Afghan Whigs

Sometimes, timing is everything. There are plenty of bands whose heyday was in the late-80s or early-90s who managed to pass me by and who, had I known them at the time, I may well have fallen in love with. Dinosaur Jr., Husker Du, Throwing Muses, Sebadoh, Afghan Whigs - bands whose work I was aware of on a fairly superficial level, but who never connected at the time in the way that, say, Buffalo Tom, Soundgarden, Sugar or Belly did.

I've got one Afghan Whigs album, 1990 release Up In It, and I suspect that had I owned it back in, say, 1992 I would now be writing about the Afghan Whigs in the glowing, fond terms I will one day use when writing about about Buffalo Tom.

Aerosmith

Despite being, on this very blog, largely glowing in my praise of AC/DC's Bon Scott fronted albums, and also at heart, very much a rock music fan, I have to admit to disliking, hating even, 70s rock.  Partly this is, I'm sure (and as I noted in the comments of my post on 5000 Volts), because I don't really know a lot of 70s music, certainly when compared to my knowledge of early 80s music, so there's little to challenge my view of the genre as being tedious, bland, self-indulgent dullardry.

Which brings me to Aerosmith.

Adeva

It would be fair to say that I'm not really a fan of house music - I find it rather bland and mechanical - so I was expecting to hate Adeva.  And while I wouldn't go so far as to say I actually like the one song I have by her, I do have a little, er... respect for it.

The Ad Libs

Another group with just the one song in my collection, New Jersey's Ad Libs were genuine one-hit wonders with that one song, The Boy From New York City.

Faye Adams

Another day, another Adams, another artist I've only one song by.  I'm glad to say that Faye Adams is a bit of a change from what I've had on the blog before - a 1950s gospel and blues singer, I have her first hit, Shake A Hand, which spent nine weeks at the top of the US R&B charts back in 1953 and is utterly fantastic.

Bryan Adams

Good old Bryan Adams - everything he does, he does it for you and you and you and you...

I'm a bit surprised, given my substantial collection of compilation albums, that I have only one Bryan Adams song.  More surprising is that it's not Everything I Do, or Run To You - it's not even Summer Of 69.  It's a song I'd completely forgotten existed, but that lives on unremembered, track 6 of Now That's What I Call Music! volume 6: It's Only Love.

Adam & The Ants

Ah, the early 80s.  As far as I'm concerned the period from maybe 1981, possibly a year or two earlier, to 1984 was the absolute peak of popular music in my lifetime.  Post-punk, New Wave, The New Pop, the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, the rise of electronica - there was just so much exciting musical stuff going on that was both interesting and commercially viable, and this was just in the UK.  I've already eulogised over A Flock Of Seagulls and ABC on the blog, so let's add Adam & The Ants to that list.