Early metal bands drew inspiration from the netherworld, but on the fifth album from Chicago hard-rock band Disturbed, all the demons live within. "Now if I am to survive/The infection must die," howls David Draiman on the chorus of "Infection," just one of Asylum's grim, grinding paeans to pain. The music is appropriately bleak: "Warrior" works a mean, thrashing groove and "Crucified" threads an eerie, snakelike melody through drill-press riffs. Draiman's vocals split the difference between post-grunge-baritone croon and tortured, acid-gargling howl — a kind of leather-clad Jekyll-and-Hyde routine. But where many of their peers settle for a few blocky chords and let the distortion pedal do the rest, Disturbed don't shy away from a few fevered fret-board workouts. As history has proven, the devil — wherever he lives — loves a good guitar solo.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.