Bill Callahan — who, as Smog, spent nearly 20 years massaging his low-fi sound — brandishes a deadpan baritone and a trickster sense of humor. The centerpiece of his third disc under his own name is "America!" — on which he makes "Native American" rhyme with Afghanistan, Vietnam and Iran, and fires off guitar volleys that recall Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner." But the man clearly relishes supersize American grandeur: The album's gentle bookends, "Drover" and "One Fine Morning," follow a cattle driver's arc from heartbreak all the way to the afterlife. Throughout, Callahan swings elegantly from soft and gorgeous to black and grinding. He's a tough man to pin down.

Listen to Bill Callahan's "America!":

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“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.