By: Patrick Cates

He took the prog rock that punk hated so… and wrapped it up in punk.

By: Jen Collins

His sad songs are easily bent toward sickly and fucked-up.

By: Brian Berger

“Let my children have music! Let them hear live music. Not noise.”

By: Tim Carmody

The scholar must study the consequences of politics and other inconvenient facts.

By: Alexis Madrigal

“We nuclear people have made a Faustian bargain with society.”

By: Tom Nealon

His criticism was easy to parody, infuriating, and brilliant.

By: Lucy Sante

“Bookworm parrot Legba biker orphan pirate poet.”

By: Brian Berger

“The fingering… may here and there appear somewhat strange.”

By: Mark Kingwell

His was a voice of unmatched irreverence and hatred of boredom.

By: Sarah Weinman

She typified ’80s excess by insuring her breasts.

By: Ingrid Schorr

She didn’t have to sing about crying into her beer.

By: Franklin Bruno

For Beckett, joking — like farting — is a futile but necessary stay against death and time.

By: Patrick Cates

He turned the jazz and funk scenes of the ’60s and ’70s upside-down.

By: Mimi Lipson

He may be the best put-on artist since Andy Kaufman.

By: Joe Alterio

His rockabilly was an act of defiant generational treachery.