Author: Christian Adams
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Top Progressive Rock Albums of All Time (According to Me)
Progressive rock emerged in the late 1960s when rock musicians were empowered to move away from the singles format and into the album era, and likewise, allowed to explore conceptual and instrumental boundaries. This artistic and commercial freedom resulted in a tsunami of progressive rock albums during its peak between 1971–1976, when hundreds, maybe thousands,…
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Top 50+ Alternative Rock Albums (According to Me)
Like many comparable types of rock music, alternative rock music went through phases or waves of emergence, peak saturation, and ultimate decline. Our task is to parse and evaluate the best albums from the period, which isn’t easy. It begs a bigger question: What is alternative rock? Modern rock bands are still making what we…
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Rock Genres Beginning With U–Z
Ten months, 370+ rock genres, and roughly 100,000 words later, the alphabetical odyssey has reached a destination. Rock Genres Explained arrives at a comfortable place to rest, though it’s not the end. New genres will continue to emerge from the cosmic background radiation. The letters U through Z prioritize the visual and the mythological. As…
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Rock Genres Beginning With T
As we move through the list of rock genres, we arrive at a letter that represents some of the most intense and distinct movements in musical history. The letter T represents a fascinating crossroads for the Rock Genres Explained series. Here, we see the absolute precision of technical death metal sitting alongside the carefree, salt-rimmed…
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Rock Genres Beginning With S (Sp–Sy)
As far as rock genres go, the letter S often signifies a profound shift in focus, home to subgenres defined equally by attitude and sound. This is where rock genres get surgical. We move past general categories and focus on specialized sonic aesthetics—from the abrasive, metallic aggression of specific metal variants to the melancholic, layered…
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Discovery of the Week: Harry Nilsson | All Time Greatest Hits
Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived…
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Albums You Must Hear Before You Die…Or Not (1997–1998)
If this is your first exposure to my journey through 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die…Or Not, I highly, no, strongly recommend that you browse the introduction before reading any further. However, I know that many of you aren’t going to click away from this page right now, and frankly, I don’t blame…
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25 Songs About Chicago
Chicago is my hometown. Born on the West Side and raised in the suburbs of DuPage County, I spent the first 30 years of my life in the Windy City, including a five-year stretch on the North Side (Bucktown). I miss my city every day. To be honest, I mostly miss the food and the…
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Discovery of the Week: Pure… Hard Rock | 4-CD Set
Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived…
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Rock Genres Beginning With R
The rock genre universe is constantly expanding from global rhythms and synchronized noise to political manifestos and cosplay pride parades. For the next installment of our Rock Genres Explained series, we’re diving deep into the letter ‘R’, which marks an evolution into the massive, adaptive structure we simply call types of rock music, and the…
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Rejected! Songs That Didn’t Make the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Original motion picture soundtracks (OSTs) can be wildly inconsistent in terms of listening value and experience. Sometimes, they include (many of) the songs played in the movie, such as Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Purple Rain (1984). Others, like the Star Wars OSTs by John Williams—one of the most recognizable and influential scores in cinematic…
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What’s With the Rock Star Memoir Boom?
Algorithms are funny things. I was searching Amazon for an album when I noticed a bunch of suggested products further down the page. I paused at Confess: The Autobiography by Rob Halford—mainly because it was news to me—but the books keep coming from Slash, Mike Campbell, Prince, Kenny Loggins… Soon, my feed was absolutely flooded…
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Discovery of the Week: Noise Pop 2006 Sampler
Discovery of the Week is my ongoing dive into a battered box of 40 CDs that’s followed me around the world for almost 20 years. Every disc has a story attached—where it came from, why I bothered dragging it across borders, and what it still says about who I was at the time. Some albums…
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Rock Genres Beginning With Q
As the rock genres explainer rolls through the alphabetical list of rock genres, we come across one of the loneliest letters, Q, with only one genre: queercore. Not content with mediocrity, we went all out on an in-depth look into the history and future of the genre. What Is Queercore? Origin: Mid-1980s hardcore punk and…
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Get Their Greatest Hits: 50+ Rock Bands Best Experienced Through Compilation Albums
Some rock bands are built for albums. They reward patience, headphones, liner notes, and the kind of long-distance devotion that only comes from growing up with their music. Other bands? They require a specialized type of curation. This post is about the second group—the artists whose best selves appear when someone else trims the fat.…
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25 Songs About the Moon
The moon is one of the more popular themes in popular music. Songs about the moon (or moon-adjacent) are not quite in the “love” category of blanket coverage, but significantly more popular than, say, songs about Chicago, family, or Japan, or even cats and dogs. The moon is a popular subject because it sounds good…
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Rock Genres Beginning With P (Pr–Pu)
The second half of our rock genre explainer for the letter P features three of the most important genres of our lifetimes: progressive, psychedelic, and punk rock. And, as usual, the list of rock genres includes a few surprises. Let’s dig in! Rock Genres Beginning With P (Pr–Pu) Progressive metal Origin: Mid-1980s U.S. & European…
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Rock Genres Beginning With P (Pa–Po)
Buckle up for a wild ride as we tackle some of the most important rock genres that start with P in this first half of the letter’s installment. Our rock genre explainer doesn’t quit until rock bands stop coming up with new subgenres. Rock Genres Beginning With P (Pa–Po) Pagan metal Origin: Early 1990s European…
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Discovery of the Week: Guided by Voices | Human Amusements at Hourly Rates
Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived…
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Albums You Must Hear Before You Die…Or Not (1995–1996)
I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I started this Albums You Must Hear Before You Die…Or Not project. If this post is your introduction to the gambit, here’s a quick rundown of the timeline: In 2015, I took it upon myself to listen to every album in the book, 1001 Albums You Must…
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Top 50 Rock Drummers of All Time (According to Me)
We’ve covered three of the Big Four positions in rock music—vocals, guitar, and bass—so it’s time to list the top rock drummers of all time (according to me). But before we get to the list, you deserve some backstory, and, of course, I’m increasingly fond of an early bird spoiler. My number one pick is…
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Rock Genres Beginning With O
Rock has never been shy about reinventing itself, and the letter “O” captures some of the strangest and most spirited offshoots on the list of rock genres. It’s a category of “outliers.” From the occult theatrics of late-’60s bands like Coven and Black Widow to the gutter-punk sneer of the Cockney Rejects and Britain’s Oi!…
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Discovery of the Week: Cheap Trick at Budokan | The Complete Concert
Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived…
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Discovery of the Week: Hüsker Dü at the Ritz, NYC, 10/17/87
Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived…
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Rock Genres Beginning With N
The letter “N” doesn’t exactly scream “rock n’ roll,” but it’s one of the most eclectic letters in the genre alphabet, thanks to its association with “neo” and “new”. From the breakneck skate-punk of nardcore to the grim extremism of National Socialist black metal, the virtuosic speed of neoclassical metal, and the dreamy textures of neo-psychedelia, these N-genres cover nearly every corner…