By all means check out Joe Berlinger's unmissable Under African Skies, a documentary that shows how Paul Simon defied a U.N. cultural boycott to work in South Africa during apartheid to record his landmark Graceland album in 1985. Simon's virtuosity, intensified by a 2011 reunion concert with the South African musicians who helped him make history, raises the potent and still relevant question of artistic freedom versus realpolitik. Powered by Simon's brilliance, Under African Skies is a cultural lightning bolt that soars on its music and an unshakable belief in the transcendence of art.

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“Tonight's the Night”

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."