By: Sarah Weinman

If FREDDIE MERCURY (Farrokh Bulsara, born 1946) had been born a century earlier, audiences would have flocked to see him hit high Cs at La Scala or Opera de Paris instead of belting out the […]

By: Tor Aarestad

With the ouster of original vocalist Paul Di’Anno and the hiring of BRUCE DICKINSON (born 1958) just before the release of their immortal third album, The Number of the Beast, Iron Maiden had finally completed […]

By: Franklin Bruno

Just as it isn’t Burt Bacharach’s fault that his name is now rock-critical shorthand for “This band knows someone with a flugelhorn,” BRIAN WILSON (born 1942) is not to be blamed that his is invoked […]

By: Lynn Peril

NANCY SINATRA (born 1940) was everywhere in the mid-1960s: dressed in tight leather as a motorcycle mama in The Wild Angels, blowing minds with Lee Hazlewood and Sammy Davis, Jr. on her Movin’ With Nancy […]

By: Jason Grote

There are two kinds of people in this world: Shaft and Superfly people. But while Shaft and Isaac Hayes have long enjoyed an irony-driven revival, the far superior Superfly and CURTIS MAYFIELD (1942-99) are overdue […]

By: Erik Davis

Back when rock’s head was swelling, when the attention deficit disorder of a Keith Moon could be mistaken for genius, JOHN BONHAM (1948-80) was largely dismissed as a ham-fisted lout. Now we know that the […]

By: Jason Grote

Editor’s note: This is one of the most popular posts, traffic-wise, ever published on HiLobrow. Click here to see a list of the Top 25 Most Popular posts (as of October 2012); and click here […]

By: James Parker

HiLobrow.com was recently drugged, blindfolded and pushed through a series of strangely booming rooms en route to an exclusive listening party for the new MORRISSEY (born 1959) album. And still we managed to take notes! […]

By: Mimi Lipson

Look at the way people describe JOEY RAMONE’s (1951-2001) voice: “bleat,” “snarl,” “hiccup.” Would they say the same about Ronnie Spector? His voice was honest, plangent… it was bliss. He left us too soon, yes, […]

By: Tor Aarestad

Although other rock frontmen had been strange before MARK MOTHERSBAUGH (born 1950), none had been so aggressively strange or so brazenly uncool. Devo was the soundtrack of a life spent stumbling on uneven pavement, knocking […]

By: Mimi Lipson

JONATHAN RICHMAN (born 1951) sings to us exactly as we speak to ourselves. And besides, without him poor Affection would sit there standing in the corner, saying to itself, “I wish someone would give me […]

By: David Smay

The contemporary iteration of BRIAN ENO (born 1948) as cerebral master of oblique strategies is certainly worth considering. But my affection is for the balding, androgyne playboy of the early Seventies. Nobody had more sex […]

By: Tor Aarestad

IAN DURY (1942–2000) is often identified with the original wave of British punk, but it’s hard to see much similarity between Dury and Johnny Rotten or Sid Vicious. Bawdy and sensual where they were aggressive […]

By: David Smay

Unfairly dismissed by Sixties rock critics as a fey and twee Dylan wannabe, DONOVAN (born 1946) was clearly the unacknowledged legislator of all things fey and twee. Cat Stevens and Marc Bolan carved their entire […]

By: Joshua Glenn

… every once in a while. In the magazine’s annual Best of New York issue, Ethan Lipton And His Orchestra were named Best Lounge Act. HiLobrow — one of whom named the video for EL&HO’s […]