Click to Listen to Mogwai's Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will

Of all the great Nineties guitar bands, Mogwai might be the one fighting hardest to keep the decade's anything-goes spirit alive. The Glasgow space-rockers have never lost their faith in ear-bleeding noise. On their superbly titled seventh album, they go for epic guitar savagery, weaving feedback with melody in the majestic surge of "You're Lionel Richie." They mess with keyboards on tracks like "How to Be a Werewolf," exploring the jagged electro grooves of groups like Neu! and Stereolab. Every band should mature like the Mogwai lads: still inventive, still challenging themselves and still insanely loud.  

Gallery: Random Notes, Rock's Hottest Photos

“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.