The plaintive, urgent drama of Del Shannon’s debut single, 1961’s “Runaway”, will always identify him. But amazing 45s like 1965’s crunching “Break up” and the ferocious garage-punk of “Move it on ...

This July 7 CD release contains an unreleased 1977 Del Shannon album recorded in Dublin with his UK touring band, “Smackee.” Del, famous for “Runaway” plus other greats such as “Hats Off to Larry,” ...

Sometimes, when a record label unearths material from the vaults, one listen tells you why it stayed unreleased for so long. Other times, the tracks are good enough to make you wonder how they could ...

In The Number Ones, I’m reviewing every single #1 single in the history of the Billboard Hot 100, starting with the chart’s beginning, in 1958, and working my way up into the present. Rock ‘n’ roll ...

The album may or may not be obsolete, but the fact remains: Listeners have long obsessed over individual songs. The Single File is The A.V. Club’s look at the deep cuts, detours, experiments, and ...

Del Shannon never phoned it in. Best known for tortured early ’60s hits like “Runaway” and “Hats Off to Larry,” the Michigan-bred singer-songwriter combined the hard-living soul of a honky-tonk ...

Decades ago, “when the Clash was falling apart” – as the band’s bassist Paul Simonon tells it – Joe Strummer wanted to return to his roots busking in public. So he and the band journeyed to the north ...