Allen Ginsberg understood as well as anyone that, in the latter half of the 20th century, rock & roll would be the medium through which poetry and social commentary would reach the young and hungry masses. He eagerly hopped a ride on the bandwagon, collaborating with Dylan, the Clash, and Cornershop; setting William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience to music; and teaching "Eleanor Rigby" to his English classes at Brooklyn College…

Over the years, trying to determine what is true "prog rock" and what is not has become an increasingly tricky proposition. In the early '70s, it was easy – any band that performed "suites" that extended across entire album sides and dressed in capes and/or cloaks was a dead giveaway…

This high-fidelity live concert recording captures bassist Dominic Duval's quintet at the height of its powers. Each of the fully improvised tracks is simply entitled "Cries & Whispers," and numbered chronologically. To be sure, three strings and two reeds are unusual instrumentation, and in lesser hands the results might have been less focused…

The Road is a concept album about relationships, addictions, and the struggles of modern day life. The style of music is a mix of modern/pyscedelic/classic rock and blues…

Run with the Pack, Bad Company's third and best album, reiterates the raw, rowdy style of their debut, Bad Co., solidifies the loose ends that marred Straight Shooter and adds new directions of its own. Maybe most importantly, the record is refreshing proof that rockers don't have to produce literature in their lyrics or cultivate personae to create good art. Bad Company's is a purely musical triumph…

The Doors returned to crunching, straightforward hard rock on Morrison Hotel, an album that, despite yielding no major hit singles, returned them to critical favor with hip listeners. An increasingly bluesy flavor began to color the songwriting and arrangements, especially on the party'n'booze anthem "Roadhouse Blues."…

Of all of Frank Zappa's discography, Thing-Fish must be his most controversial, misunderstood, overlooked album. Obviously, it is not a masterpiece, but reducing it to a compilation album with a racist plot distorts the reality…

There's a certain relief that the 2002 double-disc set The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac doesn't even attempt to dabble in the early blues work of the Peter Green band, and treats the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks as ground zero…

The Soft Parade is the fourth studio album by the American rock band The Doors, and was released on July 18, 1969, on Elektra Records (see 1969 in music). It saw the group departing from the material that encompassed their past three albums…

Cut straight on the heels of Bad Company's 1974 debut – just a matter of three months later; not quite long enough to know how big a success the first LP would be – Straight Shooter is seemingly cut from the same cloth as its predecessor…