Review: 'Buzz Me In: Inside the Record Plant Studios'

What do Electric Ladyland, There's a Riot Goin' On, Black Sabbath Vol. 4, Innervisions, Rumours, Cheap Trick '77, Parallel Lines, a spiffy 12-track machine, a room-size Moog, a suite of sex-fetish rooms, and 162 tons of cocaine have in common? They're all among the ingredients that made the Record Plant THE Record Plant. 

Founded by engineer Gary Kellgren, the Record Plant was the first successful studio by and for hippies. He decked the place out with high-tech equipment (a board capable of recording twelve tracks...twelve!) and, inspired by the perpetual skinny-dipping party at Peter Tork's house, an atmosphere of sexual and chemical malaise. It's where rock and rollers could escape the sterility of their grampa's recording studios to rock out, experiment, snort, and screw as much as their bodies and labels' budgets could bear.

Review: 'B-Side'

For every hit that makes it onto the radio or Billboard's Hot 100, there's something more obscure happening on the other side. It might be a piece of tossed off trash, but it might also be of exceptional quality ("Rain"), a chance to throw a less prolific band member some royalty cash ("The Inner Light"), or an excuse to get inspiredly loony ("You Know My Name [Look Up the Number]"). Some B-sides are even better than their smash A-sides... at least that's my stance on all those Beatles flip sides I referenced in the previous sentence. 

Review: 'Prince: All the Songs- The Story Behind Every Track '

Even if his music wasn't so extraordinarily inventive and alluring, even if he wasn't one of the very few pop artists who actually deserves the crown "genius," Prince would still be noteworthy for his Herculean productivity. The guy never stopped making music, and whether he was among the top stars of his time or more of a "legacy artist," he never slowed down. So we're left with lots and lots and lots of Prince music, and his estate keeps on finding new ways to scrape the archives. 

Review: Sly and the Family Stone’s 'Higher!'

Sly Stone turned 70 earlier this year, and Epic/Legacy is celebrating his milestone with the first proper Sly and the Family Stone box set. Higher! is four discs of Sly’s freaky, funky fusion of soul, pop, psychedelia, jazz, and Rock & Roll, a space-age sound that crossed racial and gender barriers in both the band’s ranks and the charts. The Family released only six albums during their peak years, but those records covered a lot of sonic ground—the undisciplined euphoria of A Whole New Thing, which suggested a band trying to cram every idea they could onto their first record in case they never got a chance to make a second one; the triumphant “we’re here to stay” party of Dance to the Music; the fully mature and unbelievably confident Life; the stunning transformation from pop hit machine to insane jam troupe of Stand!; the drugged up, tuned in, and fuzzed out masterpiece-despite-itself that is There’s a Riot Going On; and the slicker, more conventional Fresh. Those records are all represented by choice cuts on Higher!, though the versions are often unfamiliar: a big helping of mono single mixes; a snack of wild live performances from the Isle of Wight 1970 concert (“Fun” is the only major classic not here in any form).