One Year of Songs

Few bands have amazing music and amazing stage shows. Alice Cooper is one of them. A hard-rock band if there ever was one, Alice Cooper is best known for vaudevillian performances that always end with Alice dying -- usually by guillotine. "No More Mr. Nice Guy" is rebellious. It's about a kid who has had enough of his always-be-perfect upbringing and lashes out at his community. However, if you've ever heard about Detroit-native Vincent Furnier, Alice Cooper's frontman and creator, you probably know he is widely regarded as one of the nicest people in all of music. Furnier spent his formative years in Arizona but is a regular at Detroit Tigers game and other events -- particularly golf -- around the Motor City. In 2007, he talked about his Michigan roots with Terry Gross and described his friendship with Groucho Marx, who credited Alice Cooper as being one of the last, great vaudevillian acts.

Once billed as the second (or third or fourth or fifth) coming of The Beatles, Oasis was a breath of poppy-fresh air in the grunge era: Riding the line between radio-friendly and just weird enough to be interesting to the hip music crowd. "Don't Look Back in Anger" is a song about reinvention and looking forward to a new life beyond whatever you're doing (or have done). Sadly, the two frontmen for Oasis, brothers Lian and Noel Gallagher, never seemed to get past  some series problems of their own . There are legitimate what-if discussions about two '90s bands: What could Nirvana have done next? What if the Gallagher brothers could tolerate one another? Without a doubt, (What's the Story) Morning Glory? is among the best albums of the decade, but subsequent releases -- while good -- never seemed to have the spark Morning Glory  brought to the table.

Every art scene has that member (or members) who are without question among the most talented in their field but also "too good" for the mainstream -- usually because they refuse to compromise to make their work more accessible to the masses. Faith No More's Mike Patton falls squarely into that category. Between Faith No More and his side-project-turned-main-project-turned-side-project Mr. Bungle, he has unleashed some of the most brilliant metal and metal-adjacent music of the last 40 years. However, nobody seems to know he exists. Yes, some people remember Faith No More as a thunderbolt of a band in the early-'90s, but what happened after Angel Dust , one of the most severely under-appreciated musical documents of the last half-century ? Patton went on to make varied, outlandishly more amazing music. However, it wasn't for radio, and that was a problem. Faith No More recently reunited (without guitarist Jim Martin) and released another solid album -- that, agai...

The archetypal American classical composer, Aaron Copland wrote some of the most recognized and beloved songs in the nation's history. However, none is as applauded as "Appalachian Spring," a marathon of a composition that -- if broken down into its various movements -- most people would recognize in bits and pieces but probably would not guess they all come from the same piece. Meant to tell the story of a newlywed couple in Pennsylvania with hints of Greek mythology, Copland grew his arrangement from the Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts" as a ballet for Martha Graham. However, in Copland's mind, the song was not meant to evoke the Appalachians or spring. In fact, Graham's response to the title rather perplexed Copland .

The Everly Brothers perfected two-part harmony, paving the way for groups like The Beatles, The Beach Boys, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. However, there's something special when siblings, who share genetic makeup, meld into a single, amazing vocal sound. "Bye Bye Love" isn't a particularly tricky song. Its chorus is sung with an open, upper register and accompanied by one of the greatest session guitarists, Chet Atkins (click "View All Audio Clips," then "Stealin' From Chet"). Even the music is pretty simple: Strumming steels in A-major, giving it a very folksy, country vibe while remaining a true, soda-pop song. "Bye Bye Love" was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame well ahead of most of its contemporaries and remains one of the best breakup songs of all time.