When Tom DeLonge, always the more emo half of Blink-182, launched Angels and Airwaves in 2005, he sacrificed all the small things for jumbo themes, important-band bombast and Eighties-sounding synths. The group’s fourth studio disc soars ever closer to the sun, with defiant nonsense about bombs falling at dancing kids' feet (lead single "Surrender") and one track inexplicably inspired by the Book of Revelation (the punchy "Behold a Pale Horse"). Want fun? Repeat lines like "The ice is really cold/The streetlights, really old" out loud. Slow builds and sly, Edge-style guitar prod these dark songs into vaguely exultant shapes. The only problem: There's nothing here to be triumphant about.  

Listen to "One Last Thing":

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“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."