Open The Kingdom

Top/ Entering the glam kingdom of Scissor Sisters' self-titled debut album (Polydor, 2004). It includes the singles "Filthy/Gorgeous" and "Comfortably Numb", a disco cover of the Pink Floyd classic. Artwork by Spookytim of Studio Spooky. Bottom/ Continuing a Roxy Music tradition, Bryan Ferry's girlfriend Lucy Helmore appeared on the cover of the band's eighth studio album Avalon (Virgin, 1982) wearing a medieval helmet and carrying a falcon. The image evoked King Arthur's last journey to the mysterious land of Avalon.

Sky Fits Heaven

Confessions on a Dance Floor (Warner Bros., 2005) has become one of Madonna's best selling albums, with international hits such as "Hung Up" and "Sorry". The album led to the most successful concert tour of her career, the Confessions Tour. It was co-produced by Stuart Price and contains collaborations with Mirwais Ahmadzaï, formerly of French synthpop group Taxi Girl. According to Rolling Stone, "This is an album designed for maximum volume. It's all motion, action, speed. (...) Unlike the crystalline precision of latter-day Madonna discs like Ray of Light and Music, the sonic signature here is a powerhouse density." Madonna has been regarded as "one of the greatest pop acts of all time" by various sources. In 1999, she identified musical influences that impacted her such as Karen Carpenter, The Supremes and Led Zeppelin, and dancers like Martha Graham and Rudolf Nureyev. Guinness World Records list Madonna as the world's most successful female recording artist of all time and the top-earning female singer in the world with an estimated net worth of over US$400 million, having sold over 200 million records worldwide. In 2008, her eleventh studio album, Hard Candy, was released. On March 10, 2008, she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Since the late 1990s, Madonna has been a devotee of the Kabbalah Centre and a disciple of its head, Rabbi Philip Berg, and his wife Karen. Madonna has defended her Kabbalah studies by stating it "would be less controversial if I joined the Nazi Party" and that the Kabbalah is "not hurting anybody." In 2007, Madonna also directed her first film, Filth and Wisdom.

Flicking Your Switch

Bottom/ Sign 'O The Times (Paisley Park, 1987) quickly became widely regarded as Prince's magnum opus. Middle/ Kick-ass Bossanova (4AD, 1990) by the Pixies unleashes gorgeous melodies heavily influenced by punk and surf rock. Top/ English rock band with strong R&B roots Mott The Hoople are best known for the song "All the Young Dudes", which was written for them by their fan David Bowie

Universal Syncopations

Bottom/ Eumir Deodato is a Grammy Award-winning Brazilian musician, producer and arranger primarily based in the jazz realm but who historically has been known for eclectic melding of big band and combo jazz with varied elements of rock/pop, R&B/funk, Brazilian/ Latin, and symphonic or orchestral music. Mainly, his records can be categorized as pop jazz or crossover jazz. His successes as an original artist (keyboards) occurred mainly in the 1970s. Since then, he has produced more than 500 albums for acts ranging from Kool and the Gang to Björk and k.d. lang. His funky version of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra won the 1973 Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance and went No. 2 in the pop charts in the US. Love Island (Wounded Bird Records) was originally released in 1978. It features guest appearances by jazz greats George Benson, Larry Carlton & Harvey Mason. Middle/ Allowing the third eye to open with Stevie Wonder's Innervisions (Tamla, 1973) Top/ Oxygène (Dreyfuss, 1976) is the first major multi-million selling album from synthpop pioneer Jean Michel Jarre. Oxygène is considered by some to be the most important and influential electronic music album ever. Contrasted with his contemporaries, such as the rather clinical, hard, futuristic sound of Kraftwerk, or the more 'cosmic' and murky Tangerine Dream, Oxygène had a lush, spacey and strongly melodic sound reminiscent of the sound of Wendy Carlos on the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange released a few years earlier. The track "Oxygène Part IV" was released as a single and became one of the best-known pieces of electronic music ever. In 1978, his second album, Equinoxe, was released. Jarre has sold an estimated 80 million albums and singles.

Spaceball Ricochet

The Slider (EMI) is a glam rock album by T. Rex, released in 1972. It became T. Rex's most popular album in the United States, featuring the singles "Telegram Sam" and "Metal Guru", though neither of these became hits in the U.S. The much-parodied iconic cover was #37 in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest album covers. The Slider came on the heels of the success of Electric Warrior. The virtues of Electric Warrior were all there, but most agreed it had a very different style. T.Rex (occasionally spelt T Rex or T-Rex) were an English rock band fronted by guitarist and singer Marc Bolan (1947 – 1977). The band were established as a folk rock group in 1960s London, as Tyrannosaurus Rex and released their debut album in 1968 My People Were Fair and Had Sky in Their Hair... But Now They're Content to Wear Stars on Their Brows which reached number 15 on the UK chart. They achieved mainstream success in the 1970s as a glam rock group with hits such as ""Ride a White Swan", "Hot Love", "Get It On" , "Solid Gold Easy Action" and "20th Century Boy".

All Neon Like

Bottom/ Jukebox (Matador Records, 2008) is the eighth album by American singer/songwriter Chan Marshall, also known by her stage name, Cat Power. She is known for her minimalist style, sparse guitar and piano playing, and ethereal vocals. The album is comprised almost entirely of cover songs, including "New York", popularized by Liza Minnelli in 1977 and Frank Sinatra in 1980, "Don't Explain", originally released by Billie Holiday, and "A Woman Left Lonely", originally released by Ella Brown and popularised by Janis Joplin on her (posthumous) 1971 album, Pearl. Middle/ Singer-songwriter Feist, ex-member of Canadian indie rock bands Broken Social Scene and By Divine Right, weaves the sweetest tunes in her third solo album The Reminder (Cherrytree/Interscope, 2007). Top/ With it's minimalist, synthetic beats and lush string orchestra arrangements, Björk's fourth album Homogenic (One Little Indian, 1997) reflects the dual nature of her native Iceland, an eerie mix of nature and high-tech.

Little Fluffy Clouds

The Orb often used bizarre imagery, such as for their live album Live 93 (Island Records, 1993), the cover of which with the sheep over the Battersea Power Station parodied Pink Floyd's Animals album cover. The Orb are an English electronic music group known for popularising chill out music in the 1990s and spawning the genre of ambient house through the use of a diverse array of samples and recordings. The Orb's critical and commercial success in the UK peaked in the early 1990s with their albums The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld and the track "Little Fluffy Clouds" (incorporating samples from Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint and vocal clips from an interview with Rickie Lee Jones in which she recalls picturesque images from her childhood), and U.F.Orb, which reached #1 on the UK Albums Chart in 1992. This success led to their infamous, "legendary avant-garde" appearance on Top of the Pops, where they showcased their quirky style by playing a game of chess (an interest of cofounder Alex Paterson's since his early youth) in space suits, while footage of dolphins and an edited version of the group's single "Blue Room"
ran in the background.

Oh Yeah, Oh No

Bottom/ Le Tigre (French for "The Tiger") is an American dance-punk band, formed by Kathleen Hanna (formerly of Bikini Kill) and Johanna Fateman in 1998. Le Tigre is known for its socio-political lyrics, dealing with issues of feminism and the LGBT community. This Island (Universal, 2004) is their third album. Initially envisioned as a live back up band for Hanna's solo project Julie Ruin, Le Tigre mixed the politics and feminism of riot grrrl with fun electronic samples and lo-fi beats. Top/ Chicks on Speed is an electropop group which started in Munich in 1997. Though usually considered part of such musical genres as electroclash, Chicks on Speed actually started as a multidisciplinary art group who applied punk-inspired DIY ethic to performance art, collage graphics and home-made fashion. We Don't Play Guitars is a collaboration with Canadian artist Peaches, from the Chicks' heavily electronic second album 99 Cents (Chicks On Speed Records, 2003). The album also included a cover of Tom Tom Club's "Wordy Rappinghood", featuring a bevy of guests including Miss Kittin (who appears later on "Shick Shaving") and Tina Weymouth (who composed the lyrics and sang on the original). Top/ Genderchange identity is one theme of Peaches' music, and she often plays with traditional notions of gender identity, gender roles, and gender representation. Her lyrics and live shows self-consciously blur the distinction between male and female; she appears on the cover of her album Fatherfucker (XL Recordings, 2003) with a full beard.

Interstellar Overdrive

Bottom/ Original cover art for the live double CD P•U•L•S•E (EMI, 1995) released by Pink Floyd after the departure of former band leader Roger Waters, features an "eye-like" machine that has clock pieces inside, and a planet in its center. On the outside, it shows evolution as it moves backwards. It starts in the sea, then moves to the bacterias, which evolve into fishes, then into egg type creatures, then into eggs, which hatch birds that follow the trail of an airplane. Six pyramids can be seen on the ground, while a city appears on the shore in the distance. Top/ Together We're Heavy (Good Records, 2004) is the second release from Dallas, Texas self-described
"choral symphonic rock" group The Polyphonic Spree

Deaf In The Afternoon

Bottom/ Rage in Eden (Chrysalis, 1981) is the fifth album by British band Ultravox, and the second of the band's most-recognizable incarnation, fronted by Midge Ure. Co-produced by Conny Plank like their previous two LP's, Rage in Eden features what some fans of the band consider their most creative and experimental phase. This record was met with severe criticism from certain members of the press because of its polished and almost-overproduced instrumentation. The abstract album artwork was designed by Peter Saville, better known for his collaborations with New Order. Ultravox (formerly Ultravox!) was a British New Wave band that rose to prominence in the early 1980s. They were one of the primary exponents of the British electronic pop music movement of the early 1980s. The band was particularly associated with the New Romantic movement, although it both pre- and post-dated New Romanticism by several years. Top/ Songs for the Deaf is the third studio album by American hard rock band Queens of the Stone Age. Released in 2002, the album features Foo Fighters frontman, ex-Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl as a guest drummer. Like their other albums, Songs for the Deaf has a large number of guest musicians, a signature of the band's releases. Following the breakthrough Rated R, this album is widely regarded as Queens of the Stone Age's magnum opus, garnering universal acclaim from critics, whilst earning the band's first gold record certification in the U.S., having sold 986,000 copies in the country. Songs for the Deaf is loosely considered as a concept album, taking the listener on a drive from Los Angeles to the Mojave Desert while tuning into radio stations from towns on the way such as Banning, California and Chino Hills, California. The album received two Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy nominations for singles
"No One Knows" (2003), and "Go with the Flow" (2004).

Calling All Angels

Bottom/ Classic cover artwork for Osibisa (MCA, 1971) by Roger Dean. Osibisa is a band, founded in London in the year 1969 by four African and three Caribbean musicians, who peaked in popularity in the 1970s. They were one of the first widely popular African bands. Osibisa describes itself as the godfathers of world music, claiming to have paved the way for more famous musicians like Bob Marley, who became popular in the mid-1970s. Their music is described as a fusion of African, Caribbean, jazz, rock, Latin and R&B. The name Osibisa was actually described by the band members to mean "criss cross rhythms that explode with happiness". Their style influenced many of the emerging African musicians of the time. Middle/ Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with melodic, classical, experimental, and minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound and lead singer Jónsi's falsetto voice. International acclaim came with the release of Ágætis byrjun (Fat Cat Records, 1999). The band became well known for Jónsi's signature style of playing guitar with the bow from a cello, accentuated with reverb, creating a sweeping, fluid sound that is unique for an electric guitar. Top/ The Secret Migration (V2 Records, 2005) is the much-anticipated sixth album by American indie rock group Mercury Rev. With their early records, Mercury Rev offered experimental, psychedelic rock, which gradually shifted to a melodic, ornate sound. Labeled anything from Chamber Pop to Space Rock, their music is often compared to the Flaming Lips' lush, multi-layered psychedelic arrangements.

Analog Bubblebath

Bottom/ Arguably Depeche Mode's "worst album" according to then-chief songwriter Martin Gore, A Broken Frame (Mute Records, 1982) is the British synthpop band's second proper studio album. Depeche Mode are one of the longest-lived, most successful and influential bands to have emerged from the New Romantic and New Wave era. According to their record company, they have sold over 72 million records worldwide. Top/ Orbital was an English techno duo who took their name from Greater London's orbital motorway, the M25, which was central to the early rave scene and party network in the South East during the early days of acid house. One of the biggest names in British electronica during the 1990s, Orbital sometimes incorporated political and environmental commentary into their music. Samples used in songs occasionally lambast humankind for its destructive ways or suggest concern with genetic engineering. The band recorded The Girl With The Sun In Her Head from In Sides using Greenpeace's mobile solar power generator CYRUS. Top/ Construction Time Again (Mute Records) is the third proper studio album by Depeche Mode. Released on August 22, 1983, it saw two shifts in DM's sound. First, the lyrical content started to deepen, featuring lyrics dealing with more worldly issues, and secondly, their instrumentation started to take on darker textures, moving away from pure analog synthesizer sounds and instead making use of new digital sampling techniques. Black Celebration, released three years later, took this flavouring and cemented it as a permanent feature in DM's future works. The album was recorded at John Foxx's Garden studios in London, engineered by Gareth Jones (who had also engineered Foxx's seminal electronic album, Metamatic). It was mixed in the famous Hansa Tonstudio in Berlin (where much of David Bowie's trilogy of seminal electronic albums featuring Brian Eno had been produced). The album's cover photo features the Matterhorn mountain.

Tower Of Song

Tehillim (ECM, 1982) is a piece of music by American composer Steve Reich, written in 1981 and recorded by his own ensemble. The title comes from the Hebrew word for "psalms", and the work was the first major composition by Reich to reference explicitly his new-found interest in his Jewish heritage, and his Judaism as such. Typically, Reich's music is characterised by a steady pulse and the repetition of a comparatively small amount of melodic material emanating from a clear tonal centre (a style of writing which is called 'minimalist'). Quotes taken from the liner notes written by the composer, Steve Reich, include: 'The use of extended melodies, imitative counterpoint, functional harmony and full orchestration may well suggest renewed interest in Classical, or more accurately Baroque, and earlier Western musical practice. The non-vibrato, non-operatic vocal production will also remind listeners a singing style derived from outside the tradition of 'Western Art Music'. (...) Tehillim may thus be heard as traditional and new at the same time'

Sons Of The Silent Age

Middle/ Described as "haunting and beautiful" —not least for it's cover art, a still from the Nicholas Roeg movie The Man Who Fell to Earth, for which the music was originally intended—, Low (RCA, 1977) by British musician David Bowie is widely regarded as one of his most influential releases. Low was the first of the "Berlin Trilogy", a series of collaborations with Brian Eno. Although the music was influenced by German "krautrock" bands such as Kraftwerk and Neu!, Low has been acclaimed for its originality and is considered far ahead of its time. As late as 2000, Radiohead looked to be attempting a similar concept and sound with their album Kid A. Bowie himself has said "cut me and I bleed Low". Top/ Star Rise: Remixed (Real World, 1997) is the last release by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Michael Brook. It was released posthumously for Khan, as he died just before the album was due to be completed. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan was a Pakistani musician, primarily a singer of Qawwali, the devotional music of the Sufis (a mystical tradition within Islam). Bottom/ My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (Sire Records) is a 1981 album by Brian Eno and David Byrne, titled after Amos Tutuola's 1954 novel of the same name. Eno and Byrne thought the title reflected their interest in African music, and also had an evocative, vaguely sinister quality that also referenced the voices sampled for the album. Receiving strong reviews upon its release, My Life is now regarded as a high point in the discographies of Eno and Byrne. Critic John Bush describes the album as "[a] pioneering work for countless styles connected to electronics, ambience, and Third World music. Rather than featuring conventional pop or rock singing, most of the vocals are sampled from other sources, such as commercial recordings of Arabic singers, radio disk jockeys and an exorcist. Musicians had previously used similarly sampling techniques, but critic Dave Simpson declares it had never before been used "to such cataclysmic effect" as on My Life. The album was rereleased in expanded form in 2006.

Trip Through Sound

Secret World Live (Real World, 1994) is the second live and tenth album overall released by Peter Gabriel, who first came to fame as the founder and lead vocalist of the progressive rock group Genesis. More recently he has focused on producing and promoting world music, most notably through his Real World record label and studios. He has also been involved in various humanitarian efforts. Gabriel's "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" from So refers to Milgram's experiment. In 1989, Gabriel released Passion, the soundtrack for Martin Scorsese's movie The Last Temptation of Christ.

It's More Fun To Compute

Kraftwerk redefined the dancefloors yet again with Computerworld (Kling Klang, 1981). Like many other Krautrock bands, Kraftwerk was heavily influenced by the pioneering compositions of Karlheinz Stockhausen; the minimalism and non-R&B rhythms of the Velvet Underground, as well as other radicals, such as Frank Zappa, Jimi Hendrix, and the hyper-adrenalized Stooges. Replacing drums and guitars with synthesized pulses and programmed beats, Kraftwerk expertly diverted the Velvets' speed rush into the metronomic rhythm for which it is so well known. Ralf Hütter has also listed The Beach Boys as a major influence, which is apparent in Kraftwerk's 1975 chart smash, "Autobahn." Hütter stated that the Beach Boys made music that sounded like California, and that Kraftwerk wanted to make music that sounded like Germany. Many of Kraftwerk's songs express the paradoxical nature of modern urban life—a strong sense of alienation existing side-by-side with a celebration of the joys
of modern technology.

Medicine Man's Other Room

Bottom/ Aligning soul, mind and body with Powerlight (Sony, 1983) by funk/disco supergroup Earth, Wind & Fire. Illustration by Shusei Nagaoka. Earth, Wind & Fire is an American funk band led by Maurice White that achieved worldwide success in the 1970s. The group was formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1969. They are known for a number of hit singles, including "Shining Star" "September" "Fantasy" "Boogie Wonderland" and "Let's Groove". The band's name turned into Earth, Wind & Fire based on the fact that White's astrological sign being Sagittarius, had a primary elemental quality of Fire but also had seasonal qualities which are Earth, and Air, hence the omission of water. Earth, Wind & Fire was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2000. On December 11th 2007, the band's live performance at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert in Oslo, Norway, was broadcasted to over 100 countries. Middle/ File under "Post-rock" or "Avant-jazz": It's All Around You (Thrill Jockey, 2004) by Chicago instrumental band Tortoise defies easy categorization. Tortoise was among the first American indie rock bands to incorporate styles close to Krautrock, dub, minimalism, electronica, and various jazz styles. Top/ Pieces of Eight (A&M, 1978) by American progressive rock band Styx is the follow-up to their Triple Platinum selling breakthrough album The Grand Illusion. Pieces of Eight found the group moving in a more straight-ahead pop-rock direction. The album cover was done by British art design group Hipgnosis.

In Search Of Peter Pan

Toys in the attic: English singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer Kate Bush lets the cat out of the bag in her second album, Lionheart (EMI, 1978). Including the hit single "Wow", the album takes its title from the track, "Oh, England, My Lionheart", in which a pilot who has been shot down contemplates his homeland as his plane hurtles towards the ground, and to his death. Literary references include J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan in "In Search of Peter Pan" (a song which also quotes "When You Wish Upon A Star" from the classic Disney film, Pinocchio), as well as a nod towards Arsenic and Old Lace in the song "Coffee Homeground", which despite being similar in plot to the play, was inspired by a taxi driver who drove Bush once. Film references include "Hammer Horror", inspired by the Hammer Film studio, known for their gothic horror films. Bush's eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic lyrics have made her one of England's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.

You Could Feel The Sky

New Order were an English rock group formed in 1980 in the wake of the demise of their previous band, Joy Division, following the suicide of singer Ian Curtis. New Order melded post-punk and electronic dance, and became one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the 1980s. Though the band were shadowed by the legacy of Joy Division in their first years, their immersion in the New York City club scene of the early 1980s introduced them to dance music. The band's 1983 hit "Blue Monday" saw them fully embrace dance music and synthesized instruments, and is the best-selling 12-inch single of all time. Bottom/ Republic (London, 1993) was New Order's first album after the demise of Factory Records. Top/ "Ruined In A Day" (London, 1993) was released as the second single from Republic. Prior to that release, New Order were the flagship band for Factory Records. New Order albums, and Factory Records products in general, frequently bore the minimalist packaging of Peter Saville. Saville said his intention was to sell the band as a "mass-produced secret" of sorts, and that the minimalist style was enough to allow fans to identify
the band's products without explicit labelling.

Party Hard

Bottom/ The cover art for This Is Hardcore (Island Records, 1998) by British indie rock band Pulp was directed by the American painter John Currin, whose work shows influences as diverse as the Renaissance, popular culture magazines, and contemporary fashion models. Pulp are most famous in the UK, where their blend of disco-influenced pop-rock coupled with the down-to-earth "kitchen-sink drama"-style lyrics of frontman Jarvis Cocker made them popular during the mid-1990s as part of the Britpop movement. Top/ The gender-ambiguous cover art for Suede (Nude Records, 1993), the debut album by English band Suede, provoked some controversy in the press, prompting Suede frontman Brett Anderson to comment, "I'm not really interested in being controversial. If we wanted to be controversial we'd have called the album I Fuck Dogs." The fastest-selling first album in UK history, Suede jumpstarted Britpop along with albums from Blur, Pulp, and Oasis

Finding Beauty

Scottish composer Craig Armstrong gained critical acclaim on films like Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge! His first album of his own orchestral music The Space Between Us was released in 1998 (Melankolic). Elizabeth Fraser of the Cocteau Twins contributes vocals to the track "This Love".

Rock N Roll Nigger

Patti Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer-songwriter and poet. She was influential in the birth of punk rock with her 1975 debut album Horses, produced by John Cale amidst some tension. The album fused punk rock and spoken poetry and begins with a cover of Van Morrison's "Gloria", and Smith's opening words: "Jesus died for somebody's sins but not mine." The austere cover photograph by Robert Mapplethorpe has become one of rock's classic images. Called "Godmother of Punk" she integrated the beat poetry performance style with three-chord rock. Her allusions introduced American teens to 19th century French poetry, while her "unladylike" language defied the disco era. Smith is most widely known for the song "Because the Night", which was co-written with Bruce Springsteen. Before the release of her fourth album, Wave (1979), Smith met Fred "Sonic" Smith, former guitar player for Detroit rock band MC5, who adored poetry as much as she did. In August 2005 Smith gave a literary lecture about the poems of Arthur Rimbaud and William Blake. Patti Smith has been a great source of inspiration for Michael Stipe of R.E.M. Listening to her album Horses when he was 15 made a huge impact on him. In 2004, Shirley Manson of Garbage told about Patti's influence on her at Rolling Stone's issue "The Immortals: 100 Greatest Artists of All Time", in which Patti Smith was counted number 47. The Smiths members Morrissey and Johnny Marr shared an appreciation for Patti's Horses. In 2004, Sonic Youth released an album called Hidros 3 (to Patti Smith). U2 also cites Patti Smith as influence. From March 28 to June 22, 2008 the Fondation Cartier pour l'Art Contemporain in Paris hosted a major exhibition of the visual work of Patti Smith, Land 250, drawn from pieces created between 1967 and 2007. A live album by Patti Smith and Kevin Shields, The Coral Sea was released in July 2008. Top/ Produced by Jimmy Iovine, Easter (Arista Records, 1978) is regarded as Patti Smith Group's commercial breakthrough, owing to the success of the single, "Because the Night" (co-written by Bruce Springsteen and Smith). Bottom/ Land (1975-2002) is a two disc compilation album by Patti Smith, released on Arista Records. Land contains a collection of recordings from her 8 previous albums on the first disc, along with B-sides and unreleased songs on the second disc. Dedicated to the memory of Patti Smith Group keyboardist Richard Sohl.