No Problem Orchestra

Bottom/ Street is the 1991 album from Nina Hagen, released on Mercury. The singles from the album, produced by Zeus B. Held, included "Blumen Fur Die Damen" and "Berlin (Is Dufte!)". Nina Hagen (born Catharina Hagen on March 11, 1955) is a singer from Berlin, Germany. At age four, she began to study ballet, and was considered an opera prodigy by the time she was nine. Top/ Back in Germany by mid-1977, Hagen formed the Nina Hagen Band in West Berlin's Kreuzberg district. In 1978 they released their self-titled debut album on CBS, which included the single "TV-Glotzer" (a cover of "White Punks on Dope" by The Tubes, though with entirely different German lyrics), and "Auf'm Bahnhof Zoo", about West Berlin's then-notorious Zoologischer Garten station. The album gained significant attention throughout Germany and abroad, both for its hard rock sound and for Hagen's theatrical vocals, far different from the straightforward singing of her East German recordings. Meanwhile, Hagen's public persona was steadily creating media uproar and she became infamous for an appearance on an Austrian talk show called Club 2, in which she described masturbation techniques. In 1982, Hagen released her first English-language album: NunSexMonkRock, a dissonant mix of punk, funk, reggae, and opera. She then went on a world tour with the No Problem Orchestra. Middle/ In 1983, Nina Hagen released the album Angstlos. By this time, Hagen's public appearances were becoming stranger and frequently included discussions of God, UFOs, her social and political beliefs, animal rights and vivisection, and claims of alien sightings. The English version of Angstlos, Fearless, generated two major club hits in America, "Zarah" (a cover of the Zarah Leander song "Ich weiss, es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehen") and the disco / punk / opera song, "New York New York". Her 1985 album Nina Hagen In Ekstasy fared less well, but did generate club hits including a cover of the 1969 hit single "Spirit In The Sky". It also featured a 1979 recording of her hardcore punk take on Frank Sinatra's My Way, which had been one of her signature live tunes in previous years. In 1999, she played the role of Celia Peachum in The Threepenny Opera by Kurt Weil and Berthold Brecht, alongside Max Raabe. Her most recent album, Journey to The Snow Queen, is more of an audio book- she reads the Snow Queen fairy tale with Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker in the background. In 2005 Nina Hagen headlined the Drop Dead Festival in New York City. Musical styles typically featured at Drop Dead include post-punk, deathrock, synthpunk, psychobilly, punk, experimental, gothic rock, horror
punk, dark cabaret and more.

Rock 'n' Roll With Me

Two classic cover paintings by cult artist Guy Peellaert of Rock Dreams fame Top/ Album Diamond Dogs (RCA, 1974) by David Bowie merges the novel 1984 by George Orwell and Bowie's own vision of a post-apocalyptic world. Back of the gatefold LP cover discloses Bowie's body as a lying dog's. Bottom/ The Rolling Stones' It's Only Rock 'n' Roll (Atlantic, 1974) would mark Jagger and Richards' first effort as producers under their pseudonym "The Glimmer Twins".

The Nest That Sailed The Sky

Bottom/ The giant, helium-filled pig seen on the cover of Pink Floyd's Animals (Harvest, 1977) was actually flown over Battersea Power Station in London for the photo shoot (under the direction of Storm Thorgerson of Hipgnosis). Top/ The cover photo for OVO by Peter Gabriel (Real World, 2000), a soundtrack for the Millenium Dome Show in London, mirrors the track "The Nest That Sailed the Sky" found inside. Other fairytale-like songtitles on OVO include "The Tower That Ate People" and "The Hand That Sold Shadows".

Let It Shine

Bottom/ Borboletta (CBS, 1974) is one of Santana's jazz-funk-oriented albums, along with Caravanserai, Welcome, with Alice Coltrane, Love Devotion Surrender, with John McLaughlin, and Illuminations, with Alice Coltrane, Jack DeJohnette and Jules Broussard. The record was released in a shiny blue sleeve displaying a butterfly, and suiting the general mood perfectly. Top/ Album Amigos (Columbia, 1976) also by Santana contains the tracks "Let It Shine" and "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)".

Hello Earth

Bottom/ Kate Bush herself has called The Dreaming (EMI, 1982)
her "I've gone mad album". The iconic album cover depicts a scene described in the lyrics to the song "Houdini". In the picture shown, Bush is acting as Houdini's wife, holding a key in her mouth which she is about to pass on to Houdini. Many were baffled by the dense soundscapes Bush had created, and some critics accused the album of being over-produced. Bush was in her early twenties when making the album and tended to look outside herself for sources of inspiration. She drew on old crime films ("There Goes A Tenner"), a documentary about the war in Vietnam ("Pull Out The Pin"), the plight of Indigenous Australians ("The Dreaming"), the life of Houdini ("Houdini") and Stanley Kubrick's film of Stephen King's novel The Shining ("Get Out Of My House"). "Leave It Open" speaks of the need to acknowledge and express the darker sides of one's personality within the greater context of maintaining an open mind.
Top/ "Cloudbusting" is taken from the album Hounds Of Love (1985) by Kate Bush, considered by many to be her masterpiece.

F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.

Bottom/ Produced by Rick Rubin, the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Warner Bros., 1991) by L.A. alternative rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers has sold over seven million copies in the United States alone. The album's subject matter incorporated sexual innuendos and references to drugs and death as well as themes of lust and exuberance. Blood Sugar Sex Magik produced many hits for the band, including "Give It Away", "Under the Bridge", "Suck My Kiss", and "Breaking the Girl". All photography, paintings and art direction for Blood Sugar Sex Magik were credited to filmmaker Gus Van Sant
Top/ "Something Changed" (Island, 1996) is the fourth and final single taken from the album Different Class by British pop band
Pulp, released with two different sleeves (a "boy" and "girl"
version). This is the Girl CD.

Empire State Human

Bottom/ "10:15 Saturday Night" is a single from Three Imaginary Boys (Fiction, 1979), the debut album by English alternative rock band The Cure. Three Imaginary Boys was later re-released in the United States with a slightly different song line-up as Boys Don't Cry. The band has performed as an encore "Three Imaginary Boys", "Fire in Cairo", "Boys Don't Cry", "Jumping Someone Else's Train", "Grinding Halt", "10:15 Saturday Night" and "Killing an Arab" on the recent 2008 '4 Tour'.
Top/ Originally an avant-garde all male synthesizer-based group from Sheffield, UK, The Human League started off with two experimental studio albums, Reproduction (Virgin, 1979) and Travelogue (1980), before skyrocketing to mainstream fame with the release of the influential, multi-million selling single "Don't You Want Me" a year later. Reproduction features the single "Empire State Human". By this time, The Human League's role as UK electronic pioneers was usurped by Gary Numan and his single "Are 'Friends' Electric?".

Metallic K.O.

Raw Power (Columbia) is a 1973 album by American protopunk group The Stooges. The third studio album by The Stooges, Raw Power was largely ignored upon its release, and the group broke up in obscurity a few years later. However, it was embraced by a small, rabid fanbase that included many younger musicians who would go on to help create punk rock in the mid-1970s, making Raw Power one of the most important protopunk documents. The Stooges had formed near Detroit, Michigan in the late 1960s. Their first two albums, The Stooges (1969) and Fun House (1970) were similarly unsuccessful, and the group broke up. Singer Iggy Pop had been signed as a solo artist to MainMan Management, who also handled British singer David Bowie. The band was in disarray; they had officially broken up, Dave Alexander was fighting alcoholism, and Pop's heroin addiction was escalating prior to Bowie's intervention. However, Pop was determined for a reformation. Signed to Columbia Records, he was sent to London to write and record their album with his new collaborator, guitarist James Williamson. Pop insisted that his fellow ex-Stooges Ron Asheton and Scott Asheton participate in the recording sessions. Pop produced and mixed the album by himself. When MainMan informed Pop that if Raw Power were not remixed by Bowie, the album would not be released, Pop agreed, but insisted that his own mix for "Search And Destroy" be retained. Despite its weak initial reception, the reputation of Raw Power grew tremendously in subsequent years, and the album's volume and ferocity became benchmarks against which later albums were measured. In 2003, the album was ranked number 125 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain from the grunge band Nirvana wrote in his Journals numerous times that this was his favorite album of all time. Johnny Marr of The Smiths has also stated Raw Power as his favorite album. Henry Rollins has the words "Search and Destroy" tattooed across his shoulder blades. In 1997 Columbia Records invited Iggy Pop to remaster the entire album for re-release on CD. The album's songs have been frequently covered. Prominent versions include the Dictators', Red Hot Chili Peppers', The Dead Boys', Def Leppard's cover of "Search and Destroy"; Guns N' Roses' cover of "Raw Power" (title track) on The Spaghetti Incident? and Ewan McGregor covering "Gimme Danger" for the film Velvet Goldmine, a movie telling the story of a character based around David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust during the 1970s glam rock era. "Gimme Danger" was also covered by Frank Black for the game Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 2.

Shadow Magnet

Bottom & Top/ Produced with Rick Rubin, De-Loused in the Comatorium (Universal, 2003) is the first LP and concept album by the American progressive rock band The Mars Volta. Based on a short story by lead singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala, and sound manipulation artist Jeremy Michael Ward, it is the hour-long tale of Cerpin Taxt, a man who tries to kill himself by overdosing on rat poison. The attempt lands him in a week-long coma during which he experiences visions of humanity and his own psyche. Upon waking, he is dissatisfied with the real world and jumps to his death. The music contained in De-Loused is distinguished by its enigmatic lyrics, jazz rhythms, odd time signatures, and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez's frenetic guitar riffs, which are often harshly dissonant. "Drunkship of Lanterns" was named the 91st best guitar song of all-time by Rolling Stone. Middle/ Duality (4AD) is a collaborative album by Lisa Gerrard and Pieter Bourke released in 1998. It was Lisa Gerrard's first post-Dead Can Dance album. The beginning of the song "Shadow Magnet" will sound familiar to many because it influenced, in part, the music at the beginning of the Gladiator soundtrack (music by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard). The track "Nadir (Synchronicity)"
was initially intended for use at the end of that film.

Titanium Exposé

Goo (DGC, 1990) is an album by alternative rock band Sonic Youth. The cover is a Raymond Pettibon illustration based on a paparazzi photo of Maureen Hindley and her first husband David Smith, witnesses in the case of serial killers Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, driving to the trial in 1966. Scorching tracks abound, including "Tunic (Song for Karen)", written and sung by Kim Gordon, about singer Karen Carpenter and her anorexia. The album also features "Mote", "Mildred Pierce" and the single "Kool Thing", on which Chuck D
from the rap group Public Enemy guested.

Novocaine For The Soul

Bottom/ Counting Crows is a rock band originating from Berkeley, California. The group gained popularity in 1994 following the release of its debut album August and Everything After, which featured the hit single "Mr. Jones." The band's influences include Van Morrison, R.E.M., Nirvana, Bob Dylan, and The Band. This Desert Life (Geffen, 1999) is their third studio album. The cover art is by noted comic book artist Dave McKean, best known for his work with Neil Gaiman. Top/ Blinking Lights and Other Revelations (Vagrant, 2005) is a double album by the band Eels. It was described by frontman Mark Oliver Everett (more commonly known as E), as an album about "God and all the questions related to the subject of God. It's also about hanging on to my remaining shreds of sanity and the blue sky that comes the day after a terrible storm, and it's a love letter to life itself, in all its beautiful, horrible glory." Blinking Lights include some intensely personal songs, instrumental pastiches, and straightforward pop, which results in a broad, soul searching album. The sleeve and liner notes are composed of typewritten lyrics and family photos, implying the personal nature of the album.

Picture This

Bottom/ New York City-based punk blues band Yeah Yeah Yeahs took their name from modern New York City vernacular. Debut album Fever To Tell (Interscope, 2003) Top/ Blondie's fifth studio album Autoamerican (Chrysalis, 1980) contains "Rapture," the first ever rap song to reach number one on the singles chart in the U.S.

Simple Headphone Mind

Bottom/ Called "one of the most fiercely independent and original groups of the Nineties", Stereolab were one of the first bands to be termed "post-rock". Their primary musical influence is 1970s krautrock, which they combine with lounge, 1960s pop, and experimental music. Cybele's Reverie is a 1996 EP released on Duophonic. Top/ Orbus Terrarum is an album by The Orb released on Island Records in 1995. Unlike previous albums by The Orb, Orbus Terrarum featured more "earthbound" and "organic" sounds instead of the trippy science fiction themed music they had previously written.

Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn

Bottom/ Album Tattoo You (Rolling Stones/Virgin, 1981) by the Rolling Stones features "Start Me Up", widely considered one of their most infectious songs. Top/ Soundtrack to the 1975 award-winning period film Barry Lyndon by director Stanley Kubrick. The film's period setting allowed Kubrick to indulge his penchant for classical music, and the film score uses pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Giovanni Paisiello, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Franz Schubert. The score also includes Irish folk music performed by The Chieftains. The piece most associated with the film is the main title music, George Frideric Handel's stately Sarabande from the Suite in D minor HWV 437, originally for solo harpsichord.

Celestial Terrestrial Commuters

Bottom/ Through A Frosty Plate Glass (V2, 2001) is an EP released by indie rock group Grandaddy. Common themes in the band's music are wildlife, obsolete technology, robots, incompetency and heartbreak. Examples of songtitles by Grandaddy include "He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot" and "So You'll Aim Toward the Sky", both from The Sophtware Slump (2000). Seen by some as a concept album about problems concerning modern technology in society, it was sometimes cited as the American OK Computer. The band released their fourth and final full-length album, Just Like the Fambly Cat, in 2006. Top/ Album Raise! (Columbia, 1981) by Earth, Wind & Fire was dedicated to "The Creator" "Our Guiding Light". The front cover created by Roger Carpenter features an Egyptian pharaoh figure made of
stone on the right side and metal on the left.

Sentinel Total Overhaul

Bottom/ Greatest hits album U.F.Off - The Best of The Orb (Island, 1998) includes remixes of "Little Fluffy Clouds" and "A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From the Centre of the Ultraworld". Middle/ Album Orblivion (Island, 1997) by English ambient house/chill out music group The Orb, includes "Toxygene". Top/ Breakthrough release Gula Gula (Hear The Voices of the Foremothers) (Real World, 1989) by Norwegian Sami musician Mari Boine, adds jazz and rock to the yoiks of her native people.

Heaven, Hell or Houston

Bottom/ One of the longest-lived hip hop acts, the Beastie Boys are well-known for their eclecticism, obscure cultural references and kitschy lyrics. Released in 1998, Hello Nasty (Capitol Records) went straight to #1 in the U.S. and the UK. Ever since their early days as a hardcore punk rock band, through their Def Jam days with record producer Rick Rubin, the Beastie Boys have continued creating instrumental music in addition to the hip hop music for which they are best known. Top/ Busted: album El Loco (Warner Bros, 1981) by American blues-rock band ZZ Top from Houston, Texas. The title means "The Crazy One" in Spanish.

This Is The One

Top/ The Stone Roses were an English rock band formed in Manchester in 1984 and was one of the pioneering groups of the Manchester indie music scene that evolved during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In 1989, the group released their debut album, which quickly achieved the status of a classic in the UK, and topped NME's list of the Greatest British Albums of All Time. The Stone Roses (Silvertone, 1989) opened with "I Wanna Be Adored" and closed with
"I Am the Resurrection". Bottom/ The Remixes (Silvertone) is a 2000 release compilation album featuring 12 tracks by The Stone Roses remixed by various artists such as Utah Saints and Paul Oakenfold. Most Stone Roses releases feature cover artwork by guitarist John Squire, whose artistic style was heavily influenced by the action painting technique of Jackson Pollock

How Does That Grab You Darlin'?

Bottom/ Lovedrive (Harvest/EMI, 1979) is a studio album by the German heavy metal band Scorpions, released in 1979. The risqué cover, created by the design firm Hipgnosis, caused some controversy upon the album's release and was initially sold wrapped in paper. The Scorpions became Germany's biggest band of all time, having world wide success and going several times Gold and Platinum. Middle/ I Didn't See It Coming (Virgin, 1981) is the only album released by punk rock band The Professionals formed in 1979 by Steve Jones and Paul Cook, both formerly of the Sex Pistols. Top/ Porn star Janine Lindemulder is the nurse depicted on the cover of 6X Platinum Enema Of The State (MCA, 1999) by pop punk trio Blink-182. She is also featured in the music video for "What's My Age Again?".

Avant-Glam

Aladdin Sane (RCA, 1973) by David Bowie is the follow-up to his breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The album featured a tougher rock sound than its predecessor, particularly on tracks like "Panic in Detroit" (built around a Bo Diddley beat) and Bowie’s breakneck version of the Stones' "Let's Spend The Night Together". Aladdin Sane was also notable for its exploration of unusual styles such as avant-garde jazz in the title track and Brechtian cabaret in "Time", the latter being famous for the line "Time ... falls wanking to the floor". Both numbers were dominated by Mike Garson’s acclaimed piano work, which also featured heavily in the James Bond flavoured ballad "Lady Grinning Soul".

Neat Neat Neat

Bottom/ Devo's single "Come Back Jonee" (Virgin, 1978) was produced by Brian Eno. Some hear influences from the Krautrock musical style in Devo's music, such as Neu!, Can and the production work of Conny Plank. Other influences are said to include American rock iconoclasts Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, and the Residents. Their extensive mechanization of popular music through synthesizers helped to inspire the more modern industrial pop acts of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Top/ "I Just Can't Be Happy Today" (Chiswick, 1979) was a single by the British punk band The Damned, taken from their third album Machine Gun Etiquette. The Damned are an English band formed in London in 1976, notable for being the first punk rock band from England to release a single ("New Rose"), release an album (Damned Damned Damned), and tour the United States. The Damned later evolved as one of the forerunners of the gothic rock genre. The Damned have incorporated many different styles into their music and image, including: garage rock, psychedelic rock, cabaret, and the theatrical rock of Screaming Lord Sutch and Alex Harvey. Vanian's vocal style has been described as similar to a crooner.

Captain Easychord

Top/ Born in Harlem, New York, electronic artist Moby grew up very poor, as he and his mother were on welfare and food-stamps until he was 18. After eight top 40 singles in the UK in the 1990s he released the album Play, in 1999, which sold 9 million copies worldwide. "We Are All Made Of Stars" is taken from the album 18 (Mute, 2002). In 1997, he released I Like to Score, a collection of his music that had been used in movies. Bottom/ Moby returns with Last Night (Mute, 2008). Besides the many faces of his music, Moby also gathers controversy for his outspoken religious, dietary and animal rights views. Every Moby release from the mid-90's onward has borne the text "Animals are not ours to eat, wear or experiment on. Thanks to Christ." He supports the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Sister Feelings Call

Born Lili-Marlene Premilovich in Detroit, Michigan to a British mother and a Serbian father, American singer Lene Lovich first gained attention as part of the New Wave music scene of the 1970's and 1980's. In her early years, Lovich attended several art schools, appeared in cabaret clubs as an "Oriental" dancer, recorded screams for horror films and provided lyrics for the sci-fi dance smash "Supernature" by French disco star Cerrone. Combining her own quirky inventions with then current punk rock and new wave, her first album for Stiff, Stateless, spawned the hit singles "Lucky Number" and "Say When." The cover photo for her second album Flex (Stiff Records, 1979) was taken in an emptied tank at a Guinness brewery.

Viva Last Blues

Will Oldham, a.k.a. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy (born 24 December 1970 in Louisville, Kentucky), is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. Prior to adopting his current moniker, he performed and recorded under various permutations of the Palace name, including Palace Brothers, Palace Songs, and Palace Music (1993-1997). Will Oldham is known for his "do-it-yourself punk aesthetic and blunt honesty," and his music has been likened to Americana, folk, roots, country, punk, and indie rock, although Oldham is dissatisfied with these labels. He has been called an "Appalachian post-punk solipsist". Much of Will Oldham's music has received considerable critical praise. Some of his albums, such as There Is No-One What Will Take Care of You (1993), Viva Last Blues (1995), and I See a Darkness (1999), have appeared on greatest albums lists. Johnny Cash's American III: Solitary Man (2000) included a recording of Will Oldham's "I See A Darkness" (from the album of the same name), for which Oldham provided background vocals. Master and Everyone (Drag City, 2003) was produced by Lambchop's Mark Nevers.

In Visible Silence

"Cherry Blossom Girl" by electronic French duo Air is the first single from their 2004 album Talkie Walkie (Astralwerks, 2004). The album was possibly named after the song "Le Talkie Walkie" by Serge Gainsbourg, a known influence of the duo. The track "Alone in Kyoto" was featured on the soundtrack to the 2004 Sofia Coppola film Lost
in Translation

White Light/White Heat

Recorded in France at the Château d'Hérouville, Pin Ups (RCA) is a 1973 covers album by David Bowie. It was his last studio album with the bulk of 'The Spiders From Mars', his backing band throughout his Ziggy Stardust phase. A version of The Velvet Underground's "White Light/White Heat" was recorded during the sessions. It was never released; Bowie donated the backing track to Mick Ronson for his 1975 album Play Don't Worry. The woman on the cover with Bowie
is 1960s supermodel Twiggy

Up Your Alley

Brooklyn- based indie pop group The Ladybug Transistor is associated with The Elephant Six Collective of American musicians who spawned some of the most notable independent bands of the 1990s, including The Apples in Stereo, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Of Montreal.

You Are What You Is