As the 1980s drew to a close, hip hop had reached a pivotal moment. Whilst a potential for empowerment in mainstream rap had so far remained largely un-tapped, in favour of escapist music built for ...

Recorded at Hansa Tonstudio in what was then West Berlin, “Heroes” reflected the zeitgeist of the Cold War, symbolised by the divided city. Check out this playlist of music that inspired the album ...

Recorded in 1969 and released in 1970, Black Gold was one of the final albums released before Nina Simone’s time in the United States came to an abrupt end. The album is especially notable because it ...

The Kooks’ Luke Prichard and Hugh Harris join Classic Album Sundays’ Tina Edwards to celebrate 15 years of their debut album Inside In/Inside Out. Released in 2006, their debut sounds like the work of ...

Paco de Lucia was a huge influence on me as a guitarist and artist as a whole. Besides his superhuman ability to astonish any crowd with his virtuoso technique, he was a phenomenal composer with a ...

Kraftwerk helped launch a musical revolution that started with new wave and extended itself through hip hop, techno, electro, house music and just about every variation of electronic music that is ...

The Flaming Lips blurred fact and fiction to make sense of our chaotic world; a world that continues to delight and horrify in equal measure. Check out some of the artists they inspired in our ...

This revelation was frustrated by the intractability of Joyce’s estate, which repeatedly refused Bush permission to use the words as her lyrics on ‘The Sensual World’. She was forced to rebuild from ...

Ready or Not, the Fugees dropped The Score on the world in 1996 and scored an opus masterpiece that achieved massive commercial and “crossover” success and is, by any standard, a classic album. Check ...

Gilles Peterson speaks with CAS founder Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy about the influence of Sun Ra and why he believes “Sun Ra was the man, the ultimate artist for any vinyl collector”. Sun Ra was a one-off ...

“If I’m going to sing like someone else, then I don’t need to sing at all.” – Billie Holiday Why is Billie Holiday still considered as one of the greatest jazz voices of all time? Throughout her ...

This week’s episode of Behind The Counter season 6 features Spinning Around Records in Telford. “I started collecting records in 2015, and I loved going into my local record shop. I struck up a ...