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How The Clash Made \”London Calling\”: The Song That Sounded the Alarm on the End of the World
How The Clash Made “London Calling”: The Song That Sounded the Alarm on the End of the World Britain in early 1979 felt like a country holding its breath. The Winter of Discontent had buried the streets in uncollected rubbish. Strikes were closing factories. The Cold War was freezing over again — the Soviet invasion…
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The Voice He Gave Away: How the Cars’ ‘Drive’ Became the Soundtrack to Live Aid
The Voice He Gave Away: How the Cars’ “Drive” Became the Soundtrack to Live Aid On July 13, 1985, David Bowie stood on the stage at Wembley Stadium in front of 72,000 people and told them they were about to see something important. The screens went dark. Then came the footage: children too weak to…
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My Girl: The Night Smokey Robinson Gave Away His Best Song — and Made David Ruffin a Star
My Girl: The Night Smokey Robinson Gave Away His Best Song — and Made David Ruffin a Star In the fall of 1964, Smokey Robinson had a problem. He’d written a song — a beautiful, perfect, obviously-a-hit song — and he didn’t know what to do with it. He’d written it for his own group,…
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And You May Ask Yourself: How a Bahamian Jam, a Deck of Cards, and a Radio Preacher Made Talking Heads’ \”Once in a Lifetime\
And You May Ask Yourself: How a Bahamian Jam, a Deck of Cards, and a Radio Preacher Made Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” “And you may find yourself in another part of the world / And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile / And you may find yourself in…
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‘Please Tell Me Who I Am’: Roger Hodgson’s Boarding-School Years and the Making of Supertramp’s ‘The Logical Song’
“Please Tell Me Who I Am”: Roger Hodgson’s Boarding-School Years and the Making of Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” “When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful / A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.” So begins one of the most famous opening verses in rock history — a child’s memory of pure…
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The Birthday Tape That Broke Styx: The Secret History of ‘Babe,’ the Band’s Only No. 1
The Birthday Tape That Broke Styx: The Secret History of “Babe,” the Band’s Only No. 1 The biggest hit in Styx history was never supposed to be a Styx song. It was recorded in secret, as a private gift, with half the band on vacation. The singer played an instrument he didn’t normally touch because…
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Chasing Perfection: How Steely Dan Made \”Aja\” — Eight Minutes, One Drum Take, and the Most Obsessive Album of the Seventies
Chasing Perfection: How Steely Dan Made “Aja” — Eight Minutes, One Drum Take, and the Most Obsessive Album of the Seventies In January 1977, two of the most notoriously demanding men in popular music walked into a studio and began a project that would consume the better part of a year, cost hundreds of thousands…
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Cruisin’: How a Five-Year-Old Cassette Tape Gave Smokey Robinson His Second Career
Cruisin’: How a Five-Year-Old Cassette Tape Gave Smokey Robinson His Second Career By 1979, Smokey Robinson was a legend with a problem. The legend part was undisputed. As the leader of the Miracles, he’d given Motown some of its first and finest hits. As a songwriter, he’d written “My Girl” for the Temptations, “My Guy”…
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Smooth Operator: The Song That Made Sade the Coolest Voice in the World
Smooth Operator: The Song That Made Sade the Coolest Voice in the World Picture London in the summer of 1984. The charts are full of synthesizers turned up to eleven — Frankie Goes to Hollywood shouting about pleasure, Duran Duran preening on yachts, George Michael winking at the camera. Pop has never been louder, brighter,…
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\”Gimme Shelter\”: The Night the Rolling Stones Wrote the End of the Sixties
“Gimme Shelter”: The Night the Rolling Stones Wrote the End of the Sixties The sky went black over London without warning. Keith Richards was sitting by the window of his friend Robert Fraser’s apartment on Mount Street, an acoustic guitar in his lap, when the rain came down in what he would later call an…