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 …

Eschewing everything but the pursuit of fun, Athens, GA's B-'52s burst onto the New Wave scene in 1979. Their mix of '50s/'60s kitsch and pure pop instincts produced some classic campy tunes ("Rock Lobster," "Private Idaho"). The band's popularity hi…

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…

In the late 1970s, Julian Cope, Ian McCulloch, and Pete Wylie were members of Liverpool band the Crucial Three. They went on to form the Teardrop Explodes, Echo & the Bunnymen, and Wah! Heat, respectively, the nucleus of the UK's co-called "neo-psych…

Drawing heavily on the spangled power-pop of cult favorites Big Star, Teenage Fanclub's sound was fresh and captivating in the pre-grunge 1980s. At the height of its fame, the Glaswegian quartet was at the forefront of the Britpop scene that eventual…

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…

No other band has had quite the same impact as the four lads from Liverpool. Over the course of eight years and more than a dozen albums, the Beatles changed popular music and culture forever, spearheading the 1960s British Invasion and shaping rock …

The 1987 breakup of the Smiths saddened legions of fans, but it led to a fruitful solo career for lead singer and lyricist Morrissey. The Smiths were very much a singles band, and VIVA HATE, Morrissey's first record, continued in the Smiths vein with…

Enormously influential on both the music and club scene of late-1980s/early '90s England, the Happy Mondays emerged from singer Shaun Ryder's desire to merge the energy of dance music (distinct from funk) with the rawness of the post-punk era, filter…

From the 1960s through the early '80s, Captain Beeheart (Don Van Vliet) fused free jazz, the avant-garde, blues, and rock in a highly original, unclassifiable style. He's had few peers, but his angular, uncompromising sound has influenced countless y…

After the breakup of the Sex Pistols in 1978, John Lydon (formerly Johnny Rotten) continued to push the boundaries of music with an "anti-rock" project that he initially declared more of a corporation than a band. Public Image Ltd.'s early efforts de…

Joy Division virtually defined the term "post-punk." They combined punk's rawness and iconoclasm with an artier sensibility that encompassed poetic lyrics, existentialism, and a dark moody mix of guitars and keyboards that was a major influence on go…

Although it's unfair to reduce a band to a single song, it's difficult not to when the song is as exquisite (and ubiquitous) as the La's second single,"There She Goes." While the Liverpool group's update of classic 1960s guitar-pop from both sides of…

This critically lauded and highly skilled pop band's efforts to break into the mainstream were consistently thwarted despite a splendid arsenal of songs. The band was originally formed when the O'Neill brothers, Sean (b. 26 August 1957, Londonderry, …

Since their beginnings as a neo-psychedelic group in the late 1980s, Primal Scream has traveled a twisting path, with stops at indie rock, blues rock, dub, dance, and techno. Though mainman Bobby Gillespie (formerly of the Jesus and Mary Chain) and h…