Led by Black Francis (AKA Charles Thompson), this Boston band reveled in the raw, loud energy of punk, but harnessed it in service of catchy melodies laced with bizarre lyrics. Their 1989 album, DOOLITTLE, is widely considered to be one of the best a…

This Athens band's initial mix of Velvet Underground strum, Byrds-like Rickenbacker jangle, and charismatically oblique singing, became the sound of the 1980s as legions of bands followed suit. But even as imitators codified R.E.M.'s approach into th…

The Clash was one of the first and most important British punk bands. In the 1970s, they were the Beatles to the Sex Pistols' Stones, and went on to incorporate elements from all the roots music they loved--reggae, rockabilly, soul, blues--without ev…

Led by depressive pop prince Robert Smith, the Cure have taken their legions of fans on a journey from post-punk to gothic to new wave to art rock, stopping only for refills of hairspray along the way. An amazing band both live and in the studio, the…

Drawing equally from punk rock and new-music pioneers such as John Cage and Glenn Branca (whom guitarists Thurston Moore and Lee Renaldo both played with), Sonic Youth employed a palette of white noise that deconstructed punk-rock orthodoxy into radi…

Scottish brothers Jim and William Reid formed the Jesus & Mary Chain in 1984. With their monotone vocals, feedback-drenched guitar sound, and notoriously chaotic gigs, the band garnered plenty of media attention and then backed up the hype with their…

Along with Badfinger and the Raspberries, Big Star helped forge the power pop template in the early-1970s. But unlike these other bands, there was always something darker lurking under the obvious pop hooks in leader Alex Chilton's songwriting and ly…

When pioneering alt-country band Uncle Tupelo split in the mid-1990s, they broke off into two camps. Jay Farrar started the rootsy, twangy (if lyrically elliptical) Son Volt. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Jeff Tweedy, who co-led the band with Farrar, e…

From their early days as the house band for Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the Velvet Underground were the antithesis of late-1960s Flower Power optimism. Lou Reed's decadent lyrics and dour vocals proved to be the perfect match for the …

Inaugurators of the "lo-fi" alternative rock sound, Pavement set the course for college rock in the 1990s. Their skewed, shambolic guitar pop, slacker vocals, and dense wordplay endeared them to those disenchanted by lumpen grunge sounds. Over time, …

In a relatively brief career that began in 1979 and ended in 1987, Husker Du left an indelible mark, making a great impact on subsequent rock trends including grunge, alternative, and emo. The Minneapolis trio had its first major success on the fable…

Born in the early 1980s out of the ashes of U.K. post-punk pioneers Joy Division, New Order became one of the first electro-pop bands to find mainstream success in the US. Their single "Blue Monday" was a landmark in dance music, and subsequent recor…

Bob Dylan began as a Woody Guthrie acolyte, imitating the dust-bowl balladeer as faithfully as a baby boomer from Hibbing, Minnesota, could. It wasn't long before he found his own voice, spearheading the early-1960s folk revival as well as the singer…

Proving you could rock despite having attended the Rhode Island School of Design, Talking Heads' innovative brand of downtown art-pop featured David Byrne's manic yelp, pointed lyrics about mundane subjects, and R&B-meets-Velvet Underground grooves, …

Originally part of the early 1960s British blues/R&B scene, the Rolling Stones rapidly ascended the heights of fame with a perfect combination of hit singles and media-grabbing scandals. By the '70s, Keith Richards had become a bona fide guitar hero,…

The Jam were at the forefront of two musical movements at once in late-'70s England--punk and the mod revival. While the young trio posessed just as much brashness and raw energy as the Sex Pistols or the Clash, they also had the pop smarts and soul …

Elvis Costello arrived at the tail end of punk with short, incendiary tunes about revenge and guilt, and a visual image to match, looking like a pissed-off Buddy Holly. But the pose belied his musical range and lyrical sophistication, and he came to …

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…

U2's Bono was one of the few real rock heroes of the 1980s, leading the Irish band to international recognition with a charged, political approach to music. The band's early efforts brought a stadium-size presence to alt-rock, with Bono's expressive …

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 …