Colored photograph of David Bowie in a white collared shirt and black vest, holding a microphone with white text along top right edge.  

David Bowie possessed the persona The Thin White Duke during the mid 1970s. The Thin White Duke was created during Bowie's Young Americans tour, but it has mainly been associated with his album Station to Station. This persona was an emotionless man who sang romance songs and dressed in a cabaret-style wardrobe. 

David Bowie is an English singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, actor, and record producer. He began his career in the music industry in the 1960s. His final album Blackstar was released on January 8, 2016, two days before his death.

A solider in a circle is staring with a cartoonish smile on his face, the top half is white on black and the bottom is black on white.

Crass was a politically active English punk rock band that was formed in 1977. The band promoted anarchism and resistance movements as a way of promoting their support of direct action, animal rights and environmentalism.

The band members were Steve Ignorant, Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher, N.A. Palmer, Phil Free, Pete Wright, Eve Libertine, Joy De Vivre, Mick Duffield, John Loder and Steve Herman. Steve Ignorant was inspired to create a band after seeing the Clash perform in Bristol. The band’s name came from a reference to “crass” in a line from David Bowiie’s song “Ziggy Stardust.”

“Ziggy played for time, jiving us that we were voodoo

The kids were just crass, he was the nazz”

One of the ways that Crass demonstrated their anarchist beliefs was through their logo which blended icons of authority to create a new symbol. The logo included the Christian cross, the swastika, the Union Jack and a two-headed Ouroboros (serpent or dragon eating its own tail). Crass started their own record label so that they could avoid censorship. The police investigated the band after the release of its song “Asylum.” Additionally, the band was known for being pacifists. 

Classical music, Benjamin Britten, John Cage, and Karlheinz Stockhausen in particular, as well as various artists and writers influenced the band. One of the writers that Crass has cited as being influential is Baudelaire. Additionally the band has mentioned that existentialism and Zen philosophies have also influenced their work. These influences could be heard in their music and seen in their performances and promotion, as they employed tape collages, graphics, poetry and improvisation. 

Black lettering on a white background above a black and white photograph of four young men. Two of the men are playing guitar, one man is holding a microphone, and one man standing.

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Illustration of a Sphinx with the words "Do It!" in a speech bubble next to a Pyramid. White text is at the top with a red drop shadow on a blue sky background. 

The English post-punk revival/noise band, Clinic, was signed to Domino Records in 1999. The band is originally from Liverpool and is known for their strange chord progressions. The band is comprised of four members: Adrian “Ade” Blackburn who sings and plays guitar, keyboard and melodica; Brian Campbell who plays bass guitar and flute and sings backing vocals; Jonathan “Hartley” Hartley who plays guitar, keyboards, and clarinet; and Carl Turney who plays drums and piano and sings backing vocals. “Do It!” is the fifth album of the band and was released in April of 2008. The single that was released in conjunction with “Do It!” was “Free Not Free.” The song was perceived as being uncharacteristically mellow and subdued compared to their other songs.

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Black text over a photograph of Cheap Trick band members (Robin Zander, Rick Nielsen, Tom Petersson, and Bun E. Carlos) wearing white police uniforms and carrying weapons.  Image traken from the Dream Police album cover.  

Cheap Trick is an American rock band formed in Chicago, IL, in 1973. They released their first full-length, self-titled album in 1977. The band is known for its distinctive visual image and stage presence, which includes the frequent use of Hamer five-neck guitars by the group’s quirky front-man Rick Nielsen. Their second album, released later the same year, was perhaps their biggest success and featured songs “I Want You to Want Me” and “Hello There.”

Image of Carlos Santana playing his guitar with white text in the top right edge on a black background.

Carlos Santa is a Mexican American musician who is best known for his rock and Latin American musical fusion. Santa achieves this fusion through instrumentation and rhythm. Santa really crosses genre boundaries by combining elements of jazz, blues, salsa, rock, etc. to create is unique sound. The band had its first break through after playing at the Woodstock Music and Art Festival in 1969. This performance launched the band onto an international audience. Santa, and his band, has been active from 1969 to present day. Santana’s popularity began to slump in the 1980s as the band attempted to create music for commercial appeal. Nonetheless, the band regained its popularity in the 1990s as Carlos took on a collaborative project with new emerging artists. The result was the album Supernatural with artists such as Matchbox Twenty, Lauryn Hill, Cee Lo Green, Dave Matthews and others.

Black and white photography of Walter Dyett over capitalized black text on a white background.  

Walter Dyett, also known as Captain Dyett, was a violinist and music teacher in Chicago’s public schools from the 1930s to 1960s. Dyett had originally studied the violin in California and moved to Chicago in the 1920s. He then became a teacher, most notably working at DuSable High School, where he taught for thirty years. Under Dyett, DuSable High became noted for its jazz musicians, churning out stars like Nat King Cole, Von Freeman, and Dorothy Young. Dyett died in 1968, but was honored in 2013 with a concert held by three DuSable alums who created songs based on Dyett’s famous sayings encouraging students to believe in themselves.

Photograph of Boy George (from Culture Club's Karma Chameleon single cover) with black text.  

Karma Chameleon is a single from UK band Culture Club's 1983 album Colour by Numbers. The single spent three weeks at number one on the U.S. Billboard in 1984, and hit number one in 16 countries worldwide. In the UK, it stayed at the top of the singles chart for 6 weeks and became the UK’s biggest selling single for 1983. The lead singer of Culture Club was Boy George, born George Alan O'Dowd. The group disbanded in the late 80s and Boy George pursued a solo career which included performing as a DJ and television appearances.

Capitalized back text, entwined by the illustrated image of a yellow, black, and white snake, surrounded by tiny red crosses on a white background.  

Black Sabbath were a rock band formed in Birmingham, England in 1968. The original members were drummer Bill Ward, bassist/lyricist Geezer Butler, singer Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist/songwriter Tony Iommi. The group settled on the name "Black Sabbath" after writing a song of the same name that was inspired by a 1963 horror film entitled Black Sabbath starring Boris Karloff. The dark lyrics and sound differed from other pop music of the 1960s, and had a profound impact on the band's future direction. 

Over the years, the band has experienced numerous lineup and musical style changes, with Iommi as the only constant member. Black Sabbath has sold over 70 million records worldwide, and is considered one of the most influential heavy metal rock bands, inspiring groups such as Metallica, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, and many others. In 2015, it was announced that the band would embark on its final tour, "The End," from January 2016 to February 2017, featuring three of the four original members: Iommi, Butler and Osbourne. Ward opted out of the tour, due to health issues and disagreements with Osbourne. 

Billy Idol is formed like a crossword puzzle on a shiny, holographic rainbow background.

Billy Idol is a British rock musician.  Born William Michael Albert Broad in 1955 in Middlesex, England, he apparently came up with the name Billy Idol because his school teachers would describe him as being idle. 

Early in his career, Idol was the lead singer of the band Generation X, who featured in Lech Kowalski's 1980 rockumentary film D.O.A.: A Rite of Passage.  After 3 albums the band split and Idol launched a successful solo career, working with ex-Kiss manager, Bill Aucoin.  Between 1982 and 2006 he released 7 studio albums and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1985, 1987 and 1991.