
In his new series, music and vinyl expert Claude Lemaire highlights essential recordingsโand the best pressings to seek outโfor your LP collection, indexed by year of release.

Hair, the movie, was seminalโhere’s why.

20 years of circus, burlesque, art, music, wrestling, and freakshow mayhem!

January 24, 1962, wasnโt just another cold Liverpool morning. It was the day four scruffy ladsโJohn Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Pete Bestโput their faith in a well-dressed, fast-talking record store manager named Brian Epstein. With a few strokes of a pen, they signed a management contract that would change the course of music…

On January 3, 1969, The Lulu Show was about as far from Jimi Hendrixโs usual stomping grounds as you could get. The show was a high-profile, family-friendly TV programโclean-cut, conservative, and far removed from the chaotic energy that defined Hendrixโs live shows. The producers of The Lulu Show likely envisioned a performance that would fit…

It was November 4, 1963, and Londonโs Prince of Wales Theatre was buzzing. The Royal Variety Performance, that stately British showcase, was in full swing. Londonโs cultural pulse was racing, charged by a new phenomenon: Beatlemania. But inside, the atmosphere felt more upper-crust than countercultureโa space typically reserved for polite applause and tasteful applause for…