From the mocking cover art to the orchestral notes that grace the music to the loose thematic ties that link the songs, the Mothers of Invention’s ‘We’re Only in It for the Money’ turns ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ on its head. But it’s not so much the Beatles’ masterpiece -- which was released nine months before the Mothers album -- that Frank Zappa and his band of musical pranksters ruthlessly skewer; it’s the culture that fed and supported it.
Nobody really expected anything from David Bowie at this point, let alone his best album in 30 years. After virtually disappearing following the release and aborted tour in support of 2003’s underwhelming ‘Reality,’ even the rock ‘n’ roll changeling’s biggest fans figured he was finished. He was rarely seen in public, and there certainly were no rumors swirling about a new record or anything like that.
Before the Allman Brothers Band hit it big, guitarist Duane Allman had played with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Boz Scaggs and others. After their breakthrough live album ‘At Fillmore East,’ he continued working as a busy session musician, clocking gigs with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, Derek & the Dominos and Laura Nyro. Through it all he established himself as one of rock’s great instrumentalists; a master axman with a show-stopping signature style who’d step out of the spotlight and let others shine.
The Rolling Stones -- like so many other great groups that got their start in the '60s -- began as a cover band, working through rock, blues and R&B favorites. Their first few albums consisted almost entirely of cover songs. As
Hard rock hadn’t really hatched a band like Van Halen before 1978. There were groups with guitar heroes. There were metal bands that covered ‘60s classics with new-style flash. And there were corny frontmen with overeager libidos. But they were never tossed together into one simmering pot made up of part dinosaur stomp, part lightning-fast guitar acrobatics and part Hollywood arrogance before Van Halen’s self-titled debut album was unleashed.
If we’re to believe ‘People, Hell & Angels,’ the latest in a long string of posthumous albums by Jimi Hendrix, its dozen previously unreleased tracks were the building blocks to the late guitarist’s follow-up to ‘Electric Ladyland,’ his final album with the Experience.
Up until Jan. 20, 1983, when Def Leppard released their third album, ‘Pyromania,’ the British band wanted to be Led Zeppelin. Just look at their name.
When the Doors entered a Hollywood recording studio to make their debut album at the end of August 1966, they knew what they wanted. Months of serving as house band at the Whisky a Go Go had sharpened their playing and performing skills to the point where one member of the quartet could abruptly swerve toward a new direction and the others would follow without missing a beat.
Going into the last quarter of 1967, the Beatles couldn’t get any bigger. Their masterwork, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,’ pretty much changed the way pop music was made, sounded and consumed. They had transcended the rock ‘n’ roll ghetto, entering the final phase of a career that glided past pop music’s boundaries and into a wide-open realm of exploration and experimentation.
In mid-1966, following a whirlwind couple of years in which he became a legend and a reluctant star, Bob Dylan withdrew from the public eye. And he found a reason that was fitting of his testy image at the time: He claimed he was in a motorcycle accident, which fans still dispute to this day. Was it real? Or was it staged so that the increasingly agitated and reclusive singer-songwriter could get away from it all for a while and clear his head?
After drummer John Bonham died on Sept. 25, 1980, effectively putting an end to Led Zeppelin, fans were hungry for more music. Their last album, 1979’s ‘In Through the Out Door,’ marked a strong return after a three-year absence. But the band had broken up, and there wasn’t too much unused music sitting around, because Led Zeppelin didn’t waste much. Over the course of eight albums and 10 years, only one non-LP B-side (‘Hey Hey What Can I Do’) surfaced. And the few leftover tracks that they had in the can made up roughly half of 1975’s ‘Physical Graffiti.’
