Open your copy of the English Rock Star Handbook and look up "40th birthday" — it's in the index between "football-team purchase" and "fucking models." As you'll see, every English rock star is required to celebrate this milestone with an overblown album about God, humanity and the cosmos. Richard Ashcroft — the Verve stud who sang "Bitter Sweet Symphony" — rises to the looming occasion with goop-gospel ballads like "Are You Ready?," where he yearns to take "the whole damn human race" in a "love embrace." He also ponders religion ("Beatitudes"), the ladies ("She Brings Me the Music") and old Prince songs ("This Thing Called Life").

Listen to "Are You Ready?":

Gallery: Random Notes, Rock's Hottest Photos

“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."