Music Bank
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Shelby Lynne
Shelby Lynne playlist Contributor: Carl Parker If Toppermost allowed more than ten tracks, this could be called Shelby Lynne (Part 2). This is because Shelby’s career falls into two distinct parts. The first part made up of the five albums that preceded the release in 1999 of I Am Shelby Lynne […]
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Marty Wilde
England in the late 1950s had its share of rock & roll stars — Cliff Richard was the most successful and the late Billy Fury is still revered by those aware of the music. In between them, chronologically, stands Marty Wilde. He grew up in Greenwich, in southeast London. The son of a professional soldier, he lived in various parts of England throughout his childhood. He reached the middle of his teen years living in London, just at the point that Lonnie Donegan, playing in a jazz band run by Chris Barber, had jump-started the entire skiffle boom…
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The Man From Delmonte
The Man From Delmonte were an independent band from Manchester, England, formed in the mid-1980s. The band members had little in common with most Manchester bands. Howard Goody was a graduate of Winchester School of Art. Martin Vincent had been an art critic and painter. Sheila Seal, a Glaswegian, was a classically trained musician who had run an art gallery. And Mike West, who wrote the songs, was the Australian-born son of the author Morris West. The band played many gigs at the Boardwalk club, in Manchester, where they recorded their Big Noise live album in 1989…
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The Piranhas
The Piranhas were a ska-influenced punk band. Their live act was supposed to be one of the best around and they soon had a large following and were beginning to get some choice gigs out of town. Their songs were laced with a dry, sardonic wit, backed up with some catchy hooklines. They were formed in 1977, and were originally part of the Brighton punk scene…
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Ritchie Valens
The first Hispanic rock star, Ritchie Valens will forever be known as one of the two musicians (along with the Big Bopper) who perished with Buddy Holly in 1959, when their private plane crashed in the midst of a Midwest tour. At the time, Valens had only recently established himself as one of the most promising young talents in rock & roll, just barely missing the top of the charts with “Donna,” a number two hit, and pioneering a blend of rock and Latin music with the single’s almost equally popular flip side, “La Bamba”…
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Then Jerico
In the late-’80s pinup void that followed Duran Duran’s decline, there was no shortage of British contenders to fill the Fab Five’s shoes. One of those bands was Then Jerico, a guitar-oriented London quartet fronted by the photogenic Mark Shaw. Shaw had formed the band at age 21, recruiting bassist Jasper Stainthorpe and drummer Steve Wren and poaching guitarist Scott Taylor from Belouis Some. The group released a single, “The Big Sweep,” on Immaculate Records in 1985…
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The Only Ones
Led by the raffish and slightly scuzzy romance-obsessed Peter Perrett, the Only Ones were one of the punk era’s most underrated bands. Not as confrontational as the Sex Pistols, as politically indulgent as the Clash, or as stripped-down as the Ramones, the Only Ones played not-so-fast guitar rock that sounded deeply indebted to the New York Dolls and other mid-’70s proto-punks. Singing his intelligently crafted pop songs in a semi-tuneful whine of a voice and backed by a band that effectively combined youthful exuberance with gracefully aging veterans…
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Blue Öyster Cult
Since releasing their self-titled 1972 Columbia debut, Blue Öyster Cult have been called everything from the thinking man’s heavy metal group to an occult rock band to the first pop/heavy metal act. They have sold more than 25 million records, and they released a handful of singles during the ’70s that became classic rock radio standards, among them “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” “Burnin’ for You,” and “Godzilla.” Lyrics that crisscrossed science fiction, the occult, and horror films; their layered, three-guitar attack; expansive vocal harmonies; and almost inimitable balance between crunchy riffs and infectious hooks resulted in the most listenable metal of the ’70s…
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Lloyd Cole
and the Commotions
Through both his lauded work fronting the Commotions and his more eclectic solo efforts, Lloyd Cole established himself as one of the most articulate and acute songwriters of the post-punk era. As a songwriter, Cole’s literate and quite British lyrical style is wed to a melodic sensibility that’s graceful even when he’s at his most physical. Musically, Cole’s sound has steadily evolved since he made his debut with his group the Commotions on 1984’s Rattlesnakes…
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Waxahatchee
Though Waxahatchee has spanned self-recorded solo material, reflective folk-rock, and more raucous, full-band indie rock, the project has remained intensely personal in nature. Making her debut with the breakup-inspired American Weekend in 2012, songwriter Katie Crutchfield continued to amplify her knack for hooks and engaging melodies through her John Agnello-co-produced fourth LP, 2017’s Out in the Storm. A year later, she reversed course with the spare Great Thunder EP, which revisited material from her side duo with Keith Spencer from Swearin’, while 2020’s Saint Cloud settled into a more reflective folk-rock.
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