Some albums give us great music. Others become part of our lives. For me, Foreigner’s *4* was both. Released in 1981, its ten unforgettable songs became intertwined with some of my most defining memories—from losing my brother and navigating the awkwardness of growing up to discovering first crushes, finding courage, and learning to use my voice as a singer. What began with one incredible song and a trip to the neighborhood record store became a musical journey that followed me for more than four decades. This is the story of an extraordinary rock album, the memories it carries, and why I’m still singing along today.

Today, musical collaborations are everywhere, with artists crossing genres, audiences, and generations. But growing up Gen X, I discovered another kind of musical partnership: the supergroup. My introduction came through Asia's extraordinary 1982 debut album, a record I loved so much I had to buy it three times. I didn't know the musicians were already rock royalty. I just knew their music transported me somewhere wonderful. What followed was a journey through worn-out vinyl, vocal lessons, a generous guy at Tower Records, and a free cassette that introduced me to Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Sometimes discovering one band opens the door to an entire musical universe.

Some bands are made for those moments when nobody has anywhere important to be. Friends sitting around, a few beers, a card game, somebody telling stories, and great music playing in the background. For me, 38 Special has always been one of those bands. Their combination of Southern rock, blues, memorable guitar riffs, and voices that seem to settle right into your soul made them a favorite. But their music also takes me back to my early days as a singer, a wonderful vocal coach named Susan Steele, and a garage band that helped me discover what it meant to truly own my voice.

Every October, the monsters come out to play, and nobody knows how to welcome us into a nightmare quite like Alice Cooper. For more than five decades, he's been rock's favorite theatrical troublemaker, frightening parents, thrilling audiences, and reinventing his sound without surrendering his identity. But my Alice Cooper story didn't begin with snakes, guillotines, or horror. It began with a borrowed 45, a science-fiction-loving little girl, and a song about clones who just wanted to be themselves. This Halloween, we're going behind the makeup to celebrate the music, the man, and the extraordinary freedom of being different.

Sometimes music sends me searching. I hear a guitar player, a voice, a strange arrangement, and suddenly I'm off trying to figure out who made that sound and where they came from. Rick Springfield was different. I didn't have to search for him. In the early '80s, he was simply there: on the radio, on General Hospital, on my bedroom wall and eventually on a concert stage in front of me. Then, more than forty years later, four words sung during a completely unrelated meeting brought all of it rushing back. Funny how music does that. And even funnier what happens when the woman you are today starts listening to the songs the girl you were once loved.

I had met a friend in the town I went to school in for years. He was one thing, but the image that the community wanted did not align. I felt so terrible for the position he was in, so I decided to channel it into this poem/song.

Some bands give you songs. Some bands teach you how to hear music differently. Blood, Sweat & Tears came into my childhood through my brother David, but somewhere between those glorious horn arrangements and David Clayton-Thomas’s powerful, wonderfully textured voice, Little Angel was getting a singing lesson without knowing it. Years later, when my own band rearranged “God Bless the Child” around my voice, I finally understood what I had learned: a great cover isn’t about reproducing someone else’s recording. It’s about discovering what a song sounds like when it becomes yours. This is the story of the band that taught me about voice, interpretation, arrangement, and one of the greatest freedoms a singer can discover.

Two brothers. Two Flying Vs. Two very different roads to Guitar God. I first heard Michael Schenker’s music before I even knew his name, while Rudolf Schenker entered my life through Scorpions and eventually became someone I had the privilege of meeting. From UFO and MSG to the riffs and relentless drive of Scorpions, the Schenker brothers show us two very different ways a guitarist can leave a mark on rock ’n’ roll. Decades later, the brothers who took separate journeys are still wielding their axes, influencing musicians, and proving one wonderful thing: Guitar Gods don’t have an expiration date.

I thought I discovered the J. Geils Band when “Centerfold” exploded across MTV. Instead, I had walked into the middle of a story that had been unfolding for years. Digging backward through Love Stinks, older songs, live albums, radio, and finally seeing them onstage taught me just how deep this band went. But Freeze-Frame also raises a bittersweet question: What happens when the breakthrough you've spent years chasing changes what everyone expects you to be? This is about a band that survived the climb, reached the summit, and discovered that success could be its own kind of struggle.

My brother Ric once looked at Little Angel, put a Cheap Trick record on the turntable, and said, “You need to hear this.” I responded by running up the stairs while he chased me playing air guitar. Years later, after Ric was gone, his monster stereo and record collection came home, and Dream Police was waiting for me. This time, I didn’t run. I listened. What began as a favorite memory of my big brother became a journey into Cheap Trick, “Surrender,” and one of my earliest realizations that a band could have something all its own: a sound.

Chicago was already a rock ’n’ roll giant when a hauntingly beautiful voice began pulling the band somewhere unexpected. I first heard that voice as a little girl with a 45 of “If You Leave Me Now,” a song I loved enough to take to school...and got teased for loving. Years later, the sound that had been called “wussy” would help power one of the most remarkable reinventions in rock history. This is about the Chicago that came before, the Peter Cetera who had been there all along, and what it felt like for Gen X to hear the room change while we were standing in it.

I went to Tower Records because Ann Wilson’s voice made me want the new Heart album. I left with two records and a question, thanks to a cute young guitarist who casually announced that he didn’t play licks from female guitar players. Then I dropped the needle on an older Heart album and heard “City’s Burning.” Suddenly, I wasn’t just hearing Heart anymore. I was listening to Nancy Wilson. What followed was a journey backward through the music and the discovery of a guitarist who earned her place in my pantheon the same way the boys did: she played, and I listened.

For me, Y&T wasn’t just another great Bay Area band. They were part of the soundtrack of growing up, the band that opened the door to heavy metal and gave me one of those rock voices I never forgot. From “Forever” to “Mean Streak” and beyond, their mix of melody, muscle, harmonies and screaming guitars still takes me home. I saw them when it was happening, and decades later, I got to hear Dave Meniketti sing again. Some music takes you back. Y&T reminds me I never really left.

I knew Rainbow. I knew the songs. I knew Ritchie Blackmore. Or at least I thought I did. Then a guitarist in my first little band called him “the technician,” and suddenly I had questions. Those questions sent me backward from Rainbow into Deep Purple, taught me the difference between hearing a guitar and truly listening to the guitarist, and eventually followed me all the way to seeing Blackmore play live. This is the story of the Guitar God I had to learn how to hear.

Some songs entertain us. Others somehow find us exactly when we need them. For Little Angel, Triumph’s “Magic Power” was more than a rock song. It seemed to understand the lonely girl lying in her bedroom with a radio, a head full of stories, and dreams much bigger than the world around her. Then I saw Triumph live and discovered the musicianship behind the magic. Decades later, the posters may be gone and the little radio has disappeared, but the music still takes me back. Triumph never demanded that I remember them. They gave me a reason to.

Before I knew who was in ELO, I knew what their music did to me. It lifted. It bounced. It took me somewhere. From the lonely beauty of “Telephone Line” to the instant Gen X Reflex of “Don’t Bring Me Down,” Electric Light Orchestra created rock ’n’ roll filled with strings, synthesizers, spaceships, melody, and wonder. They were already established when my generation arrived, then came with us into the MTV age without losing what made them unmistakably ELO. I didn’t know their names or their stories. The music was the celebrity. And somehow, ELO always brought us up.

Before we called them legends, we called them Guitar Gods, and we meant it. They walked onto stages with long hair, leather, spandex, screaming amplifiers, and an instrument so badass we called it an axe. We screamed for them, worshipped them, and sometimes wanted to become them. I know I did. Somewhere in the shadows, a Black girl who thought nobody would understand picked up an electric guitar and learned her first rock licks. From Hendrix and Van Halen to Prince and Satriani, this is about the era when the solo was sacred, the arena was church, and we had been baptized.

I grew up knowing the Rolling Stones as a band that was happening now. What I didn’t understand was that they had already been rock ’n’ roll giants for decades. Then classic-rock radio sent me digging backward, and suddenly the band giving my generation “Start Me Up” and “Hang Fire” was also the band behind “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Satisfaction,” and “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” They survived the British Invasion, MTV, hip-hop, streaming, and generations of musical change without ever needing a comeback. Which leaves one perfectly reasonable question: Are these guys immortal?

The first scratch hits and my body already knows what comes next. “Rockit.” In 1983, Herbie Hancock gave Gen X a record that sounded like the future, sending dancers into school performances, breakdancers onto television, and silver-painted robots onto the streets of Fisherman’s Wharf. But what Young Angel couldn’t know was that the man behind that strange new sound was already a musical giant who had spent decades refusing to stay inside anyone’s box. We thought Herbie Hancock had stepped into our generation. Looking back, I realize something else: we had finally caught up with him.

I spent my week trying to navigate a world where being different could feel exhausting. Then Sunday night came, the radio went on, and Dr. Demento opened the door to the lunatic fringe. From Allan Sherman and “Shaving Cream” to the Funny Five and the arrival of a wonderfully weird accordion player named Weird Al, this delightfully insane radio show gave me more than laughs. It taught a weird kid that creativity didn’t have to follow the rules, art was up to the artist, and somewhere out there, other weird kids were listening too.