In the days of pre-internet music consumption, soundtracks were a hugely important vehicle for new artists to get noticed. A relative unknown could piggyback their material onto an album with more established acts, with a major motion picture to help sell it. When hip-hop culture spilled over into film in the 80s, the best hip-hop soundtracks not only shaped the …

Perhaps mindful that their adoption of funk and disco tropes had perplexed some of their British and American fans, Queen’s eleventh album was a return to fundamentals – it was a rock album, although they didn’t entirely discard the grooves that had graced both The Game and Hot Space. Their new album’s title hinted at something more familiar: The Works …

Little Richard burst onto the emerging rock‘n’roll scene in the new year of 1956 with “Tutti-Frutti,” the American Top 20 hit that lit the fuse for an explosive follow-up. One of the great double-sided hits of the era, “Long Tall Sally,” backed with “Slippin’ and Slidin’ (Peepin’ and Hidin’),” was released on February 27 that year. Like its predecessor, the …

History records 1961 as the year of Willie Nelson’s great breakthrough as a songwriter (albeit years before he had consistent success as an artist), when Patsy Cline charted with his classic “Crazy.” That song peaked in the country and pop Top 10 in early 1962, but it’s less widely remembered that Nelson already had a long-running country chart-topper to his …