Peter Gabriel | Sledgehammer The Taxi Was Waiting Peter Gabriel’s biggest hit was a last-minute jam recorded as the musicians were literally leaving the studio. It became his only #1, knocked Genesis off the top spot, and spawned the most awarded music video in history. Manu Katché had called a taxi. The French drummer was […]
The Last Song Recorded for So Made Peter Gabriel Read More »
Foo Fighters | Everlong The Song That Wasn’t a Hit “Everlong” never charted on the Billboard Hot 100 and only peaked at #3 on Alternative Airplay. By any normal measure, it wasn’t a hit. But it crossed a billion Spotify streams, tops practically every “Best Foo Fighters Song” list ever made, and somehow became the
“Everlong” Was Never Supposed to Exist Read More »
Arctic Monkeys | Do I Wanna Know? The Weight of a Riff Arctic Monkeys wrote the most-streamed rock song in history on a guitar Alex Turner bought as a joke, and when he first played the riff for the band, he was worried they’d gone too far. Here’s what gets me about the making of
The Joke Guitar That Launched 2.7 Billion Streams Read More »
Velvet Underground | Pale Blue Eyes A Sealed Envelope A reel-to-reel tape sealed in 1965 held the earliest recording of “Pale Blue Eyes”, and sat unopened for over fifty years. When archivists finally cracked it open, they found the origin of a love song built almost entirely on beautiful lies. The eyes weren’t even blue.
The Eyes Were Hazel Read More »
Television | Marquee Moon The Take Nobody Planned In the fall of 1976, Television recorded their ten-minute guitar epic in a single take at A&R Studios. The drummer thought it was a rehearsal. The engineer, Andy Johns, who’d worked with Led Zeppelin and the Stones, initially thought they couldn’t play, then took the finished tapes
One Take to Change Guitar Music Forever Read More »
Coldplay | Yellow A Letter and a Phone Book Jon M. Chu wrote a careful letter asking Coldplay to license ‘Yellow.’ Chris Martin got the title off a phone book. The tension between those two truths defines the song. On December 8, 2017, a filmmaker sat down at a typewriter and wrote a love letter
Chris Martin Has Never Told the Truth About Yellow Read More »
Dire Straits | Romeo and Juliet Through the Bars of a Rhyme Mark Knopfler admitted he couldn’t write a love song ‘the way it’s meant to be’, then wrote maybe the best love song in rock, born from a real breakup and a 1937 resonator guitar at The Power Station in 1980. Here’s a song
She Called It a Scene. He Made It Immortal. Read More »
Nirvana | Nevermind (album) The Accidental Revolution On January 11, 1992, Nevermind knocked Michael Jackson’s Dangerous from #1 on the Billboard 200, a result nobody at the label saw coming, least of all the band that made it. On January 11, 1992, a record that nobody expected to matter very much climbed to number one
Nevermind Conquered the World Against Its Will Read More »
Beastie Boys | Licensed to Ill (album) The Joke Nobody Got Licensed to Ill was a satirical album everyone took at face value, an inside joke that went Diamond and outsold every rap record before it, cobbled together from borrowed parts and happy accidents. “There were tons of guys singing along to ‘Fight for Your
Licensed to Ill Was Never Supposed to Work Read More »
John Lennon | Imagine The Song Everyone Knows Wrong “Imagine” is the most-played peace anthem in history, and John Lennon openly called it a sugar-coated Communist Manifesto. Nobody seemed to notice, or maybe nobody wanted to. The most-played peace anthem in human history is, by its own creator’s cheerful admission, “virtually the Communist Manifesto.” John
The Contradictions John Lennon Built Into “Imagine” Read More »
