You Can Be Special, Too

Top/ The album cover for Aion (4AD, 1990) by Dead Can Dance shows a detail from the Dutch painter Hieronymus Bosch's triptych, The Garden of Earthly Delights. Assigning a musical genre to Dead Can Dance is difficult, as its style is particularly eclectic. However, its early work could be considered darkwave. In their later work, including and subsequent to the release titled The Serpent's Egg, Dead Can Dance would take ancient or various musics from around the world as primary sources, with contralto Lisa Gerrard singing glossolalia (commonly called "speaking in tongues"), giving it a very distinctive style. As a result, their later albums such as Into the Labyrinth (1993), Toward the Within (1994) and Spiritchaser (1996) sound quite different from the first three. Various sources have labeled those latter releases as neo-classical, or ethereal. Bottom/ "More Than This" is a single from Roxy Music's eighth studio album Avalon (Virgin, 1982), generally regarded as the culmination of the smoother, more adult-oriented sound of the English art rock group's later work. Cover painting ‘Veronica Veronese’ by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, 1872. Bill Murray performs More Than This in a memorable karaoke scene in the 2003 movie Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola.

A Kiss In The Dreamhouse

Bottom/ Floored: Something Wrong (Recall, 2003) is the second album by electropop darlings Bang Gang from Iceland, starring songwriter/producer Barði Jóhannsson who formed the band and lives in Reykjavík. Middle/ Mixing influences from trip hop, rock, rhythm and blues and pop, Dive Deep (Echo, 2008) is the sixth studio album by English group Morcheeba. It is also the second studio album recorded without former lead singer Skye Edwards. Dive Deep features many guest vocals, such as acclaimed singer-songwriter Judie Tzuke on the first single "Enjoy the Ride". Billboard described the album as a "gorgeous collection of folk- and blues-inflected electro-pop ballads". BBC Music noted that guests "appear chosen less for who they are than what they can bring, sweet and soulful voices that supply an emotional backbone to the Godfreys' languid, slo-mo funk grooves." Morcheeba's most popular albums include 1996 debut Who Can You Trust? and 1998's Big Calm. They achieved huge international pop crossover success with the single "Rome Wasn't Built in a Day" in 2000. Top/ Always in style: high priestess of punk Siouxsie explores a variety of musical styles, including pop, glam, industrial and electronic in her first solo album MantaRay (Universal, 2007), preceded by the "Into a Swan" single. Siouxsie Sioux is the lead singer of Siouxsie & the Banshees, formed at the advent of the British punk scene, and that soon became one of the major bands in the post-punk erea. The Banshees' music influenced a wide range of very diverse bands over the years, amongst them The Cure, Massive Attack, Garbage and more recently LCD Soundsystem. Key albums by Siouxsie and the Banshees include Kaleidoscope (1980), Juju (1981) and A Kiss in the Dreamhouse.

You Never Blow Yr Trip Forever

Bottom/ Album title The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators (International Artists, 1966) by The 13th Floor Elevators is purported to be the first use of the word "psychedelic" in reference to music within. The 13th Floor Elevators was an American acid rock band originally from Austin, Texas, from late 1965 until 1969. The band found only limited commercial success before dissolving amid legal troubles and drug use. However, as one of the first psychedelic bands, they have been cited as an influential proto-punk group. Their biggest hit "You're Gonna Miss Me", a Billboard #55 hit in 1966, was later to be considered a landmark in the history of garage rock and the development of punk rock. The band's classic line-up featured singer/guitarist Roky Erickson and electric jug player Tommy Hall. The "electric jug" sound would become the band's signature and trademark. Middle/ Starring Jeff Bridges as "The Dude", The Big Lebowski has a soundtrack (Mercury, 1998) that was composed by Carter Burwell, a veteran of all the Coen Brothers' films. T-Bone Burnett, who also worked with the Coens on O Brother, Where Art Thou?, is credited as music bibliographer. Top/ Gazeuse! (released as Expresso in the U.S.) is an album by Pierre Moerlen's Gong, issued in 1976 on Virgin Records. ‎ Pierre Moerlen's Gong is a jazz fusion outfit which is very different from the first incarnation of Gong, the psychedelic space-rock act led by Daevid Allen. Amid a flurry of lineup changes in the mid-1970s, including the departure of founding members Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth, Moerlen was asked to co-lead the band with Didier Malherbe and Steve Hillage, guitar player of Gong, who himself left shortly thereafter, only appearing on a couple of tracks on the next album Shamal. Pierre Moerlen (1952 - 2005) was a French drummer and percussionist, best known for his work with Gong and Mike Oldfield. Pierre Moerlen's Gong is notable for the prominent use of mallet percussion, such as marimba, xylophone, and vibraphone.

C'mon Feel The Noize

Bottom/ Kimono My House (Island, 1974) was Sparks' third album, scoring a number 2 hit with the glam single "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us". In contrast to the esteem in which they are held by such peers as Morrissey, Depeche Mode, New Order and the Pet Shop Boys, who all cite the L.A duo of Ron and Russell Mael as a major influence, Sparks' almost constantly changing styles —including glam pop, power pop and electronic dance music— and unique visual presentations have sometimes seen them dismissed as a novelty act. The album title is generally assumed to be a pun on the Rosemary Clooney hit "Come on-a My House". Sparks have been highly influential on the development of popular music, in particular on the late 1970s scene, when in collaboration with Giorgio Moroder (and Telex subsequently), they reinvented themselves as an electronic pop duo, and abandoned the traditional rock band line up. The 2002 release of Lil' Beethoven, their self-described "genre-defying opus", as well as the more recent albums Hello Young Lovers (2006, their 20th studio album) and Exotic Creatures Of The Deep (2008) have brought Sparks renewed critical and commercial success, and seen them continue to "steer clear of pop conventions." On August 14, 2009, the band premièred the radio musical The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman. Middle/ LP It's Only A Movie (Raft Records, 1973) is the last original studio album by English rock band Family before they disbanded that year. Top/ Single "Afrodiziak" from debut album Glee (Audiogram, 1997) by Bran Van 3000, an electronica collective from Montreal, Canada founded by the DJ James Di Salvio.