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.
Beck returns to New York with a show at Madison Square Garden on July 19, supporting 2017's Colors, an upbeat kaleidoscope of an album that the #FUVEssentials artist describes as "not retro and not modern."
Beck (Original photo by Neil Swanson. Illustration by Laura Fedele)
(December 2018 update: Radiohead will be part of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Class of 2019, inducted on
Caroline Rose (photo by Matt Hogan, PR)
As Radiohead returns in July 2018 for a four-night stand at New York's Madison Square Garden, we're celebrating the music of this beloved #FUVEssentials band.
Radiohead's Thom Yorke, left, and Jonny Greenwood in 2012 (AP Photo)
In May, Halo Maud's Maud Nadal opened for Phoenix during their five-show residency at Paris's La Gaîté Lyrique. She says that the French band is the most generous she's ever met — and she returned that generosity by choosing her "Five Essential Phoenix Songs" for FUV Essentials.
Halo Maud's Maud Nadal (photo by Lola Pertsowsky, PR)
Phoenix is a beloved and much-needed ambassador of French joie de vivre in the States. As the band returns to New York for a five-day residency at Brooklyn Steel, we're celebrating the quartet as one of our FUV Essentials.
Phoenix (courtesy of Glassnote Records)
Jim James has released an eclectic third solo album, Uniform Distortion, and announced a solo acoustic autumn tour. And he's an avid student of Neil Young's music.
Jim James (Photo by Tyler Close, PR)
The "U2 Experience + Innocence Tour" is bound for the New York area for four shows, playing Madison Square Garden on June 25, June 26 and July 1 and Newark's Prudential Center on June 29, as the Irish rockers support their latest album, Songs of Experience.
The Lumineers (photo by Scarlet Page, PR)
Ahead of performing two concerts at Bard College's Fisher Center of nothing but Aimee Mann covers, called "All the Presidents Mann," on June 29, actress, activist, and singer Martha Plimpton chooses her "Five Essential Aimee Mann Songs" for FUV Essentials.
Martha Plimpton (photo courtesy of the artist)
WFUV will broadcast Aimee Mann's sett from the BRIC Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival, live from the Prospect Park Bandshell, on Thursday, June 21, beginning just after 9 p.m. EDT.
Aimee Mann at Manchester Academy (original photo by Andy Roo, courtesy of Creative Commons)
[Update for June 7, 2018: On what would have been Prince's 60th birthday, the much-missed musician is being remembered via a panoply of events, ran
Prince (photo courtesy of Warner Brothers)
