Takes from the Top: Badfinger’s 'No Dice'
The accents were Liverpudlian, the songs were convincingly Fab. By the time sessions for 1970’s "No Dice" were complete, Badfinger — guitarist Pete Ham, bassist Tom Evans, lead guitarist Joey Molland and drummer Mike Gibbins — was beginning to look and sound very much like the Beatles’ hand-picked heir apparent.
291 hits | 7 comments | added on 11.12.09

Takes from the Top: The Ramones’ Rocket to Russia
Though it yielded but one minor hit and was virtually ignored by mainstream radio, 1977’s Rocket to Russia became the most successful effort to date for the Ramones, a band whose main mission was to give the rock establishment a long-overdue smack in the face.
887 hits | 1 comments | added on 09.14.09

Takes from the Top: The Smithereens’ 'Green Thoughts'
Recorded in just two weeks in late 1987, Green Thoughts — a set of molten, melancholic rock from New Jersey’s the Smithereens—still stands as one of the most powerful collections of pop from the time.
1265 hits | 1 comments | added on 05.15.09

Jay Ferguson on Writing TV Themes
First entering the public consciousness as lead singer of jazz-rock band Spirit and scoring a hit as a solo artist with 1978’s Thunder Island, Jay Ferguson has for the past 25 years focused on composing for television and film. Having written music for over 15 feature films and numerous television shows, Ferguson’s most notable recent success is the theme music for the U.S. version of The Office, for which he won the 2007 Film & TV Music Award for Best Score for a Comedy Television Program. Here, Ferguson shares his thoughts on the state of the TV theme business, and offers some advice for those looking to enter the field.
2364 hits | 1 comments | added on 04.01.09

Tales From the Top: The Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers (1971)
In late 1969, Sheffield, Alabama’s Muscle Shoals Sound — a former casket factory conveniently located next to a graveyard — was still a shoestring operation with just one hit to its credit. That is, until the Rolling Stones arrived for an impromptu three-day session in December and proceeded to put the renegade studio on the map.
3082 hits | 5 comments | added on 01.30.09

Tales From the Top: Recording Pink’s ‘Get the Party Started’ (2001)
For those who fantasize about creating a worldwide smash from the privacy of their basement studio, Pink’s 2001 breakthrough hit “Get the Party Started” — and the rest of her multiplatinum second effort M!ssundaztood — is proof that, even in today's inner-circle society, pop miracles still do happen.
3707 hits | 11 comments | added on 11.06.08

Tales From the Top: Van Halen’s ‘Van Halen’ (1978)
The air-brushed album cover looked silly, an over-the-top rendering of "You Really Got Me” disgusted many a Kinks fan — and yet on their massive-sounding Warner Brothers debut, Southern California’s Van Halen offered proof positive that this was no run-of-the-mill heavy rock band. "They cut 28 songs in about two hours,” recalls engineer Donn Landee. “That's when we knew we had a band that could play."
3975 hits | 8 comments | added on 09.05.08

Tales from the Top: Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush
An affiliation with pals David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash left guitarist Neil Young poised for superstardom as he made plans to cut his third solo album in early 1970. Anyone else might have gone for something big; instead, Young set about recording After the Gold Rush in his basement.
5243 hits | 2 comments | added on 06.11.08

Tales from the Top: Johnny Cash’s ‘At Folsom Prison’
Forty years ago this month, Johnny Cash connected with a live captive audience — and the resulting effort, At Folsom Prison, helped the Man in Black find his way back.
5509 hits | 2 comments | added on 04.18.08

Tales From the Top: George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass
Meticulously orchestrated and containing over a dozen songs left over from the end of the Beatles era, the triple-disc All Things Must Pass demonstrated that not only could George Harrison play choice lead guitar, he could also write, arrange, overdub, produce, mix and edit—and reach No. 1 with a song about a religious cult.
4278 hits | 5 comments | added on 12.21.07