Progressive rock emerged in the late 1960s when rock musicians were empowered to move away from the singles format and into the album era, and likewise, allowed to explore conceptual and instrumental boundaries. This artistic and commercial freedom resulted in a tsunami of progressive rock albums during its peak between 1971–1976, when hundreds, maybe thousands, of albums flooded the record store bins.

Like many comparable rock genres, alternative rock music went through phases or waves of emergence, peak saturation, and ultimate decline. Our task is to parse and evaluate the best albums from the period, which isn’t easy. It begs a bigger question: What is alternative rock? Modern rock bands are still making what we call “alternative rock,” but the genre itself never gelled as a unified sound.

I bought Harry Nilsson’s All Time Greatest Hits (1989) during the same CD-buying binge in San Francisco that’s responsible for Discovery of the Week: The Beta Band | The Three EPs. Somehow, All Time Greatest Hits wound up in Taipei, and now, Metro Manila. I’m not surprised it’s here; but I don’t have an interesting reason. It kept getting tossed into the box as I moved from one place to the next.

If this is your first exposure to my journey through 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die…Or Not, I highly, no, strongly recommend that you browse the introduction before reading any further. However, I know that many of you aren’t going to click away from this page right now, and frankly, I don’t blame you. “Let’s get on with it,” you say.

Chicago is my hometown. Born on the West Side and raised in the western suburbs, I spent the first 30 years of my life in the Windy City, including a five-year stretch on the North Side (Bucktown). I miss my city every day. To be honest, I mostly miss the food and the people, not the weather. Before You Start: 25 Songs About Chicago Edition…

Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived the endless purges and border crossings that come with long-term expat life.

Original motion picture soundtracks (OSTs) can be wildly inconsistent in terms of listening value and experience. Sometimes, they include (many of) the songs played in the movie, such as Saturday Night Fever (1977) and Purple Rain (1984). Others, like the Star Wars OSTs by John Williams —one of the most recognizable and influential scores in cinematic history—only contain the orchestral score.

Have you ever wondered why there's been a two-decade wave of rock star memoirs and autobiographies on the bookshelves and in our virtual bookstores? We've compiled the ultimate list of rock music memoirs to demonstrate the incredible variety of musicians who've added "author" to their resumés. But first, let's understand why this phenomenon is happening. Why Are There So Many Rock Star Memoirs?

Algorithms are funny things. I was searching Amazon for an album when I noticed a bunch of suggested products further down the page. I paused at Confess: The Autobiography by Rob Halford—mainly because it was news to me—but the books keep coming from Slash, Mike Campbell, Prince, Kenny Loggins... Soon, my feed was absolutely flooded with rock star memoirs.

Of the four books in the Lunar New Years series, Year of the Dragon & Everything After: Book 4 (2025) was the hardest to write, and it's my least favorite of the series, for several intersecting reasons. As an author, you can't think of books like children. It's normal to like one more than the other. I don't feel bad about it.

Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived the endless purges and border crossings that come with long-term expat life.

Some rock bands are built for albums. They reward patience, headphones, liner notes, and the kind of long-distance devotion that only comes from growing up with their music. Other bands? They require a specialized type of curation. This post is about the second group—the artists whose best selves appear when someone else trims the fat. Bands whose singles outshine their deep cuts.

The moon is one of the more popular themes in popular music. Songs about the moon (or moon-adjacent) are not quite in the “love” category of blanket coverage, but significantly more popular than, say, songs about California or Mexico, or even cats and dogs. The moon is a popular subject because it sounds good to the ear, is easy to sing, and rhymes well with other words of the same quality.

Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived the endless purges and border crossings that come with long-term expat life.

I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since I started this Albums You Must Hear Before You Die…Or Not project. If this post is your introduction to the gambit, here’s a quick rundown of the timeline: In 2015, I took it upon myself to listen to every album in the book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die by Robert Dimery (editor) and Michael Lydon (preface).

If you’re moving (or thinking about moving) abroad, you might imagine yourself forming lifelong bonds with fascinating people from around the globe. That happens sometimes, but more often than not, friendships are a matter of circumstance and convenience, like a prison cafeteria arrangement—I call it "the cafeteria model": you sit at the expat table because that’s the only table available. These relationships tend to be ephemeral because one of you probably isn’t going to be there next year.

We've covered three of the Big Four positions in rock music—vocals, guitar, and bass—so it's time to list the top rock drummers of all time (according to me). But before we get to the list, you deserve some backstory, and, of course, I'm increasingly fond of an early bird spoiler. My number one pick is not going to surprise anybody. And it shouldn't.

Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived the endless purges and border crossings that come with long-term expat life.

I’ve been published in legitimate travel magazines, and I've authored five books in the Travel category, but I don’t consider myself a travel writer. I’m a writer who travels frequently and often writes about it, but my work isn't geared toward travel magazines. Most of my travel writing happens in journal entries. I treat every day like an indifferent observer on the scene of a bank heist gone wrong.

Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived the endless purges and border crossings that come with long-term expat life.

Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived the endless purges and border crossings that come with long-term expat life.

Much in the same way I rate guitar players by their influence on my playing, rock bassists are only as good as their best line—the one that sticks with me. Though I mostly came up as a guitarist, from the mid-1990s to the present, I played bass in Golden Tones and on all my solo work with Aztec Hearts. The instrument was foisted on me by circumstance, but I learned to love it, and I learned how to play by listening to other bassists.

Discovery of the Week is a weekly series that digs through a box of 40 well-traveled CDs I’ve carried across the ocean for nearly two decades. Each disc has its own history—where I found it, why I kept it, and what it means to me. Some are classics, others are obscure relics, but all survived the endless purges and border crossings that come with long-term expat life.

As a long-term expat, I’m keenly aware of stuff, and by stuff, I mean shit you own and take for granted at home. Books, records, lamps, furniture, appliances, etc. For many aspiring and current expatriates, the main source of anxiety about leaving is: What Am I Gonna Do With All My Stuff? It's one of the practical realities of the lifestyle…

From Buck Owens to The Flaming Lips, artists have been singing about Japan for decades—sometimes as wide-eyed tourists, sometimes as dreamers, and too many times as creepy reports of the Asian fetish. This list vaguely explores how musicians across genres have (mis)interpreted the country as both place and idea: a symbol of distance, fantasy, and modern life seen through a Western gaze.