Ian Fortnam

With poetic concision and angular symphonics, guitarists Richard Lloyd and Tom Verlaine always took the most unorthodox route from one guitar chord to another

The Velvet Underground reshaped the sound of rock'n'roll with four albums that continue to have an incalculable influence on the musical zeitgeist. The less said about their fifth, the better

After the fractious Let It Be sessions, Paul McCartney urged his bandmates back into the studio to make an album “like the old days, like we used to"

"I would never take Mick's recollection of anything seriously" - Keith Richards

It may well be Chreeeeesssstttmaaaaaaasssssss, but Slade, like puppies, are an all-year proposition

Celebrating the pioneering, the spectacular, the unexpected and the unrepeatable

The past 12 months may go down in history as a period of tumult and turmoil, but on the positive side, rock'n'roll is very much alive and well – as the best 50 albums of 2023 reflect

Saint Agnes's metal-meets-punk debut album is angry – very angry. They live for the stage, and that’s where they come alive

For prodigious Brooklynite post-post-punks Geese, it all began just as they were about to call it a day

Two Iggy Pop albums and the ‘Berlin Trilogy’ – the second half of the 1970s was David Bowie’s most groundbreaking period

How five psychedelic freaks from Detroit became rock’n’roll’s first great bogeymen – this is the story of Alice Cooper’s early years

Half a century of recordings from ‘the greatest rock‘n’roll band in the world’, ranked from worst to brilliant, belligerent best

Massively inspirational, the 1969 album didn’t enjoy mass appeal at the time.

Forget the Great American Songbook series – these are the albums that prove Rod Stewart is one of rock’s greatest voices

The Rolling Stones' last Top 10 UK single Start Me Up was originally an entirely different beast – and Keith Richards may still hold a grudge about that

Members of Kiss, Black Sabbath, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, Rage Against The Machine and more reveal the albums that set them on the path to rock stardom

Twelve Lou Reed tracks for the connoisseur, charting his journey from black-clad street poet to ornery elder statesman

Ahead of their gig with Iggy Pop at the Dog Day Afternoon festival in London, Blondie’s Clem Burke and former Sex Pistol Glen Matlock talk punk, punk and more punk