762 articles
Face to Face (The Kinks album)
Face to Face is the Kinks' fourth studio album, released 28 October 1966 on Pye, produced by Shel Talmy, featuring "Sunny Afternoon" and Ray Davies's turn to English class portraits.
Facelift (album)
Facelift is the 1990 debut album by Seattle band Alice in Chains, produced by Dave Jerden on Columbia. It peaked at No. 42 on the Billboard 200 and was the first grunge album certified gold by the RIAA.
Fair Warning (Van Halen album)
Fair Warning is Van Halen's fourth studio album, released April 29, 1981 on Warner Bros. The darkest, heaviest David Lee Roth-era record, it peaked at #5 on the Billboard 200, sold about two million copies, and produced no Hot 100 singles.
Fairlight CMI
Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument): first commercially available digital sampling synthesizer and music workstation, by Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, Sydney, 1979; 8-bit sampling, light pen, Page R sequencer, used by Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel.
Fear of a Black Planet
Fear of a Black Planet is Public Enemy's third studio album (Def Jam/Columbia, April 1990), produced by the Bomb Squad, featuring "Fight the Power" and "911 Is a Joke," selling over 1.5 million copies by July 1990.
Filk music
Filk music, the folk music of science fiction and fantasy fandom, began as a 1950s typo for "folk"; fans perform it in bardic and chaos song circles at dedicated conventions worldwide.
Fireball (album)
Fireball (1971) is Deep Purple's fifth album, second with the Mk II line-up, recorded at De Lane Lea Studios; first of three UK number-one Purple albums, with the double-bass-drum title track single reaching No. 15 UK.
First-wave black metal
First-wave black metal, roughly 1982–1991, names the scattered extreme metal bands (Venom, Bathory, Mercyful Fate, Hellhammer/Celtic Frost, Sarcófago) whose satanic imagery and raw sound, named by Venom's 1982 album Black Metal, preceded and fed the Norwegian second wave.
Flatbush Zombies
Flatbush Zombies are a Brooklyn hip-hop trio (Meechy Darko, Zombie Juice, Erick the Architect) formed in 2010, known for psychedelic East Coast rap, the independent Glorious Dead label, the mixtapes D.R.U.G.S. and BetterOffDEAD, and the Billboard 200 top-10 debut album 3001: A Laced Odyssey.
Florida death metal
Florida death metal: the death metal scene that formed in the Tampa Bay and Orlando suburbs, 1984 to 1994, built by Death, Morbid Angel, Obituary, and Deicide around Morrisound Studio and producer Scott Burns in Tampa.
Fly on the Wall (AC/DC album)
Fly on the Wall is AC/DC's tenth studio album, released 28 June 1985. Self-produced by Angus and Malcolm Young at Mountain Studios, Montreux, after leaving producer Mutt Lange; criticized for murky production, peaking at UK No. 7 and US No. 32.
Flying Lotus
Flying Lotus (Steven Ellison) is a Los Angeles electronic producer and Warp artist, founder of Brainfeeder, grand-nephew of Alice Coltrane, creator of Cosmogramma, You're Dead!, Captain Murphy, and the films Kuso and Ash.
Folk rock
Folk rock, also folk-rock, is a music genre combining folk and rock: electric renditions of traditional material, from the Byrds' 1965 "Mr. Tambourine Man" through British folk rock to modern indie folk-rock.
For Those About to Rock We Salute You
For Those About to Rock We Salute You is AC/DC's eighth studio album (1981), produced by Mutt Lange in Paris. First US Billboard 200 No.1 for the band; title track with cannons is a lasting concert closer.
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (F.U.C.K.) is Van Halen's ninth studio album, released June 17, 1991; third consecutive US number one with Sammy Hagar, produced by Andy Johns and Ted Templeman, triple platinum, Grammy-winning.
For Your Pleasure
For Your Pleasure is Roxy Music's second studio album, released 23 March 1973 on Island and Warner Bros. Produced by Chris Thomas and John Anthony, it was the last Roxy album with Brian Eno and includes Do the Strand and In Every Dream Home a Heartache.
Foreigner (Foreigner album)
Foreigner (1977) is the Anglo-American rock band Foreigner's Atlantic Records debut, produced by Gary Lyons and John Sinclair. It hit No. 4 on the Billboard 200, went multi-platinum in the US, and spun off "Feels Like the First Time" and "Cold as Ice."
Four on the floor (music)
Four on the floor is a rhythm pattern with the bass drum on every beat of a 4/4 measure, the foundation of disco and electronic dance music.
Frankie Beverly
Frankie Beverly (Howard Stanley Beverly, 1946–2024), American soul singer-songwriter, founder and frontman of Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly; hits include Before I Let Go, Joy and Pain; nine gold albums, 2025 posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.
Freak folk
Freak folk is a subgenre of psychedelic folk that emerged in the early 2000s, in which mainly acoustic instruments carry unusual, experimental, and lo-fi elements.
Freestyle rap
Freestyle rap is improvised rapping over a beat or a cappella, born in the 1970s South Bronx; the term once meant verses "free of style". Known for ciphers, battle formats like Red Bull Batalla, and studied in fMRI creativity research.
Frippertronics
Frippertronics is Robert Fripp's tape-looping system using two linked Revox A77 recorders, learned from Brian Eno and first heard on No Pussyfooting (1973); performed solo publicly from February 1978 at The Kitchen, New York.
Front 242
Front 242, Belgian electronic band formed 1981 in Brussels, pioneers of Electronic Body Music (EBM). Albums Geography, Official Version, Front by Front; Headhunter hit Billboard dance #13; final show 25 January 2025 at Ancienne Belgique, Brussels.
Fun House (The Stooges album)
Fun House, the Stooges' second album (Elektra, July 7, 1970), recorded live-style in Los Angeles with producer Don Gallucci; initially panned and a poor seller, later ranked #94 on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums.
Funeral doom
Funeral doom is an extreme doom metal subgenre influenced by funeral dirges, defined by ultra-slow tempos such as 33 bpm, droning guitars, organs, and growled vocals. Pioneered by Thergothon, Skepticism, Funeral, Evoken, and Esoteric.
Funk
Funk: African American dance music genre emerging mid-1960s from soul, jazz, and R&B, pioneered by James Brown's "on the one" groove; syncopated bass-heavy style behind disco, hip-hop, go-go, and Afrobeat.
G N' R Lies
G N' R Lies (1988) is Guns N' Roses' second album, a double EP pairing the faux-live 1986 Live ?!@ Like a Suicide with four acoustic songs including Patience and the controversial One in a Million; it peaked at number 2 and sold about 10 million copies.
Gangsta rap
Gangsta rap is a hardcore hip-hop subgenre portraying street life, gangs, and violence, pioneered by Schoolly D, Ice-T, and N.W.A, peaking 1988–1997 and related to trap, drill, and G-Funk.
Gangsta's Paradise
Coolio's 1995 hip-hop single 'Gangsta's Paradise', built on Stevie Wonder's 'Pastime Paradise' with L.V. singing the hook; three weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, best-selling US single of 1995, and 1996 Grammy winner for Best Rap Solo Performance.
Garage rock
Garage rock, also called garage punk or garage bands: raw, amateurish American rock of the mid-1960s, born after the Beatles' 1964 Ed Sullivan appearance, named for suburban rehearsal garages, revived by the 1972 Nuggets compilation and the 1980s and circa-2000 revivals.