Imagine a different Eighties: The Replacements made Born in the USA, Hüsker Dü were Hulk Hogan's entrance music, and indie rock was the keggercrushing choice of Top Gun America. On their second LP, Vancouver drums-guitar duo Japandroids sing about lost youth and sex and drinking atop hammer-of-the-geeks distortion swirls and holler-along refrains a gorilla could pump some paw to. It's just eight songs (including a scorchedearth oldie by Eighties L.A. garage scumbos the Gun Club), but 'Roids singer-guitarist Brian King doesn't need much time to make their point: "She'll kiss away your gypsy fears/And turn some restless nights to restless years."

Listen to 'Celebration Rock':

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“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."