A crucial inspiration to several generations of bands, the Fall virtually defined the late-1970s UK post-punk sound. Fall vocalist Mark E. Smith's sung/spoken rants may owe more to beat poetry than rock & roll, but his sociopolitical iconoclasm and t…

Pair a disciple of Oscar Wilde (Morrissey) with an innovator of the electric guitar (Johnny Marr) and you have the most clever cult band of the 1980s, the Smiths. Though they made some of the most effortlessly catchy music of the era, the tension bet…

The mercurial David Bowie is the original pop chameleon. He's been everything from inoffensive pop singer to glam icon to white soul man to art-rocker and more in the course of his long, prolific career. Although Bowie's first hit was 1969's "Space O…

XTC virtually defined the dividing line between punk and new-wave, adding punk's raw energy to their herky-jerky rhythms, funhouse arrangements and Beatles-influenced songcraft. In the early 1980s, bandleader Andy Partridge surrendered to his stage f…

Along with Teardrop Explodes and Wah! Heat, Echo & the Bunnymen were part of the early-1980s Liverpool scene that was somewhat misleadingly dubbed "neo-psychedelic." While the Bunnymen bore elements of the Doors' dark, mysterious sound and decidedly …

Like Bowie, Roxy Music delivered art-rock with a heavy dose of irony, a scarce commodity in the mid-'70s. Bryan Ferry's lounge-lizard persona meshed with Brian Eno's pioneering electronics and Phil Manzanera's highly textured guitar work to create a …