Jacob Uitti

In the 1970s, rockers wanted to be pretty. They wanted to look pretty. They wanted their music to sound pretty.

When a certain song gets in your head, you know you have to buy it. There's a strange quality to music—sometimes you can't let go of a track.

The mid-1980s featured some wild rockers. The decade spawned songwriters and performers who were unabashed on stage.

For the past several decades, hip-hop has been the soundtrack of the world. And for good reason.

The beauty of recorded music is that it can live on well past when it was first released. The point isn't just to get a song on wax, get it out into the world, and then watch it fade away.

Not only did the 1980s have a recognizable sound , but so did some of its singers. When you're an artist, the highest compliment anyone can give you is that they recognized your work within seconds of encountering it.

In the 1960s, rock music and the harmonica went together like peanut butter and jelly. It wasn't strange to go to a concert and see several of your favorite singers pull out the instrument and go wild with it.

One of the best things to do in the 1990s was look through record crates. Young people could spend entire Saturday afternoons flipping through vinyl

When you're a one-hit wonder , you know both the good and bad of the business. You've seen the highest highs of success, and you've seen the frustration that can come from stagnation and inattention.

Even for Hall of Fame rockers, it can be difficult to get a band going. In the early years, you don't always know what you're doing.