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)…