From her beginnings as an outspoken queen of neo-soul to her later politically-charged salvos at the vanguard of contemporary R&B, Erykah Badu’s multi-hued, occasionally controversial career has never been less than captivating. Fusing jazz, soul, funk, and hip-hop in equal measure, here are the 20 best Erykah Badu songs, revealing the depths of her brilliance. Listen to the best Erykah …

In terms of their UK audience, the Beach Boys’ 20/20 album was the gift that kept on giving. Released in early 1969, it had been introduced the previous summer by “Do It Again,” which married modern production with nostalgic lyrics and, while it peaked at No.20 in the US, went all the way to No.1 across the Atlantic. That was …

To honor the memory of the Man In Black, born on February 26, 1932, a collection of 20 things you never knew about Johnny Cash, one of the true titans of country music. Johnny’s mother bought him a guitar for his tenth birthday The day after the funeral of Johnny’s older brother Jack, the Cash family were back in the …

If there’s one stretch that gets precious little love in Johnny Cash’s career, it’s the Mercury albums during the late 80s and early 90s. This period came just before his American Recordings comeback with Rick Rubin. And some believe his time with Mercury was a misguided stretch into commercial territory. But that view doesn’t hold up when you listen to …

Three years into the seventh decade of Blue Note Records – the famed jazz label – signed an artist who proved to be both controversial and brilliant. But the question that everyone asked at the time was… is it jazz? Norah Jones comes from formidable musical stock. Her father is the acclaimed sitar player Ravi Shankar, her mother the acclaimed …

Initially, it appeared the clue was in the title. Pieced together from outtakes and hastily recorded tracks conceived by two (or occasionally three) members of the already defunct Sex Pistols, The Great Rock’n’Roll Swindle seemed potentially dubious. Plus, it was the brainchild of the group’s manager, Malcolm McLaren, whose primary motivation in compiling the album was to soundtrack the film …

i like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it may not be the snappiest of phrases, but in 2016 it was on everyone’s lips when The 1975 chose it as the title of their zeitgeist-surfing second album. Topping the charts in both the UK and the US, i like it when you sleep… …

Jimmy Page is known for his countless appearances as a hugely in-demand session guitarist in mid-1960s British pop, for the likes of Tom Jones, Billy Fury, Lulu, Joe Cocker, and David Bowie’s Mannish Boys. He was also an in-house producer at Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate Records, where he worked with John Mayall, Eric Clapton (whom he would follow into the …

So much of our history is about establishing records: we are fascinated by who was first to do a particular thing. Yet all too often the history that’s passed down is actually less accurate than we would like it to be. As the popular truism goes, “History is written by the victors,” and the history of recorded jazz is no …

As part of the 20th-anniversary edition of Come Away With Me, Norah Jones wrote extended liner notes detailing her earliest days as a musician and the recording of the iconic album. In this excerpt from those liner notes, Norah explains how she got connected to Blue Note Records and signed a deal for the album. In the spring of 2000, …