• 5 Live Albums Recorded to No Audience: Pink Floyd, Bjork and More Feel for Baltimore Orioles

    The unfortunate riots in Baltimore have led to a bizarre situation at Camden Yards in Baltimore, where the hometown Orioles have been playing the Chicago White Sox in an empty stadium due to the situation outside. It's clearly had an impact on some of the players...White Sox starter Jeff Samardzija was rocked for six runs in the first inning today, perhaps nervous because the whole world wasn't watching him. It made us baseball fans at Music Times if similar things have ever happened in the music world? Not quite, but we did find a number of "live" albums that were recorded with no actual audience in attendance. Check out a few examples, from Pink Floyd to Björk.

  • Stevie Wonder and 5 Other Artists Banned in Apartheid South Africa: The Beatles, Pink Floyd and More

    Stevie Wonder was a political lighting rod during 1985, and most of it was tied to politics in another nation: The pianist was arrested during a South African Apartheid protest outside of Congress and later would dedicate his Best Original Song Oscar (which he won for "I Just Called to Say I Love You" from The Woman in Red) to Nelson Mandela, who remained imprisoned at Pollsmoor Prison. That action led the South African government to ban all of Wonder's music across the board. He wasn't the first musician to deal with censorship from the paranoid Apartheid government however. Here are five other acts, including Pink Floyd and The Beatles, that got banned.

  • 7 Highest Priced Records on eBay Right Now: The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Mighty Sparrow Bring in Big Bucks, but Not Jack White Money

    Jack White made headlines when he announced that he was the bidder who spent $300,000 for the acetate of Elvis Presley's original single, a 7" pressing from Sun Records featuring "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin," and that his label Third Man Records would be releasing copies of the recording for Record Store Day 2015. That album was sold at a formal auction but you don't have to go that far for expensive vinyl: eBay has plenty of mind-boggling LPs up for sale. One example was the man who paid $37,100 for a copy of Tommy Johnson's "Alcohol and Jake Blues" during 2013. As Music Times hit publish, here are the seven records with bids of more than $1,000 on eBay at the moment, ranked from least to most expensive.

  • 12 Pink Floyd Solo Albums Ranked from 'The Madcap Laughs' to 'Amused to Death'...Roger Waters, Syd Barrett, David Gilmour and More

    Former Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour announced today that he would be releasing his fourth solo album (yet untitled) later during 2015, so Music Times went back and looked at every solo album released by every member of Pink Floyd over the years and ranked them accordingly. How do Gilmour, Roger Waters, Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Richard Wright do on their own? Keep reading and find out.

  • Barack Obama, David Cameron and Narendra Modi: Guessing at 6 World Leaders' Favorite Performers

    The favorite music of the world's most powerful people is often kept a secret, as one controversial faux pas could be the death of a political career. Things have started to warm up however, as the leaders of the free (and less than free) world have taken to filling the general public in on their Facebook favs. David Cameron told the world this week that he preferred Bryan Ferry over Jay Z, and even Vladimir Putin has warmed enough to inform his constituents that he was "a Russian man and I listen to Russian music." French President Francois Hollande used "Niggas in Paris" as part of a campaign commercial during 2012 (although we doubt he personally is a fan of Jay and Kanye).

  • 10 Artists Who Paid Tribute To Their Parents In Their Music: Green Day, Pink Floyd, And More

    Today, indie folk singer Sufjan Stevens announced the release of a new album Carrie & Lowell, which is named after his mother and stepfather and features a photograph of the two on the front cover. After all that rock music has done to encourage people to disobey their parents, it's honestly refreshing to see Stevens pay tribute to his parents this way, but he's far from the only rock artist who has done this. Here are 10 artists who have paid tribute to their parents in their music, either with one song or with entire albums.

  • Ranking The Royal Mail's 10 Rock 'n' Roll Inspired Stamps: Led Zeppelin 'IV', Pink Floyd's 'The Division Bell', The Rolling Stones 'Let It Bleed' and More

    Just five years ago the UK Postal system introduced a series of ten stamps featuring album art from classic records by British rock bands. Are we behind the times? Yes. Were we around to weigh in on the list when it dropped? No. Now Music Times weighs in on all ten album covers and rank them from 10 to 1 in terms of which serves best as a stamp...both for its aesthetic and its relevance within music culture. Artists include The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.

  • Syd Barrett's 'The Madcap Laughs': 13 Songs Ranked For Its 45th Anniversary

    Today, Jan. 3, marks the 45th anniversary of The Madcap Laughs, the debut solo album by original Pink Floyd frontman Syd Barrett. Other than being a remarkable album musically, The Madcap Laughs is also significant for being a surreal document of Barrett's mental health at the time, which had been steadily declining ever since his departure from Pink Floyd in 1968. To celebrate the anniversary of this incredible album, here are its 13 tracks ranked, from weakest to strongest.

  • 7 Songs Featuring Non-Traditional Instruments; Featuring Tracks from The Beach Boys, Nirvana, Pearl Jam and More

    On this day 40 years ago Pink Floyd began working on what would become what many consider to be the band's masterpiece, and what would become one of the bestselling rock albums of all time: Dark Side of The Moon. A Floyd project that fewer people are familiar with is the album that the band meant to do instead of Moon: An album recorded using nothing but household objects. This project, despite the inevitable cult stays that it would attain, probably wouldn't have lived up to the acclaim of the album the band did end up recording. Still, we can't help but appreciate the idea of using non-musical items in a more musical sense. Here are seven songs (if not full albums) that feature some outside instrumentation.
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