October 31st
album anniversaries

Jay Graydon took the producer’s chair with the Manhattan Transfer for the first time on Extensions. It was also the group’s first album with Cheryl Bentyne, who had replaced Laurel Massé early in 1979.

The best-known track sets Jon Hendricks’ lyrics to Weather Report’s “Birdland”, a version that won the Grammy for Best Jazz Fusion Performance, with a second award for Janis Siegel’s vocal arrangement. “Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone” reached No. 4 on Billboard’s disco chart and No. 30 on the Hot 100, while “Trickle Trickle” and “Body And Soul” round out the set.

SST Records steered Soundgarden towards producer Drew Canulette for their first full-length album, recorded in spring 1988 in Seattle and in Newberg, Oregon. Chris Cornell later said the producer did not understand the band’s sound, and in 2016 the original multitracks went to Jack Endino for a new mix.

“Flower” was the only single, and its video found regular airplay on MTV’s 120 Minutes. Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” appears among the originals, and “One Minute Of Silence” closes the album as a nod to John Lennon. The record also earned the band a Grammy nomination for Best Metal Performance.

In March 1998 OutKast bought a studio near Northside Drive in Atlanta that had belonged to Bobby Brown and renamed it Stankonia Studios. Owning the room removed the pressure of a rented clock; sessions began in spring 1999 and ran for about a year, with production by Earthtone III and Organized Noize.

The album debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and later won Best Rap Album at the 44th Grammy Awards. “B.O.B.” was released first, “Ms. Jackson” gave the duo their first Billboard Hot 100 number one, and “So Fresh, So Clean” followed, with interludes stitched between songs such as “Gasoline Dreams” and “Humble Mumble”.

A warehouse in Haverhill, Massachusetts, became Godsmack’s studio for Awake. Sully Erna, who produced with Andrew “Mudrock” Murdock, said the band avoided a luxurious room to keep its edge, and some songs, “Goin’ Down” among them, came from older material.

The album debuted at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. Its title track reached No. 1 on Billboard’s mainstream rock chart before “Bad Magick” and “Greed” followed as singles, and both “Awake” and “Sick Of Life” were later used in US Navy recruiting advertisements. “Vampires”, a spoken-word track, brought the band its first Grammy nomination.

Sound City in Los Angeles was where Wolfmother recorded their debut, between June and September 2005, with Dave Sardy producing and mixing. Modular Recordings issued it first in Australia, where it peaked at No. 3, went five times platinum and won the J Award for Australian Album of the Year.

“Mind’s Eye” came out as a single two weeks before the album, and “White Unicorn”, “Dimension” and “Woman” followed during 2006. “Joker & The Thief”, released the following October, became the highest-charting of them at No. 8 on the ARIA singles chart, and Interscope handled the album in the United States.

Recovery from life-saving surgery, undergone during the 2023 Dance Fever tour, shaped the period in which Florence Welch made Everybody Scream. She has described it as her most personal Florence + The Machine album.

Mark Bowen of Idles co-wrote and co-produced much of the record, Aaron Dessner co-produced most tracks, and Mitski is credited as a writer on the title song and “Buckle”, also playing piano on the former. It opened at No. 1 in the UK, the band’s fifth chart-topping album, with “One Of The Greats”, “Sympathy Magic” and “Buckle” among the singles that followed the title track.