JD McPherson conjures the sound of Fifties-style rock & roll so lovingly that you can practically see Sam Phillips grinning from the control room while McPherson howls away in the studio. When he wasn't busy teaching art at a Tulsa middle school, the former punk rocker cut Signs & Signifiers using vintage mics, stand-up bass and slap-back echo for a sound that recalls raw mid-Fifties Sun Records hits – Elvis Presley, Charlie Feathers – as well as pre-rock R&B stars like Big Joe Turner. McPherson may sound like a purist, but he's a sharp songwriter, and his punk spirit and wry wordplay make this more than just a time trip. On the jumping "Dimes for Nickels," he laments a wallet­sucking affair: "Pawned a long gold chain and my Chippendale rocker/A sauvignon blanc and a Black Johnnie Walker." His loss is some sweaty rock club's gain. 

Listen to 'Signs & Signifiers'

“Everything in Its Right Place”

Thom Yorke hit rock bottom the moment he walked offstage after a 1997 concert in Birmingham, England, which initially left him unable to speak and later led him to write the eerie, discombobulated “Everything.” “Lots of people say that song is gibberish,” he told Rolling Stone. “It’s not. It’s totally about that” – the mute paralysis that had swept over Yorke after the Birmingham show, which stayed with him through the simultaneous recording of Kid A and Amnesiac. Quoting the song’s repeated line, “Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon,” Yorke twisted his face into a ferocious grimace, explaining, “That’s the face I had for three years.”