Songsheets: The Stories Behind the Music

How DJs in the Bronx transformed breakbeats into a global culture

This is a members' issue. Read it free for a week, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/read/early-nyc-hip-hop

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 05:16 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 09:31 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 11:59 Chapter 4: Stories
• 15:30 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: Early New York Hip-Hop on Spotify

Listen along

• DJ Kool Herc, "Happiness": Spotify
• Grandmaster Flash, "The Message": Spotify
• Afrika Bambaataa, "Planet Rock": Spotify
• The Sugarhill Gang, "Rapper's Delight": Spotify
• Kurtis Blow, "The Breaks": Spotify

Start here

• Rapper's Delight by The Sugarhill Gang (1979)
• The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel by Grandmaster Flash (1981)
• The Message by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (1982)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/early-nyc-hip-hop

How Parisian producers filtered disco samples through space-age gear and transformed global dance music in the 1990s

This is a members' issue. Read it free for a week, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/read/french-touch

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 02:52 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 06:19 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 09:31 Chapter 4: Stories
• 12:43 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: French Touch House on Spotify

Listen along

• Étienne de Crécy, "France": Spotify
• Daft Punk, "Da Funk": Spotify
• Cassius, "Cassius 1999": Spotify
• Stardust, "Music Sounds Better With You": Spotify
• Bob Sinclar, "World, Hold On": Spotify
• Justice, "D.A.N.C.E.": Spotify

Start here

• Pansoul by Motorbass (1996)
• Super Discount by Étienne de Crécy (1996)
• Homework by Daft Punk (1997)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/french-touch

How a Bowery dive bar became ground zero for American punk rock and new wave

This is a members' issue. Read it free for a week, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/read/cbgbs-punk

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 02:07 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 03:58 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 05:59 Chapter 4: Stories
• 08:23 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: CBGB's 70s Punk on Spotify

Listen along

• Television, "I Love Lucy": Spotify
• Ramones, "R.A.M.O.N.E.S.": Spotify
• Patti Smith, "Because the Night": Spotify
• Blondie, "Call Me": Spotify
• Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime": Spotify
• Richard Hell and the Voidoids, "Blank Generation": Spotify
• Dead Boys, "Sonic Reducer": Spotify

Start here

• Ramones by Ramones (1976)
• Horses by Patti Smith (1975)
• Marquee Moon by Television (1977)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/cbgbs-punk

How a handful of teenagers in the nation's capital ignited the straight edge movement and redefined American punk

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 02:12 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 04:12 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 05:46 Chapter 4: Stories
• 07:46 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: DC Hardcore on Spotify

Listen along

• Bad Brains, "Big Takeover": Spotify
• Teen Idles, "Fiorucci Nightmare": Spotify
• Minor Threat, "Minor Threat": Spotify
• Rites of Spring, "Spring": Spotify
• Dag Nasty, "What Now??": Spotify
• Fugazi, "Song 1": Spotify
• Nation of Ulysses, "N-Sub Ulysses": Spotify

Start here

• Minor Disturbance by Teen Idles (1980)
• Minor Threat EP by Minor Threat (1981)
• Repeater by Fugazi (1990)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/dc-hardcore

How Suede, Blur, Oasis and Pulp turned guitar pop into a national conversation about class, identity and being British

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 04:25 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 08:43 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 11:14 Chapter 4: Stories
• 15:22 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

Start here

• Suede by Suede (1993)
• Parklife by Blur (1994)
• (What's the Story) Morning Glory? by Oasis (1995)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/britpop

From Manchester's Factory Records to London's art-punk experiments, the movement that made darkness dance

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 02:35 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 05:39 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 07:38 Chapter 4: Stories
• 09:17 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: UK Post-Punk on Spotify

Listen along

• Joy Division, "Love Will Tear Us Apart": Spotify
• Siouxsie and the Banshees, "Forever": Spotify
• Wire, "Outdoor Miner": Spotify
• The Cure, "The Top": Spotify
• Gang of Four, "Damaged Goods": Spotify
• Magazine, "Shot By Both Sides": Spotify
• Public Image Ltd, "Public Image": Spotify

Start here

• Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division (1979)
• Metal Box by Public Image Ltd (1979)
• Entertainment! by Gang of Four (1979)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/uk-post-punk

Three teenagers from a Detroit suburb fused Parliament-Funkadelic and Kraftwerk in their basements, birthing the blueprint for electronic music's future

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 02:29 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 04:47 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 06:48 Chapter 4: Stories
• 08:57 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: Detroit Techno on Spotify

Listen along

• Juan Atkins, "Track Ten": Spotify
• Eddie Fowlkes, "All Day Vibes": Spotify
• Derrick May, "Strings Of Life": Spotify
• Kevin Saunderson, "Rock To The Beat": Spotify
• Carl Craig, "At Les": Spotify
• Underground Resistance, "Inspiration": Spotify
• Jeff Mills, "The Bells": Spotify

Start here

• Enter by Cybotron (1983)
• Techno! The New Dance Sound of Detroit by Various Artists (1988)
• Paradise by Inner City (1989)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/detroit-techno

The sophisticated soundtrack of Japan's economic boom, from studio perfectionism to global rediscovery

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 03:07 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 05:32 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 07:36 Chapter 4: Stories
• 09:38 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: Japanese City Pop on Spotify

Listen along

• Haruomi Hosono, "スポーツマン": Spotify
• Taeko Onuki, "4:00A.M.": Spotify
• Mariya Takeuchi, "Plastic Love": Spotify
• Yellow Magic Orchestra, "RYDEEN": Spotify

Start here

• Songs by Sugar Babe (1975)
• Ride on Time by Tatsuro Yamashita (1980)
• Variety by Mariya Takeuchi (1984)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/japanese-city-pop

The underground feminist punk revolution that erupted from Olympia and DC, weaponizing zines, raw sound, and radical politics

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 04:05 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 09:14 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 12:42 Chapter 4: Stories
• 17:09 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: Riot Grrrl on Spotify

Listen along

• Bikini Kill, "Rebel Girl": Spotify
• Bratmobile, "Cool Schmool": Spotify
• Heavens to Betsy, "Calculated": Spotify
• Huggy Bear, "Herjazz": Spotify
• Team Dresch, "Fake Fight": Spotify
• Sleater-Kinney, "Dig Me Out": Spotify
• Le Tigre, "Deceptacon": Spotify

Start here

• Revolution Girl Style Now by Bikini Kill (1991)
• Bikini Kill EP by Bikini Kill (1992)
• Pussy Whipped by Bikini Kill (1993)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/riot-grrrl

King Tubby, Lee Perry, and the studio engineers who turned the mixing desk into an instrument

Chapters

• 00:00 Chapter 1: The Scene
• 04:13 Chapter 2: Key Players
• 11:41 Chapter 3: Defining the Sound
• 15:36 Chapter 4: Stories
• 20:30 Chapter 5: Legacy and Influence

The whole issue's music in one playlist: Songsheets: 70s Dub Reggae on Spotify

Listen along

• Bunny Lee, "Dubbing in the Front Yard": Spotify
• King Tubby, "King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown": Spotify
• Lee 'Scratch' Perry, "Return of the Super Ape": Spotify
• Errol Thompson, "Lick the Pipe Peter": Spotify
• Augustus Pablo, "King Tubby's Meets Rockers Uptown": Spotify
• Scientist, "Dance Of The Vampires": Spotify
• Mad Professor, "April 29, 1992 (Miami) Dub": Spotify

Start here

• The Undertaker by Derrick Harriott (1970)
• Upsetters 14 Dub Blackboard Jungle by Lee 'Scratch' Perry & King Tubby (1973)
• King Tubbys Meets Rockers Uptown by Augustus Pablo & King Tubby (1976)

Enjoying it? Follow the show and leave a rating in your podcast app; it helps new listeners find it. New issues by email: songsheets.co/listen

The whole issue, with the records and photographs: songsheets.co/packs/70s-dub-reggae