So many variables determine what makes an artist or band “essential” — longevity, impact, influence, history. On-air and online, we celebrate the musicians who have shaped our cultural soundtrack for the past fifty years. Let’s love these FUV Essential artists while they’re here, and honor those who have departed too soon.
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Pretenders' landmark debut album and Chrissie Hynde and Martin Chambers will be together again, touring with the 2020 lineup of the band with Journey this spring and summer throughout North America. We're celebrating the band (and Hynde as a solo artist) as an FUV Essentials again.
The Pretenders (photo by Joel Ryan/AP)
It was tough for the FUV Staff to narrow down our choices in this exceptional year for music, but you can find our favorite albums and songs of 2019 below.
Directors, music supervisors, composers, and film editors all know the pure magic that a perfect song or score brings to a scene, elevating it from
FUV Essentials: Soundtracks and Scores (collage by Laura Fedele, WFUV)
This week, #FUVTBT Throwback Thursday rewinds back 25 years to 1994 and looks back on the albums and songs released that year,
#TBT 1994 (collage of album covers by Laura Fedele, WFUV)
On Joni Mitchell's 76th birthday — and fresh off of Brandi Carlile's magnificent October concert, recreating Mitchell's 1971 album Blue in its entirety — we're spinning songs from Mitchell's Clouds, Hejira, Ladies of the Canyon and so much more today, steeped in the music of this iconic FUV Essentials artist.
![Joni Mitchell (Original photo: Asylum Records [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)](https://wfuv.org/sites/default/files/ESS-JoniMitchell_1.png "Joni Mitchell (Original photo: Asylum Records [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)")
Joni Mitchell (Original photo: Asylum Records [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons)
Take a song that's powered by electric guitars and synths and break it down to its acoustic heart — that's what was so fascinating about "MTV Unplu
Unplugged Essentials (original photo by Gus Philippas)
Had he lived, Tom Petty would have turned 69 on October 20 of this year. As Damn the Torpedoes turns 40 in October 2019 (and Full Moon Fever marked its 30th anniversary this past spring), we're saluting Petty as an FUV Essentials.
Tom Petty (Original photo by Takahiro Kyono from Tokyo, Japan, CC BY 2.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)
[October 2019 update: The death of Steely Dan co-founder Walter Becker
Steely Dan's Donald Fagen and the late Walter Becker (photo by Danny Clinch, PR)
For their exploration, chutzpah, honesty, and for their ability to be dark, weird, and happily hooky at the same time, Wilco is and shall remain an FUV Essentials artist. The band's new album, Ode to Joy, is out now.
Wilco (photo by Zoran Orlic, PR)
As an FUV Essentials artist, Sheryl Crow symbolizes not only great pop and rock songwriting, but the genuine power of a true activist.
Sheryl Crow (photo courtesy of the artist, PR)
