Sarah McLachlan wrote "Angel" about the Smashing Pumpkins touring keyboard player Jonathan Melvoin, who overdosed on heroin and died in 1996.
Dolly Parton wrote her #1 hit "9 to 5" for the 1980 movie she starred in as a secretary. The film is a comedy and the song has a lighthearted feel, but the message of gender discrimination in the office was very real. Both the song and movie helped bring the issue to the fore.
When the Velvet Underground song "Heroin" got screechy, Maureen Tucker stopped drumming, figuring it would bust the take, but her bandmates kept going. You can hear it at the 5:20 mark.
It really was so easy for Linda Ronstadt to score a hit with her Buddy Holly cover of "It's So Easy." She would sometimes change the lyric to: "It's so easy to have a hit, all you have to do is recycle it."
Lorde was 16 years and 11 months old when "Royals" topped the Hot 100. In doing so she became the youngest ever solo artist to write and perform a #1 hit.
The riff for The Sex Pistols' "Pretty Vacant" was pinched from a very unpunk song, the ABBA ballad "S.O.S."
MTV, a popular TV theme song and Madonna all show up in this '80s music quiz.
P.F. was a teenager writing hits and playing on tracks for Jan & Dean when he wrote a #1 hit that got him blackballed.
Into the vaults for Bruce Pollock's 1984 conversation with the esteemed bluesman. Hooker talks about transforming a Tony Bennett classic and why you don't have to be sad and lonely to write the blues.
Medley looks back on "Unchained Melody" and "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'" - his huge hits from the '60s that were later revived in movies.
The head of Drake's estate shares his insights on the late folk singer's life and music.
When televangelists like Jimmy Swaggart took on rockers like Ozzy Osbourne and Metallica, the rockers retaliated. Bono could even be seen mocking the preachers.