Celebrating 20: A double dose of Tom Waits

Twenty years ago, on May 4, 2002, Tom Waits released two albums, Alice and Blood Money. They were the 14th and 15th studio albums of Waits' career, dating back 29 years at that point, to March 1973.

It is quite unusual, of course, for a recording artist to release two LPs on the same day. But Waits wasn't the first. Guns and Roses did it, Bruce Springsteen and Elvis Costello had done this previously, for various reasons.

Geezerology Roundtable: The Doors struck out as a trio

The four members of The Doors had finished up recording LA Woman in January 1971. And their lead singer, Jim Morrison, was exhausted after a whirlwind five years of recording and touring and drinking and fighting the law -- all with the eyes of the Western world watching and recording and commenting on his every move.

So Morrison decided it was time for a break. He told his bandmates he was going to Paris to drop off the face of the earth for awhile. He wanted to clear his head, write some poetry, hide out and spend some quality time with his girlfriend, Pamela Courson. And he told his buddies, the three guys who were the most important people in his life and his career, not to worry. He told them the move wasn't permanent, that he would be back home in a few months to face the music in his battle with Miami prosecutors and to make more music with The Doors, who seemed to have found a creative second wind with their move into their own rehearsal and studio space in West Hollywood, CA.

Midnight Oil's new album well worth the wait

Resist is an exceptionally strong Midnight Oil album. As a big Midnight Oil fan from about 35 years ago, I can report that this one is as good an effort as anyone could have expected. This one won't go down, at least in my book, as the strongest Midnight Oil effort.

But it will go down as one hell of a closing chapter in the band's legacy, if this is indeed the final chapter, as has been reported. 

Celebrating 50: Neil Young's fourth was a bountiful Harvest

The success of the half-century-old Harvest may have put the always-acerbic, eccentric and cantankerous Neil Young uncomfortably, as he puts it, “in the middle of the road.” But it also gave him the freedom to steer “for the ditch” to experiment in more esoteric styles such as electronica, swing, rockabilly, blues and jazz.

While Young has careened to and fro with these varied musical styles, so far out in left field that he was sued by his record company for not delivering commercially viable albums, Young is best-known for working in two distinct rock subgenres: crunching, electric grunge and acoustic folk, often with a country tinge.

Celebrating 40: Lou Reed turned a corner with The Blue Mask

The Blue Mask, released on Feb. 23, 1982, was not Lou Reed's declaration of late-blooming adulthood as he approached his 40th birthday a week later.

His previous record, 1980's Growing Up In Public, was the one on which Reed told the world he had found true love with Sylvia Morales and that his days as a debauched rock-and-roll animal were behind him.