AllMusic in the context of "A Tribe Called Quest"

MC5 (also known as the Motor City Five) was an American rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1963. The classic lineup consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis, and drummer Dennis Thompson. MC5 were listed by Parade as one of the best rock bands of all time and by VH1 as one of the greatest hard rock artists of all time.The band's first three albums are regarded by many as staples of rock music, and their 1969 song "Kick Out the Jams" is widely covered.

"Crystallizing the counterculture movement at its most volatile and threatening", according to AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine, MC5's leftist political ties and anti-establishment lyrics and music positioned them as emerging pioneers of the punk movement in the United States. Their loud, energetic style of back-to-basics rock and roll included elements of garage rock, hard rock, blues rock, and psychedelic rock. Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello described MC5 as having "basically invented punk rock."

Suicide was an American musical duo composed of vocalist Alan Vega and instrumentalist Martin Rev, intermittently active between 1970 and 2016. The group's pioneering music used minimalist electronic instrumentation, including synthesizers and primitive drum machines, and their early performances were confrontational and often ended in violence. They were among the first acts to use the phrase "punk music" in an advertisement for a concert in 1970—during their very brief stint as a three-piece including Paul Liebegott.

Though never widely popular among the general public, Suicide has been recognized as among the most influential acts of its era. The band’s debut album Suicide (1977) was described by Entertainment Weekly as "a landmark of electronic music", while AllMusic stated that it "provided the blueprints for post-punk, synth pop, and industrial rock."

Roberta Joan Mitchell CC (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and painter. As one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her personal lyrics and unconventional compositions, which grew to incorporate elements of pop, jazz, rock, and other genres. Among her accolades are eleven Grammy Awards, and induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997. Rolling Stone, in 2002, named her "one of the greatest songwriters ever", and AllMusic, in a 2011 biography, stated "Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century."

Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in Saskatoon and throughout western Canada, before moving on to the nightclubs of Toronto. She moved to the United States and began touring in 1965. Some of her original songs ("Urge for Going", "Chelsea Morning", "Both Sides, Now", "The Circle Game") were first recorded by other singers, allowing her to sign with Reprise Records and record her debut album, Song to a Seagull, in 1968. Settling in Southern California, Mitchell helped define an era and a generation with popular songs such as "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Woodstock" (both 1970). Her 1971 album Blue is often cited as one of the greatest albums of all time; it was rated the 30th best album ever made in Rolling Stone's 2003 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time", rising to number 3 in the 2020 edition. In 2000, The New York Times chose Blue as one of the 25 albums that represented "turning points and pinnacles in 20th-century popular music". NPR ranked Blue number 1 on a 2017 list of the "Greatest Albums Made By Women".

Mirwood Records was an American record label founded by former Vee-Jay executive Randy Wood in Los Angeles in 1965.

The Mirwood label was a sister label to Mira Records. It primarily released rhythm and blues and jazz recordings, and has been described as "among the definitive Northern soul labels". Many of its records were written and produced by Fred Smith and arranged by James Carmichael, who (according to Jason Ankeny at AllMusic) "hone[d] a distinctive style all their own, creating soul music that was both relentlessly energetic and sweetly sophisticated, topped off by trademark vibes that evoked the otherworldly beauty of a Pacific Ocean sunset".

Traditional pop (also known as vocal pop or pre-rock and roll pop) is Western pop music that generally pre-dates the advent of rock and roll in the mid-1950s. The most popular and enduring songs from this era of music are known as pop standards or American standards. The works of these songwriters and composers are usually considered part of the canon known as the "Great American Songbook". More generally, the term "standard" can be applied to any popular song that has become very widely known within mainstream culture and recorded by many artists.

AllMusic defines traditional pop as "post-big band and pre-rock & roll pop music".

RhythmOne plc, a subsidiary of Nexxen, is an American digital advertising technology company that owns and operates the web properties AllMusic, AllMovie, and SideReel.

Blinkx was founded in 2004, went public on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange in 2007, and began trading as RhythmOne in 2017. The company is headquartered in San Francisco and London, England. RhythmOne acquired All Media Network and its portfolio of web properties in April 2015. In April 2019, RhythmOne merged with Taptica International (renamed Tremor International in June 2019), an advertising technology company headquartered in Tel Aviv, Israel.

William Emmanuel Bevan, known by his recording alias Burial, is a British electronic musician from South London. Initially anonymous, Burial became the first artist signed to Kode9's electronic label Hyperdub in 2005. He won acclaim the following year for his self-titled debut album, an influential release in the UK's dubstep scene which showcased a dark, emotive take on UK rave music styles such as UK garage and 2-step; it was named the album of the year by The Wire. Burial's second album, Untrue, was released to further critical acclaim in 2007, and recognised as a landmark work of electronic music.

In 2008, Bevan's identity was revealed by The Independent and confirmed by Hyperdub. In the following years, he went on to collaborate with artists such as Four Tet, Massive Attack, Thom Yorke, Zomby, and The Bug, in addition to releasing a series of long-form EPs such as Kindred (2012), Truant / Rough Sleeper (2012), and Rival Dealer (2013); most of these releases were later compiled on the 2019 compilation Tunes 2011–2019. He has remained reclusive, giving few interviews and avoiding public appearances. AllMusic described him as "one of the most acclaimed, influential, and enigmatic electronic musicians of the early 21st century".

Iron Butterfly is an American rock band formed in San Diego, California, in 1966. They are best known for the 1968 hit "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", providing a dramatic sound that led the way towards the development of hard rock and heavy metal music. Although their heyday was the late 1960s, the band has been reformed with various members with varying levels of success with no new recordings since 1975. Their second album, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (1968), remains a best-seller, and Iron Butterfly was the first group to receive an in-house platinum album award from Atlantic Records.

According to music critic Manish Agarwal of Time Out, "Iron Butterfly blended hard rock with ordinate, acid-friendly textures." Mark Deming of AllMusic stated that they were one of the first musical groups to fuse the two styles in this way, and described their sound as a "blend of trippy musical exploration and open-ended jams with a hard, distorted attack".

Badmotorfinger is the third studio album by American rock band Soundgarden, released on October 8, 1991, through A&M Records. Soundgarden began the recording sessions for the album with new bassist Ben Shepherd in early 1991. The album maintained the band's heavy metal sound, while featuring an increased focus on songwriting compared to the band's previous releases. AllMusic considered the album's music to be "surprisingly cerebral and arty"; alternative tunings and odd time signatures were present on several of the album's songs, and lyrics were intended to be ambiguous and evocative.

The focus on the Seattle grunge scene helped bring attention to Badmotorfinger, and the singles "Outshined" and "Rusty Cage" found a major audience in rock radio and MTV. Badmotorfinger became the band's highest charting album at the time on the Billboard 200, where it peaked at number 39. The album received critical acclaim, citing the significant improvements over earlier releases and evolution in the band's sound. Soundgarden supported the album with tours of North America and Europe, including opening for Guns N' Roses on the Use Your Illusion Tour. In 1992, Badmotorfinger was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. It was certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America in 1996.