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One rose out of New York City’s Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene after relocating from his Minnesota roots. The other cut his teeth playing Manchester rock clubs at the height of Beatlemania and was briefly a roadie for the Jimi Hendrix Experience. One wrote lyrically dense and ambitious songs that became American standards like “The Times They Are a-Changin’,” “Blowin’ In The Wind,” and “Chimes Of Freedom.” The other wrote “Go To Hell,” “Eat The Rich,” and “Orgasmatron.” One toured until he literally couldn’t stand up at the mike any more, and soon passed away; the other is alive and well…

By the time he retired from The Daily Vault in 2012, site founder Christopher Thelen had written well over 1,000 reviews for our pages. From the 26-review "A To Z" New Year's Eve feature to a month devoted to the entire discography (at the time) of Frank Zappa, he wasn't afraid to tackle anything - or ruffle people's feathers. But after 15 years of running and writing for the site, he finally decided enough was enough, and went off quietly into the background with his dog, Sounder, and we thought we had (finally) heard the last from the old windbag.…

What's new? What's hot? These are questions we've been asking for as long as popular music has existed. Over the past 50 years hundreds of thousands of debut albums have appeared. From January through November 2014, contributing writer Michael R. Smith reviewed his favorites from a  half-century of classic debut discs. 1/5/14 - The Beatles / Please Please Me1/12/14 - Simon & Garfunkel / Wednesday Morning, 3 AM1/19/14 - The Monkees / The Monkees 1/26/14 - The Velvet Underground / The Velvet Underground And Nico  2/2/14 - The Stooges / The Stooges 2/9/14 - John Lennon / John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band…

Over a half century into the era of rock and roll, if there's one thing we've learned, it's that every year is different. Some are defining years, some are years of transition. Some are years of transformation, some of beginnings, and some of endings. In every case, it's fascinating to view the entire tapestry of that year's music all at once, to see how different artists reacted to the same trends, the same fresh ideas, in real time, in parallel to one another.Your professor for this extended course in historical musicology will be longtime Daily Vault contributor Benjamin Ray. Every…

In an era when the big labels—those few still in existence, that is—are increasingly reliant on recycling their own catalogues by issuing “deluxe” editions of classic albums featuring newly unearthed obscurities as bonus tracks, it seems only fitting that we follow suit. Before Jason Warburg joined the Daily Vault staff in October 1997, he cut his teeth as a music reviewer for a semi-weekly arts-and-entertainment tabloid called On The Town in Sacramento, California. While a handful of those early reviews have been republished on the Daily Vault over the intervening years, most had not, until this feature launched. From October…

They were at the vanguard of the original British Invasion, still considered by many to be one of that movement's original four horsemen -- the other three being the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and The Who. They would go on to be one of the first, and arguably most successful, proponents of the concept album, churning out a memorable string of them between 1968 and 1975. And they featured one of the great love-hate sibling rivalries in the history of rock in the persons of frontman Ray Davies and lead guitarist Davie Davies. They are The Kinks, the subjects of…

It's a year that has never demanded the same amount or intensity of attention as 1964 (The British Invasion) or 1967 (The Summer Of Love). And yet it is a year that shook worlds -- both the larger one and the musical one.It was 1970, the year that everything changed.The Beatles broke up. Simon & Garfunkel drifted apart. Crosby Stills Nash & Young took a drug-and-ego fueled rollercoaster ride to the top before quickly flaming out. And the singer-songwriter movement -- the musical comfort food of the day -- blossomed in the hands of artists like James Taylor and Carole…

In November 2009, Sean McCarthy set out to tackle reviewing his personal Top 100 albums of the first decade of the 21st century.  These 100 capsule reviews are broken into sets of 20, with the first set published on November 2, 2009.  Collect 'em all! Top 100 Of The 2000s 11/2/09 -- Numbers 100 through 81 11/9/09 -- Numbers 80 through 61 11/16/09 -- Numbers 60 through 41 11/23/09 -- Numbers 40 through 21 11/30/09 -- Numbers 20 through 1  

The gorgeous models on the sleeve. No, it’s not The Cars. The preening front man and his androgynous keyboard player. No, it’s not Duran Duran. The eight albums in ten years before calling it a day. No, it’s not ABBA. The career slump when they flirted with dance music. No, it’s not U2. It’s the group whose hit single “Pyjamarama” served as inspiration for the name of the most successful British girl group of all time, Bananarama. There’s a great Trivial Pursuit question for you. It’s Roxy Music, of course. One of the most influential British bands that toed the…

  In 1964 Marianne Faithfull made a rather innocuous decision that would forever change the course of her life.  Marianne accepted an invitation to a swanky shindig in London one night and very soon after arriving she’d attracted the attentions of one Andrew Loog-Oldham who wanted to know if the pretty young lass could sing.  Andrew was the manager of The Rolling Stones and after hearing the young Faithfull sing he wasted no time in having her singed to the Decca label.  The first few years of Faithfull’s career were pretty tame to say the least.  She was the darling…