"This must be one stupid broad," Frank Sinatra said in the summer of 1990, headlining the Garden State Arts Center in Holmdel, N.J. the night after an appearance by a young, shaved-headed Irishwoman named Sinéad O'Connor. O'Connor, having spent a month atop the charts earlier in the year with her version of Prince's 'Nothing Compares 2 U,' had threatened to boycott unless the theater agreed not to play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' before the show, as was its custom.

Two years before she ripped up a photo of a certain religious figure on a certain high-impact comedy-and-music show, the outspoken young singer was already making international news with her fearless principles. In May 1990, she refused to honor her first invitation on 'Saturday Night Live' when she learned about the misogynistic comedy of host Andrew "Dice" Clay. In August, riding the runaway sales of her album 'I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got,' O'Connor succeeded in getting the Arts Center to forgo the national anthem. She was, she explained, no fan of warmongering anthems in general.

When the members of the Band shared Big Pink, their famous house near Woodstock, N.Y., they had a dog. The dog's name was Hamlet. Almost 20 years later, Richard Manuel -- the aching voice who introduced the group with 'Tears of Rage,' the first cut on its 1968 debut -- finally addressed Hamlet's timeless question: To be or not to be? At age 42, Manuel chose the latter.

Despite Manuel's reckless, hard-partying attitude, the hurt was always evident in his remarkable voice, from his version of Bob Dylan's 'I Shall Be Released' to the posthumously released 'Country Boy.' "He had a voice like a hug," his second wife would recall.

Crackerjack guitarist Danny Cedrone liked to tell his wife that he just needed one bona fide hit and their family would be set for life. In the meantime, he pieced together a living with his band the Esquire Boys and as a session player for a spit-curled country-and-western bandleader named Bill Haley.

Well-versed in jazz and western swing, by the early 1950s Haley and his group, the Saddlemen (later cleverly renamed the Comets), were toying with a new sound. They covered 'Rocket 88,' the Ike Turner stomper recorded as Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, which is sometimes nominated as the first rock 'n' roll song. On another boogie remake called 'Rock the Joint,' Cedrone laid down a flash-fingered solo with his hollow-body Gibson ES-300, a bit of foreshadowing for the wild guitar showcasing that would soon help define the rock 'n' roll sound.

As a Miami disc jockey known as "DJ Uncle Al," Albert Leroy Moss was instrumental in promoting the city's unique blend of reggae, Latin and hip-hop music. Moss got his start on WEDR 99.1 FM ("99 Jamz") alongside 2 Live Crew's Luther Campbell, quickly establishing himself as a prolific recording artist, producer and remixer. "Uncle Al was one of the few people who made me like Miami music," said ex-New Yorker Supa Cindy, a friend and colleague.

Uncle Al was also relentless in his calls for peace in the hood, imploring his listeners to stop the violence. At that, he was less successful: Seven years ago, the radio personality sometimes known as DJ Peace answered the door of his Liberty City duplex and was gunned down at point-blank range.

"It appears that people refer to me as the James Dean of Hamburg," wrote Stu Sutcliffe, one of the first in a long list of "fifth Beatles," to his mother in 1960 or thereabouts. Unfortunately, John Lennon's best friend at the time turned out to be like the brooding movie star in more ways than one. An intense creative inspiration to his closest confidants, he died young and left a good-looking corpse.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, Sutcliffe met Lennon at the Liverpool College of Art, where the former was immediately recognized as a talented painter. Their fast friendship led Paul McCartney to lament that he'd taken a "back seat" to Lennon's new sidekick.

Bad singing, evidently, can be good for the soul. For better or worse, every decade seems to require its own William Hung. The '70s, of course, had Shatner; the '80s gave us Don Johnson. But the 1960s had the one bad singer who makes all others sound positively Pavarotti-esque.

Off-key, off-beat and trilling like the Church Lady's operatic alter ego, the perverse singing sensation known as Mrs. Miller was a matronly California housewife who was already nearly 60 by the time of her "discovery." For years, Elva Ruby Miller recorded excruciating hymns intended for funerals for her own enjoyment. "A closet at home is filled with them," she said.

The story of Sid Vicious' ill-fated relationship with Nancy Spungen is the stuff of punk legend. Less well-known is the twisted saga of Sid's remains.

Born to a hippie mother and a father who was reportedly a guard at Buckingham Palace, John Simon Ritchie took the punk surname "Vicious" from Johnny Rotten's pet hamster. Following the infamous flameout of the Sex Pistols, Sid attempted a solo career, drawing rowdy crowds to the New York nightclub Max's Kansas City. He and Spungen were deep into mutual drug dependency, holed up in their room at the Hotel Chelsea in Manhattan, when Nancy died of a mysterious single stab wound to the stomach, on their bathroom floor. Sid claimed to have no recollection of the incident. Though some speculated the murder may have been committed by one of two known drug dealers to have visited the room, others believed Sid had failed to hold up his end of a suicide pact.

You're a band of outrageously tuneful young rockers from Liverpool. You're not the Beatles. The pressure must feel like carrying a piano.

Those Brits sure know how to rush things. When a ragtag little skiffle group known as the La's – local vernacular for "lads" – started making demo recordings of their exuberant music in 1986, fans were instantly convinced it was the Second Coming. Industry types swallowed the hype, and the La's, led by frontman Lee Mavers, quickly signed with London's Go! Discs, home to Billy Bragg and the Housemartins.

They went two-by-two to Noah's Ark. When reggae producer nonpareil Lee Perry built his Black Ark studio, he went all by his lonesome.

A wildly eccentric studio sorcerer who was on hand at the creation of reggae and dub music, Lee "Scratch" Perry helped shape Bob Marley's mature sound and indoctrinated the Clash into international music. Though it was Perry's early ska hit 'Chicken Scratch' that would give him his most enduring nickname, he has accumulated plenty of them over the years – the Upsetter, Super Ape, Pipecock Jackxon. At the height of his career he was, as the musical explorer David Toop once wrote, a combination of "electronic wizard, evangelist, gossip columnist and Dr. Frankenstein."

If you had to pick a musical voice of America, you could do an awful lot worse than the orchestral-pop composer Randy Newman. While few were looking, this acquired taste quietly dug himself in as an American songwriter for the ages. His catalog of notable songs, and their extended reach into the movies, pop culture and the repertoires of other artists, practically qualifies him as a national treasure.

For a guy who's only clambered into the pop Top 40 once in his long career, Newman's successes are many. 'Louisiana 1927,' which he recorded in 1974, was revived as a communal ode in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. His saucy song 'You Can Leave Your Hat On,' covered by Joe Cocker, provided the most memorable scene in the softcore hit '9 1/2 Weeks.' Newman's 'Mama Told Me (Not to Come)' was the first of three No. 1s for the huge early-'70s rock act Three Dog Night. And as a film composer he has defined a certain brand of unabashed Americana, from the theme to 'The Natural' to signature Pixar songs such as 'You've Got a Friend in Me' (from 'Toy Story') and 'If I Didn't Have You' ('Monsters, Inc.').

But despite his genuinely heartfelt film music, Newman is a satirist to the core. And as Jonathan Swift and Stephen Colbert would tell you, satire is a tough business. The satirist is bound to offend someone, somewhere. Invariably, it's someone who's missed the point completely. Newman's one true hit record marked him for life.