Philadelphia Weekly

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Forever Changes: Baroque psych-rock opus by the band Love; a Technicolor shapshot of L.A. circa 1967, a time and a place awash in orange-sky sunshine and dark shadows. Where the first two Love albums were raucous blasts of rhythm and electricity, Forever Changes would be built on acoustic guitars and wallpapered with orchestral strings, mariachi horns and flamenco flourishes--a then-unheard-of strategy for a rock group.

Gram Parsons: Aka the Grievous Angel; widely credited for inventing country-rock; a party-boy trustafarian responsible for stoner detours by both the Byrds and the Rolling Stones into the pastoral glories of C&W; patron saint of the alt-country movement. In 1967, Parsons joined the Byrds and encouraged them to consummate their toe-in-the-water flirtations with country music during the recording of Sweetheart of the Rodeo. In 1968, both Parsons and bassist Chris Hillman quit the Byrds and formed the Flying Burrito Brothers, a country-rock band with a sartorial flair for tight-fitting Nudie suits bedecked with naked women and marijuana leaves. In 1969, the Flying Burrito Brothers released Gilded Palace of Sin, bridging the cultural divide between hippie longhairs and rednecks. A second and final Flying Burrito Brothers album, Burrito Deluxe, was released in 1970, but by then Parsons had lost interest in the project, having taken up residence in the Rolling Stones camp as Keith Richards' full-time drug buddy. Parsons embarked on a solo career with 1972's G.P. One week after finishing work on his second and final solo album, Grievous Angel, Parsons was found dead in a motel room near Joshua Tree National Monument, whose celestial desert panoramas had served as an enduring source of inspiration. Succeeding generations of twangsmiths would pick up the torch, attempting to realize Parsons' vision of Cosmic American Music.

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Hazlewood, Lee: Producer-songwriter-performer best known for his mid-'60s collaborations with Nancy Sinatra, most notably "Some Velvet Morning," a dark, dreamy duet that jump-cuts from string cheese orchestral pop to angel-of-death circus romp.

Iggy: Aka James Newell Osterberg. Iggy Pop single-handedly invented the notion of lead singer as human cannonball--rolling shirtless in broken glass, pissing blood, shitting thunder and leaving behind the unsettling impression that there was nothing he would not fuck, snort or shoot. He was, and to a certain extent still is, a streetwalking cheetah with a heart full of Napalm, and of course he's had it in the ear before. While he's best-known for the kicky junkie-pop of "Lust for Life," the three seminal albums Iggy made with the Stooges from 1969 to 1973--The Stooges, Fun House and Raw Power--comprise some of the most primal brick-in-the-face rock 'n' roll ever committed to tape. Together or alone, they swing harder than John Holmes jogging in a bathrobe.

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Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers: Aka Jojo, the immaculate heart on the dirty sleeve of rock 'n' roll. The Modern Lovers' sound combined the raucous energy of mid-'60s garage rock with Richman's Peter Pan naivete and monotone "anybody got a tissue?" vocal style. Shorthaired and drug-free at the height of early-'70s hippiedom, Richman and his songwriting flew in the face of everything that was happening at the time. He liked his parents. He was in love with the idea of being in love. He couldn't wait to grow old and dignified. He was Jimmy Stewart with an electric guitar, insisting, despite all the hard-bitten cynicism that surrounded him, that it's still a wonderful life.

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Krautrock: Ironically, at roughly the same time Hogan's Heroes was satirizing the Nazis as bumbling nincompoops, a loose-knit cabal of German experimental rock musicians was mapping the future of music. Huddled together under the umbrella term Krautrock by critics and record collectors, these groups formed a panoply of progressive, psychedelic and electronic sounds: the pioneering electronica of Kraftwerk; the jazzy hypno-funk of Can; the hash-pipe dreamworks of Amon D��l II and Faust; the prog-algebra of Popol Vuh and Guru Guru; and, perhaps most important, the pneumatic drone-rock of Neu!

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Leonard Cohen: Patron saint of life's beautiful losers. With a lyrical acuity far beyond those of mortal men and a baritone that sinks lower than the submarine in Das Boot, Leonard Cohen has forged a craggy reputation as the quintessential singer/songwriter's singer/songwriter--not bad for a guy who, technically speaking, can't even sing.

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"Making Time" by the Creation: Further proof that all the best music isn't on the radio, it's in Wes Anderson films.

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Manson, Charles: Even though the body count ascribed to him has been overshadowed by a long list of serial killers, terrorists and dictators, it is Manson's gory hippie-Armageddon myth that still resonates the loudest. He was also a frustrated singer-songwriter with Beach Boys connections. His songs were largely Dylan/Donovan-style psych-folk sketches, colored with apocalyptic acidspeak lyrics delivered in a hound dog croon and the Family's spooky siren call. And although judging the quality of this music is a bit like looking at Hitler's paintings and trying not to see the blood of six million Jews, the fact is, the songs are pretty good. Neil Young was set to produce.

Nelson, Willie: A man who needs no last name, Willie is to country what Neil is to rock: the Buddha, bestowing laid-back grace on all those who bask in his benevolent glow.