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Curated playlist

Musical quartets from California

  • MetallicaIn 1986, a tour bus overturned in Sweden and killed Metallica bassist Cliff Burton.
  • Green DayGreen Day is an American rock band whose own lead singer once called its name "the worst band name in the world." Billie Joe Armstrong said so in 2001. The name came from Bay Area slang for an entire day given over to smoking marijuana.…
  • Metro Station (band)The band Metro Station began on the set of Hannah Montana. Mason Musso and Trace Cyrus met there in 2005.
  • Mötley CrüeMötley Crüe, the Hollywood heavy metal band, began with a classified advertisement in a paper called The Recycler. It read: "Loud, rude and aggressive guitar player available." The man who placed it was Bob Deal, who performed as Mick…
  • Red Hot Chili PeppersThe Red Hot Chili Peppers played their first show on the 16th of December 1982, at the Grandia Room, a club on Hollywood Boulevard, in front of roughly 30 people. They did not yet have that name. The poster billed them as Tony Flow and the…
  • The DoorsThe Doors sang the banned word "higher" on The Ed Sullivan Show. Network executives had asked the band to cut it.
  • Stone Temple PilotsIn January 1994, a Rolling Stone poll handed Stone Temple Pilots two opposite verdicts at the same moment. The magazine's readers voted them Best New Band. The magazine's own critics voted them Worst New Band. Stone Temple Pilots, an…
  • N.W.AAmong the objects on display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio, is a letter from the FBI about N.W.A. Milt Ahlerich, an assistant director of the bureau, sent it to Ruthless Records and its distributing company, Priority…
  • System of a DownSystem of a Down, an Armenian-American metal band from Glendale, California, planned a thank-you gift for its fans on the 3rd of September 2001. The gift was a free concert in Hollywood to launch the band's second album. The site was a…
  • Rage Against the MachineRage Against the Machine, a rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1991, had sold more than 16 million records worldwide by 2010. On the 3rd of November 2023, Ice-T inducted the group into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at Barclays Center in…
  • MegadethMegadeth is an American heavy metal band, and its name began with a line on a political pamphlet. In 1983, Dave Mustaine found the leaflet on a bus heading back to Los Angeles. California senator Alan Cranston had put it out. One sentence…
  • Creedence Clearwater RevivalIn June 2025, a compilation album by Creedence Clearwater Revival reached its 750th week on the Billboard 200. Chronicle: The 20 Greatest Hits first appeared in 1976 and has never really left the chart. The Recording Industry Association…
  • Tool (band)Tool, the American rock band from Los Angeles, once announced an album that did not exist. In January 2001, the group revealed a record called Systema Encéphale and published a twelve-song track list. The titles included "Riverchrist",…
  • Van HalenVan Halen, the American hard rock band, once earned 1.5 million dollars for a single 90-minute set at Steve Wozniak's 1983 US Festival. That fee put them into the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest-paid single appearance by a…

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