Klinger: I’ve generally considered John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band to be an album that is more respected than liked. It has a built-in reputation as the by-product of Lennon’s “Primal Scream” phase, a brief time in which he employed the therapies of Dr. Arthur Janov and took to shrieking his troubles away. All of this baggage caused me to think of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band as pure catharsis, an extended rant from a young man who was fed up with the trappings of his culture, and was as a result lashing out at everything around him—the Portnoy’s Complaint of rock, if you will, albeit with fewer masturbation references.

Actually revisiting the album again after so many years, though, I find it to be a far more controlled listening experience than I was expecting. There’s surprisingly little screaming, and in fact it’s quite the tuneful record in places, with Lennon crafting some of his finest melodies (“Love” and “God”, to name two examples). Yes, the lyrics are pretty biting throughout, but it’s hardly the yell-a-thon I had built up in my mind. Lennon seldom even sounds like he’s curled up in the fetal position. But Mendelsohn, I’m going to take a stab here and guess that you were less encumbered by the reputation of this album—what’s your take?

After the initial sweeping vengeance of punk took hold after 1977, a sweeping platform of New Music strode in, re-landscaping pop music. In that heady era, all things converged, from Talking Heads and the Records to Joe Jackson and Ultravox. That’s the genre I sense when listening Texas-based the Shadow, who melds punk’s knack for the inchoate and off-kilter with a savvy sense of trad-rock hooks and pop-a-delic fare. To be sure, for every bit of mustered, seething psychodrama they vent, a bit of the Age of Aquarius leaks out with modern flair, pummeling, and agility.

“Punk Rock Agent” slips into the earlobe with persistent charm, easily mustering a week’s worth of humming and silent sing-along head nods in the grocery store aisle. Sure, it lacks roughhewn edges and emotional bullets, but the tune’s caffeinated pulse adeptly combines layers of streamlined surf, titanic pop bombast, and a 1960s urge for danceability and crunchy guitar thrust. If a phenom single cut exists on the album, something for future lore about the band,a breakthrough track—this is it, a proud reign of pouncing pop-punk.

To date, Madonna has released 75 singles across 13 albums, four soundtrack albums, and six compilation albums, with “Give Me All Your Luvin’” (from the upcoming LP MDNA) being her latest. She has had 12 number-one hits in both the United States and the United Kingdom (with different sets of songs), plus 24 chart-toppers in Canada, and 38 US, 60 UK, and 49 Canadian Top 10 hits. Madonna has dominated the radio and video airwaves for quite some time, and although the moniker of “King of Pop” is firmly affixed to Michael Jackson, “Queen of Pop” gets bounced around to every new fluffy pop tartlet who claims to integrate music and fashion like it’s something that’s never been done before

Deer Tick: transmitter of Lyme Disease or a brotherhood of musicians with a penchant for rock ‘n’ roll and cheap beer? It may have started off as a disease, but since 2004 Deer Tick has represented singer/song writer John McCauley of Providence, Rhode Island. Originally a solo project specializing in East-Coast Americana rock with an indie-folk glaze, Deer Tick has gradually evolved into a full five-piece band with somewhat of a split personality.

Deer Tick’s first three studio albums carried alt-country tones complete with guts, grime, and a knack for solid songwriting. Live the group became a raucous rock band whose music grabbed fans by the collar to kiss them, then spray in the face with beer. Then in 2011 Deer Tick released its fourth studio album Divine Providence, which encapsulated everything from its past mixed with its live rambunctious self.

It’s fitting that the most recognizable samples from “The Sounds of Science” come from the Beatles’ catalog. On this tune, the Beasties are experimenting with form and pushing the boundaries of their genre in a similar manner as the Fab Four did in the second half of their career. “The Sounds of Science” is essentially a three-movement suite about hip-hop bravado, and rarely has science sounded hipper.

The central conceit of “The Sound of Science” is that the Beasties’ music and personae are like great scientific discoveries that might not be appreciated at the time (“No one really knows what I’m talking about”) but will someday be celebrated as ingenious. Sure, it’s arrogant as can be. It’s also pretty prescient.