All Tomorrow's Parties

Bottom/ Rock icon and Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico employed images of power, cold, fear, dreams, terror, resignation, and loss (among others) on The Marble Index (Elektra, 1969). A gothic-folk album with neoclassical and avant-garde elements, the album, featuring long-term associate John Cale, has been described as a "nightmare in sound". It has influenced a wide array of genres in contemporary independent music. Nico (born Christa Päffgen, 16 October 1938 – 18 July 1988) was a German singer-songwriter, fashion model, actress, and Warhol Superstar. She is renowned for both her tenure in The Velvet Underground and for her work as a solo artist. Nico sang lead vocals on three songs ("Femme Fatale", "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "I'll Be Your Mirror") and backing vocals on another ("Sunday Morning") on the band's debut record, The Velvet Underground & Nico. Released in 1967, the album went on to prove influential to many future genres, including punk rock and New Wave. Nico had a short-lived romantic relationship with the main singer and songwriter, Lou Reed. Around this period she was also romantically involved with prominent musicians including Cale, Jim Morrison of The Doors, Jackson Browne, Brian Jones, Tim Buckley, Bob Dylan and Iggy Pop. While she is most prominently known for her musical work, she also had a small handful of film roles, including a bit part in Federico Fellini's acclaimed 1960 film La Dolce Vita. A close friend and artistic collaborator with Andy Warhol, she also starred in various roles in his experimental art films, most notably in 1966's Chelsea Girls, after which she named her solo debut album. Artists such as Coil, Jocelyn Pook and Dead Can Dance, as well as numerous contemporary goth bands have all cited Nico as a seminal influence. Top/ Lou Reed (RCA, 1972) is Lou Reed's highly anticipated debut solo album, released two years after he left The Velvet Underground, but the result was a commercial and critical disappointment.

It's Oh! So Quiet

Bottom/ An unexpected smash, selling over 4 million copies, debut album Garbage (Mushroom, 1995) by Scottish-American post-grunge rock group Garbage includes the singles "Stupid Girl", "Queer" and "Milk". Garbage was considered innovative for its fusion of pop melodies with alternative rock, trip-hop and electronica genres and its use of loops and sampling including, amongst other things, The Clash's "Train in Vain", the sound of torn sheets of metal, an air conditioning unit and a broken tape deck. Middle/ Platinum (Virgin, 1979) by Mike Oldfield features an excerpt from the Philip Glass work "North Star". Top/ Single "Cocoon" from Vespertine (One Little Indian, 2001) by Björk. Following the video for the album's previous single "Pagan Poetry", which brought Björk to a high level of controversy with MTV, the video for "Cocoon" also featured a seemingly naked Björk, this time with her nipples secreting a red thread that eventually enveloped the singer in a cocoon. The video was directed by Japanese artist Eiko Ishioka, and was not aired by MTV.

Through The Looking Glass

Bottom/ H.M.S. Donovan (Dawn Records, 1971) is the ninth studio album from Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan. It marks the second album of Donovan's children's music, after the For Little Ones portion of A Gift from a Flower to a Garden. For the majority of the songs on this album, Donovan wrote music for poems that were originally written by others. Many of the poems were from One Hundred Poems for Children compiled by Herbert Strang (Clarendon Press, Oxford – 1925). Other poems come from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Paul McCartney was present for some of the 1968 recordings ("Mr. Wind", "The Walrus and the Carpenter", "The Unicorn"), and there are bootleg recordings where Donovan plays these songs with Paul present. Top/ Au-delà du délire (Philips, 1974) is the third album by the French progressive rock band Ange, formed in 1970 by the Décamps brothers, Francis (keyboards) and Christian (vocals). They were initially influenced by Genesis and King Crimson, and their music is quite theatrical and poetic. Their first success was a cover of a Jacques Brel song, Ces gens-là, on the album Le Cimetière des Arlequins.