A history of rock music in 500 songs

August 18, 2020 1:20 PM

A history of rock music in 500 songs Andrew Hickey makes an impeccably, exhaustively researched podcast covering the history and pre-history of rock music song-by-song in chronological order. So far he's up to 1961; this week's episode covers Ben E. King's "Stand By Me." Previously, previously
posted by feathermeat (8 comments total)

This is very relevant to my interests! Thanks for making me aware of this podcast, feathermeat!
posted by bigendian at 1:26 PM on August 18, 2020

Just wait until 1985...
posted by Windopaene at 2:17 PM on August 18, 2020 [4 favorites]

Stand By Me

I made a futile effort recently to find out, definitively, why the oldtime rock n' rollers called the chord progression used in this song (I-vi-IV-V) "ice cream changes". Anyone?
posted by thelonius at 2:20 PM on August 18, 2020

Well I have something to do for a while. This is great. Thank you feathermeat.
posted by AugustWest at 2:30 PM on August 18, 2020

Thank you for sharing this - it's fantastic! It's very good timing for me as I just watched A Great Day in Harlem, a great 1994 documentary about a famous photograph of many jazz greats (Count Basie, Charlie Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, and many others).
posted by ElKevbo at 5:50 PM on August 18, 2020 [1 favorite]

Just wait until 1985...

Stereogum writer Tom Breihan is writing about every single #1 since the beginning of the Billboard charts. He is currently on 1984.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:31 AM on August 19, 2020 [4 favorites]

If you like 'A Great Day in Harlem,' you might also enjoy this story about XXL magazine's recreation with hip-hop artists.
posted by box at 8:35 AM on August 19, 2020 [1 favorite]

1) This is excellent.
2) When searching for the podcast to add it to your player, do not be fooled by Rolling Stone's 500 song-themed podcast, which is not excellent, but rather very, very shitty.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:34 PM on August 19, 2020 [1 favorite]