Rock
This section gathers album stories, birthdays, and anniversaries tied to the artists and bands who shaped rock, along with notes on new vinyl reissues as they surface. Rock grew up alongside the LP: gatefold sleeves and a running order built around two sides of a record were part of how the genre presented itself from the start, and a large share of its catalog keeps coming back through official reissue programs. Expect the human side of the records here: the sessions, the lineup changes, the decisions that turned into landmark albums, and why particular pressings matter to collectors.
521 STORIES
U2: How a Kitchen Rehearsal Birthed a Vinyl Empire
From a kitchen-table audition in 1976 to a 48-year catalog that still fills record shop bins, U2's rise began with Larry Mullen Jr.'s classified ad at Mount Temple school.
· 5 min read
Who's Next: How The Who's Only UK No. 1 Album Happened
On 18 September 1971, The Who's Who's Next reached number one on the British chart, the only album by the London quartet to ever hold that position.
· 4 min read
Alan Jay of Lit: What 1973 Set in Motion
Alan Jay of Lit was born in 1973, the year Gram Parsons died and the course of popular music shifted in ways that shaped his generation.
· 4 min read
Gram Parsons: Why His Body Was Stolen After He Died
Phil Kaufman stole Gram Parsons' body after his 1973 death in Joshua Tree, fulfilling a cremation promise. It turned a country-rock tragedy into one of music's strangest postscripts.
· 5 min read
Frankie Avalon: Why a Trumpet Player Became a Teen Idol
Frankie Avalon, born September 18, 1939, traded the trumpet for singing and became a teen idol whose 1959 hit 'Venus' defined pre-Beatles American radio.
· 5 min read
DROP · October 2, 2026Stadium Arcadium at 20: four colour LPs out on 2 October
The 2006 double album that topped the Billboard 200 and gave the band Dani California, Snow (Hey Oh) and Tell Me Baby gets a 20th-anniversary reissue. On 2 Octo…
· 1 min read
DROP · September 25, 2026Freak Out! turns 60: the Mothers of Invention debut as a 5LP box
The first rock double album that dared to call itself a concept record comes back for its 60th birthday. On 25 September Zappa Records and UMe reissue Freak Out…
· 1 min read
How Bruce Kulick Made Kiss Sound Whole Again on Asylum
Bruce Kulick's first credited album with Kiss, Asylum, arrived on September 16, 1985, bringing a stable lineup and a polished sound to the band.
· 4 min read
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
The Fairlight in a Barn That Made Kate Bush Immortal
Kate Bush's Hounds of Love, recorded in a converted barn in Welling with a Fairlight CMI, remains her defining work forty-one years after its release.
· 4 min read
Dire Straits: Love over Gold's Five Chart-Topping Tracks
Dire Straits' Love over Gold, a five-song album released on 24 September 1982, topped charts in six countries and turns 44 this month.
· 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
Porcupine Tree: The 55-Minute Song That Swallowed an Album
Porcupine Tree's tenth studio album The Incident, released on September 14, 2009, was built around a 55-minute song cycle. That cycle swallowed the entire first disc.
· 3 min read
Led Zeppelin's In Through The Out Door: Why It Endured
Led Zeppelin's 'In Through The Out Door' arrived in September 1979. A commercial triumph masked an unstable creative period and became their final album with John Bonham.
· 4 min read
Jethro Tull's Acoustic Tour Diary Across Europe
Ian Anderson's 1992 acoustic tour across Europe, captured on A Little Light Music, turned Jethro Tull's electric hits into folk-tinged live recordings.
· 4 min read
Stormwatch: The Polar Bear and the Oil Refinery
Stormwatch, the twelfth Jethro Tull studio album from September 1979, closed the band's folk-rock trilogy and marked the end of its classic 1970s lineup.
· 4 min read
How Abacab Made Genesis Sound Like a New Band
In September 1981, Genesis released Abacab, an album that replaced progressive epics with grooves and made the band sound entirely new.
· 3 min read
Close to the Edge: How Yes Broke Prog Rock in Three Songs
In 1972, Yes released Close to the Edge. The three-song album broke progressive rock's commercial ceiling while drummer Bill Bruford was already out the door.
· 3 min read
Why did Fleetwood Mac's last Bob Welch album stall?
Fleetwood Mac's 1974 album Heroes Are Hard to Find stalled in the UK due to a legal injunction from former manager Clifford Davis. In the US, it climbed to 34 on the Billboard 200.
· 4 min read
Kate Bush: The Dreaming at 44
Released September 13, 1982, Kate Bush's The Dreaming peaked at number three in the UK yet was initially treated by EMI as a commercial misstep.
· 4 min read
Yellow Submarine Songtrack: Why A Day in the Life Was Cut
In September 1999, Abbey Road Studios rebuilt Beatles tracks for the Yellow Submarine Songtrack. The companion to the film's reissue left A Day in the Life off the album.
· 4 min read
Bob Dylan: Hard Rain and the TV Gamble That Backfired
Columbia released Bob Dylan's Hard Rain in September 1976. The album captured a storm-soaked Rolling Thunder Revue concert that NBC broadcast to low ratings.
· 4 min read
Gary Richrath: How REO Speedwagon's Guitarist Built Hi Infidelity
Gary Dean Richrath, born in Peoria in 1949, built REO Speedwagon's run from 'Ridin' the Storm Out' to 'Hi Infidelity' and died in 2015.
· 4 min read
Why Did The Mars Volta Rework Amputechture Twice?
Omar Rodriguez-Lopez rebuilt the Mars Volta's third album from discarded tape and old ideas. Amputechture entered the Billboard 200 at number nine.
· 3 min read