Remembered for their lone hit single "Voices Carry," 'Til Tuesday gradually evolved from a new wave pop band into a vehicle for the songwriting of Aimee Mann. Emerging at the tail end of new wave, 'Til Tuesday's commercial fortunes were helped dramatically by a stylish video for "Voices Carry," which quickly became an MTV favorite. However, the... [+] Read More

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F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that there are no second acts in American life. He may have been right, but luckily for Katrina & the Waves, they either never read Fitzgerald, or the Anglo half of their Anglo-American lineup made them immune from this pattern. With a charismatic lead singer fronting a band pulled together by guitarist Kimberley... [+] Read More

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At Stiff Records, nothing was sacred; often the label's slogans and unorthodox promotion were as memorable as the truly inspired music they released. With teenage Rachel Sweet, whom they marketed as a "jailbait" country singer (and later as a leather-clad child abductor), it would seem that their perverse humor had finally gone too far. One... [+] Read More

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It may not have the hip thing to do at the time but Shoes carried on the pure pop traditions of the Beatles and the Raspberries during the late '70s and early '80s with a charming innocence and execution unmatched by the more derivative bands lumped into the category "power pop."

Shoes was formed by in Zion, IL, in 1975 by Jeff... [+] Read More

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The first of many acts to cement the college town of Athens, GA, as a hotbed of alternative music, the B-52's took their name from the Southern slang for the mile-high bouffant wigs sported by singers Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, a look emblematic of the band's campy, thrift-store aesthetic. The five-piece group, which also included founding... [+] Read More

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The first of many acts to cement the college town of Athens, GA, as a hotbed of alternative music, the B-52's took their name from the Southern slang for the mile-high bouffant wigs sported by singers Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, a look emblematic of the band's campy, thrift-store aesthetic. The five-piece group, which also included founding... [+] Read More

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Although frequently aligned with the punk movement, the Rezillos' (later known as the Revillos) irreverent glam-rock image and affection for campy girl-group iconography set them distinctly apart from their peers. Formed in 1976 in Edinburgh, Scotland, the group was initially a fluid and highly informal collective centered around lead vocalists... [+] Read More

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Such power pop founders as the Raspberries and Big Star may have been woefully underappreciated during their initial run in the early '70s, but by the end of the decade, several of their offspring had taken the style to the upper reaches of the charts -- including Cheap Trick, the Knack, and the Romantics. But what set the group apart from their... [+] Read More

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One of the great English punk bands of the late '70s, there is only one thing wrong with the careers of X-Ray Spex and lead singer Poly Styrene -- they didn't record enough music. Formed in 1976 by school friends Marion Elliot (Styrene) and Susan Whitby (saxophonist Lora Logic), X-Ray Spex exploded onto the punk scene with one of the era's great... [+] Read More

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XTC was one of the smartest -- and catchiest -- British pop bands to emerge from the punk and new wave explosion of the late '70s. From the tense, jerky riffs of their early singles to the lushly arranged, meticulous pop of their later albums, XTC's music has always been driven by the hook-laden songwriting of guitarist Andy Partridge and... [+] Read More

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