Anybody who has followed Jack White's online screeds and offstage brawls knows that the White Stripes' mastermind can tend to get a little, well, defensive when he's challenged (and sometimes even when he's not), but this trait hasn't always surfaced on record – at least not in the way he and his merry band of Raconteurs do on their second album, Consolers of the Lonely. At the very least, this bubbling blend of bizarro blues, rustic progressive rock, fractured pop, and bludgeoning guitars is a finger in the eye to anyone who dared call the band a mere power pop trifle, proof that the Raconteurs are a rock & roll band, but it's not just the sound of the record that's defiant. There's the very nature of the album's release: how it was announced to the world a week before its release when it then appeared in all formats in all retail outfits simultaneously; there's the obstinately olde-fashioned look of the art work, how the group is decked out like minstrels at a turn-of-the century carnival, or at least out of Dylan's Masked and Anonymous.

Comprised of vocalist Petra Magoni and bassist Ferruccio Spinetti, Musica Nuda are an Italian vocal jazz-pop duo whose popularity carried over to neighboring countries, especially France, during the mid-2000s. Born in Pisa, Tuscany, on July 28, 1972, Magoni studied music at the Conservatory of Leghorn and at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Milan. A versatile singer, she performed opera at the Teatro Verdi in Pisa early in her career while at the same time fronting a local rock group, Senza Freni. Petra Magoni (1996) marked her full-length solo album debut and was followed by a second solo album, Mulini a Vento (1997). She subsequently adopted the moniker Sweet Anima and released an eponymous album of English-language songs written by Lucio Battisti in 2000. In addition, she collaborated with Giampaolo Antoni in the electro-pop duo Aromatic, which resulted in the album Still Alive (2004). Most successful among her recording ventures, however, was Musica Nuda, a vocal jazz-pop collaboration with Piccola Orchestra Avion Travel bassist Ferruccio Spinetti that made its critically acclaimed eponymous album debut in 2004.

When an artist records one type of music exclusively for years, it's always amusing to hear the artist's manager, record company or publicist claim that he/she "defies categorization." The fact is that when an artist spends his or her entire career recording a specific style of music, categorization comes easy – and it's silly and dishonest to claim otherwise. But if any artist really does defy categorization, it's Robben Ford. The eclectic singer/guitarist is a compelling bluesman, but he's equally convincing as a jazz improviser and a pop/rock singer. On Supernatural, Ford's primary role is that of an easygoing pop/soft rock singer – although a pop/soft rock singer who often incorporates soul, blues or jazz.

The top female performer in 1990s France, she sold over five million albums by her mid-twenties.
Scoring her first national hit in 1987 with "Mademoiselle Chante le Blues," Kaas was named Female Newcomer of the Year at the Victoires de la Musique, and her debut album Mademoiselle Chante earned platinum status in France, Belgium and Switzerland.

Frank Zappa's liner notes for Freak Out! name-checked an enormous breadth of musical and intellectual influences, and he seemingly attempts to cover them all on the second Mothers of Invention album, Absolutely Free. Leaping from style to style without warning, the album has a freewheeling, almost schizophrenic quality, encompassing everything from complex mutations of "Louie, Louie" to jazz improvisations and quotes from Stravinsky's Petrushka. It's made possible not only by expanded instrumentation, but also Zappa's experiments with tape manipulation and abrupt editing, culminating in an orchestrated mini-rock opera ("Brown Shoes Don't Make It") whose musical style shifts every few lines, often in accordance with the lyrical content…

After a prolific run in the 1970s, Manuel Göttsching's '80s output with Ash Ra Tempel was greatly reduced and the quality of his work was uneven: Belle Alliance flirted with contemporary synth pop with mixed results; E2-E4 proved influential, resonating with subsequent electronic artists; and the cheesy new age travelogue Tropical Heat dabbled in some of the decade's worst sonic clichés. Recorded in 1988, Walkin' the Desert struck a tasteful balance between Göttsching's experimental inclinations and a more mainstream techno sensibility. The album is an edited version of a performance given with Lutz Ulbrich in Berlin for the Desert Sounds event series (part of the Berlin: European Capital of Culture festival)…