Music Memoirs

Forty years after its release, Motörhead's Orgasmatron remains one of the band's most distinctive albums, marking a new chapter with a four-piece line-up, a new record label and one of Lemmy Kilmister's most enduring title songs.

The Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood has returned to the concert stage for the first time in six years, performing two intimate solo shows in Austria and Italy while revisiting music from every major chapter of his career with The Rolling Stones, Faces, the Jeff Beck Group and his solo catalogue.

The Rolling Stones have made “Bad Luck Hideaway” available as a bonus track from the Foreign Tongues era, giving fans access to a previously unavailable recording featuring the songwriting partnership of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.

Sixty years after its release, The Yardbirds' Roger The Engineer remains one of the defining recordings of the British rock explosion, capturing Jeff Beck's only complete studio album with the band and laying the foundations for psychedelic rock, hard rock and heavy metal.

Forty years after its release, Bob Dylan's Knocked Out Loaded remains one of the most debated records in his extensive catalogue, remembered as a commercial disappointment that nevertheless produced the enduring epic Brownsville Girl.

The Rolling Stones have spent more than six decades rewriting the rules of rock music. With Foreign Tongues, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood have delivered another reminder that longevity means little without creativity, and creativity is something this band still possesses in abundance.

With The Rolling Stones set to release Foreign Tongues on Friday, 11 July, there is no better time to revisit the five albums that shaped the band's greatest creative era. From Beggars Banquet to Some Girls, these records defined modern rock music and remain the benchmark against which every new Stones release is measured.