian May in 2006.
· 4 min read
Why Did Carly Rae Jepsen Call This Album Kiss?
Carly Rae Jepsen's Kiss, released on September 14, 2012, debuted in the Billboard 200 top ten. Critics debated whether its lyrics were too juvenile for a 26-year-old.
· 4 min read
The Album That Detonated Linkin Park's Old Sound
In 2010, Linkin Park released A Thousand Suns, a sprawling concept album about nuclear fear that deliberately broke with the sound that made them famous.
· 4 min read
Lynyrd Skynyrd: One More from the Road at 50
In September 1976, Lynyrd Skynyrd released its first live album, One More from the Road. It captured three nights at Atlanta's Fox Theatre and later went triple platinum.
· 5 min read
ADONXS: The Voice That Dropped to Bass-Profondo
Adam Pavlovčin, the Slovak artist who performs as ADONXS, lost his tenor register during puberty and became a bass-profondo. He rebuilt his career, culminating in Eurovision and national awards.
· 3 min read
How Thin Lizzy Built Their Breakthrough on Fighting
In 1975, Thin Lizzy's Fighting became their first UK chart entry, locking in the twin-guitar sound of Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson.
· 3 min read
Wish You Were Here: The Album Recorded While Syd Barrett Watched
A band at the height of its powers records an album about absence, and the absent man walks through the door. That is the paradox at the center of Wish You Were…
· 4 min read
Barry White: How a Stolen Tire Led to the Deepest Voice
Barry White, born September 12, 1944, traced his career to a jail-cell radio playing Elvis Presley's "It's Now or Never" after a tire theft at sixteen.
· 5 min read
Why Did Janis Joplin's First Solo Album Divide Her Fans?
Janis Joplin's debut solo album, I Got Dem Ol' Kozmic Blues Again Mama!, released on September 11, 1969, traded psychedelic chaos for soul horns and divided her fans.
· 5 min read
Harry Connick Jr.: How a Child Prodigy Became a Vinyl Icon
From performing Beethoven with the New Orleans Symphony at age nine to multi-platinum records and Grammys, Harry Connick Jr. became one of jazz's most recognizable figures.
· 6 min read
Catfish Rising Brought Three Keyboardists Into Jethro Tull
The session sheet for Catfish Rising reads like a game of musical chairs, with three keyboardists rotating across a single album.
· 4 min read
The Sky Blue Album That Took Lennon Beyond the Beatles
John Lennon's second solo album Imagine arrived on September 9, 1971. With a sky-blue Andy Warhol portrait on the cover, it took him beyond the Beatles.
· 3 min read
How a Brighton Tragedy Turned Skeleton Tree Inside Out
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds released Skeleton Tree on September 9, 2016. The album was split in half by the death of Cave's fifteen-year-old son Arthur.
· 4 min read
Irene Dunne: The Audition That Built a Legend
Irene Dunne trained for the Metropolitan Opera, was rejected, and instead built a Hollywood career that earned five Oscar nominations and zero wins.
· 4 min read
Morton Feldman: The Dry Cleaner Who Stretched Time
Morton Feldman, the dry cleaner who composed at night, died on September 3, 1987, leaving behind music that dismantled every assumption about listening.
· 5 min read
Yvonne De Carlo: The Dancer Who Became a Monster
A major Hollywood producer once crowned her "the most beautiful girl in the world," yet the role that immortalized her demanded a long black wig shot with a whi…
· 5 min read
How a Paris Apartment Became the Ultimate Speaker Test
Jean-Michel Jarre recorded Oxygene alone in his Paris flat in 1976. The album went on to sell over 18 million copies and become a permanent fixture in high-end audio showrooms.
· 5 min read
When a TV Dance Floor Became a $3.99 Platinum Record
In the summer of 1979, K-tel sold a $3.99 vinyl compilation called 'Soul Train' that packaged twenty disco hits and became a platinum record.
· 3 min read
A Prince Song, a Senate Hearing, and the Sticker
Tipper Gore's shock at Prince's "Darling Nikki" in 1985 led to the Parents Music Resource Center and Senate hearings. The result was the "Parental Advisory" sticker that reshaped music retail.
· 4 min read
Denis Leary's Asshole: The Vinyl Single That Hit #2
Denis Leary's profanity-laced single 'Asshole' reached number two on the UK Singles Chart on August 18, 1993. It turned a rant about his own flaws into a chart-topping phenomenon.
· 4 min read
ABBA: The Piano Glissando That Swallowed 1976
On August 15, 1976, ABBA released "Dancing Queen." The disco-pop single opened with a famous piano glissando and became the group's only Billboard number one.
· 4 min read
Andy Warhol: The Banana You Peeled Before the Needle Dropped
Andy Warhol turned the record sleeve into a standalone art object, starting with a peelable banana on The Velvet Underground & Nico in 1967.
· 5 min read