Madonna didn't write "Papa Don't Preach," which deals with abortion. What drew her to the song was the singer standing up to male authority.
Cher had a habit of calling people "babe," which her husband, Sonny Bono, picked up. That's how "babe" landed in the 1965 Sonny & Cher megahit "I Got You Babe."
The idea for "The Man Comes Around" came to Johnny Cash from a dream he had where he was in Buckingham Palace and the Queen said to him, "Johnny Cash, you're just like a thorn tree in a whirlwind."
The Motown team of Holland-Dozier-Holland wrote "Where Did Our Love Go" with The Marvelettes in mind, but they turned it down. When The Supremes recorded the tune, Diana Ross was forced to sing in a lower, breathier style than she was used to because it wasn't written for her.
The 1984 Anthrax song "Metal Thrashing Mad" popularized the phrase "thrash metal," a faster version of heavy metal. "Thrash" dates back to 1982 though, when Metallica put the lyric "thrashing all around" in their song "Whiplash."
In the UK, Michael Jackson's "Thriller" returns to the chart every Halloween, a tradition started in 2007.
Gramm co-wrote this gorgeous ballad and delivered an inspired vocal, but the song was the beginning of the end of his time with Foreigner.
The Brazilian rocker sees pictures in his riffs. When he came up with one of his gnarliest songs, there was a riot going on.
The first of Billy's five #1 hits was the song that propelled Madonna to stardom. You'd think that would get you a backstage pass, wouldn't you?
Go beyond The Beatles to see what you know about the British Invasion.
Devo founders Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale take us into their world of subversive performance art. They may be right about the De-Evoloution thing.
The former Dead Kennedys frontman on the past, present and future of the band, what music makes us "pliant and stupid," and what he learned from Alice Cooper.