By: Alexis Madrigal

The game we played was the life he lived.

By: Patrick Cates

Brilliance, alienation, and control-freakery breeds enchantment.

By: Brian Berger

Hip-hop lyrics bust through to literature.

By: James Parker

Let us now celebrate all those who are finished before they start.

By: Patrick Cates

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

By: Brian Berger

The musical redemption of a prodigal son.

By: Lynn Peril

Rock‘n’roll, horror movies, and Orange Sun­shine acid

By: Douglas Wolk

The greatest rapper of all time? That’s a contentious one. But if we rephrase it as “most quotable rapper,” then there’s a shoo-in: William Michael Griffin Jr., the god-on-the-mic better known as RAKIM (born 1968). […]

By: Lynn Peril

At the age of 15, ARI UP (Arianna Forster, born 1962) was lead singer of England’s all-girl punk band The Slits. No creamy underage dream vixen, she: Up was a teen Medusa who wasn’t about […]

By: Tor Aarestad

They say that if you were in San Francisco in the summer of 1977 and went to a Filipino restaurant/club called the Mabuhay Gardens up on Broadway in North Beach by the strip clubs, you […]

By: Lynn Peril

The Clash was on the front lines of the punk revolution of the late 1970s, but bassist PAUL SIMONON (born 1955) shared some similarities with an iconic rebel of the previous generation. Like the Beatles’ […]

By: Franklin Bruno

What musician has been more unfairly burdened with expectations set by his early work than TOM VERLAINE (Thomas Miller, born 1949)? His band Television’s 1977 debut Marquee Moon — especially Verlaine’s solo flight on its […]

By: Tom Nealon

If OL’ DIRTY BASTARD’s (Russell Tyrone Jones, 1968-2004) madness was a tumor pressing on his genius and making it dance, it also caused him excruciating pain. His anguished, wailing stabs at song remain some of […]

By: Douglas Wolk

The hip-hop producer MADLIB (born 1973) is also a helium-voiced rapper (Quasimodo) and a one-man jazz “quintet” (Yesterday’s New Quintet), among other alter egos. Since 1993, he’s contributed to dozens of recordings, and his breed […]

By: Tor Aarestad

Though Iggy Pop did Iggy first (and better), STIV BATORS (1949-90) did Iggy with a striver’s zeal in the right place and at the right time. The arrival of the Dead Boys in 1977 marked the […]