Hole - Teenage Whore

Courtney Love wrote this song about how she supported herself by working as a striper in Portland, Oregon. "When I was a teenage whore, my mother asked me baby what bores?" and "Baby why you are teenage whore?" are two simple verses that explain how the relation between Courtney Love and her mother, Linda Carroll, was not good. Love was sent to a youth correctional facility by her mother, and she stayed there until she was 16.

Seabird - Falling For You

Seabird is an American alternative rock band from Independence, Kentucky. The band formed when Aaron Morgan, Micah Landers, and Aaron Hunt began playing songs with each other in 2004. The band soon added accordion player David Smith. After playing together for a little under a year both Landers and Smith left to pursue other interests. Soon after Chris Kubik joined the band to take the place of Landers on bass and Morgan began playing two keyboards to make up for the loss of the accordion. After adding Morgan’s brother (Ryan) to play guitar, the band recorded their debut EP in one of the band members' rooms.

Robbie Williams - Supreme

Williams had to fight to become a solo artist. His contract with Take That prevented him from releasing solo material until the group dissolved. Newspapers and talk shows in the UK chronicled his journey to go solo. He was constantly photographed hanging out with other popular artists like Oasis and George Michael. He finally cut his ties with Take That in 1996 but had to pay the group $200,000 in lost commission to do so.

Robbie Williams - Feel

At 16, Williams became the youngest member of Take That. His mother encouraged him to try out for the group after seeing an ad in the local newspaper. He performed on hits with the band but constantly argued with Nigel Martin-Smith, the band's manager, about his lack of creative input. These arguments led to the beginning of Williams' long battle with drug and alcohol abuse.

Robbie Williams - Angels

Williams had previously been a member of boy band Take That, but quit the group in 1995. His solo career had stalled until this song was released on Christmas 1997. The main songwriter and fronton of Take That was Gary Barlow. His solo career started well, (his song "Love Won't Wait" being co-written with Madonna), but it soon dried up, which is sort of the opposite of what happened to Williams. Barlow went on to become a professional songwriter and wrote songs for other artists.

There was a lot of press rivalry with Williams and the Gallagher brothers from Oasis, one of their more printable insults of Williams being "That fat dancer from Take That". Many Britpop fans felt that "Angels" was an attempt to cash in on the then huge Britpop craze by writing a mainstream song in a similar style.

Heaven Street Seven - Ez a szerelem

During the summer of 1995, sound engineer Bernhard Hahn from Stuttgart offered a helping hand to the band, and together they worked together on HS7’s debut album Tick Tock No Fear. The album was made independently, and released privately, as the band did not yet have a recording deal. Around this time the band starts to play their first “serious” gigs. The band is born!

"Ez a szerelem" was released almost ten years later, in 2004.

Heaven Street Seven - Mozdulj

After several years of planning, and playing acoustic teahouse gigs, as well as several ametuer demo recordings made in the girls showers at the college, the band known as Heaven Street Seven came into being in 1995 in Hungary. The founding members of the band are Krisztián Szucs and Robert Németh, who were college classmates in the city of Esztergom. Soon Gyula Orbán and Endre Kiss joined the band as well (both former members of the Paks based band Houdinis).

Garbage - Only Happy When It Rains

In a 1995 interview with Addicted to Noise, Steve Marker, the band's guitarist, said, "It's really just us poking fun of ourselves... We're poking fun at the alternatrock angst, wearing your heart on your sleeve thing and at ourselves for writing such dark songs." This is a similar sentiment to the sarcasm behind The Smith's 1984 single "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now."

Demjén Ferenc - Jöjj vissza vándor

After starting as a bassist in bands Számum, Liversing, Dogs, Meteor, Sakk-Matt, Tűzkerék and Szabadság Szálló Kulcsár, he met István Bergendy in 1970, who invited him to play in his band. He debuted as a song-writer with Jöjj vissza vándor, scoring his first success, resulting in weekly performances in the popular E-Klub and Ifjúsági Park. 

This is a live performance of the song from 1991.

Demjén Ferenc - Jégszív

Ferenc Demjén was born on 21 December 1946 in Diósgyőr. His father was an engineer at the Diósgyőr Steel Company, and after he was fired because of political reasons, the family moved to Budapest, where he got a ministry job. Demjén, who graduated as a chemist technician, was inspired by his fathers singing talent, and started to study music, largely on his own.

Demjén Ferenc - Szerelem első vérig

Ferenc Demjén is a Hungarian pop singer-songwriter and bassist. Besides a solo career, he was the member of bands Bergendy and V'Moto-Rock, and played an important part in the pop culture of the country, contributing to nearly 150 albums since 1965.

His song for the film Szerelem első vérig (1987) topped the Hungarian charts for 8 months. 

Queen - Under Pressure

According to Queen bass player John Deacon, Freddie Mercury did most of the songwriting on this, although everyone contributed. The lyrics deal with how pressure can destroy lives, but love can be the answer. The lyrics are characteristic of Mercury's songwriting.

Deacon however did come up with the iconic two-note bass riff, although it came very close to vanishing: according to Roger Taylor in the Days of our Lives documentary, Deacon came up with the riff, then the band went for pizza before coming back to continue rehearsals. Upon returning, Deacon had completely forgotten his idea! Luckily, Taylor eventually remembered how the bassline went.

David Gray - This Year's Love

This was played in the film The Girl Next Door. After a geeky kid named Max brings a hot new girl to a party, bullies intervene. Max decides to make his move and pushes the bully away from the girl to snatch a kiss. This song plays as they make out.

Placebo - Battle For The Sun

Click Music asked bassist Stefan Olsdal about the meaning and inspiration behind this song's lyrical content. He replied: "Well, Brian (Molko) is the main writer for this band, so the only way I can answer is by offering you my own interpretation. There's always a bit of a conflict going on in the characters that are there in the songs that he writes. I think 'Battle For The Sun' works in the same way that 'Without You I'm Nothing' did as the title track on the second album. 'Battle For The Sun' kind of puts a little umbrella over what the characters are going through in the other tracks, in the sense where the moon is in front of the sun, and when the moon is there like the umbrella, it's dark but when it moves away there is light and you can choose whether to be in the dark or in the light. You can choose to lead a happier life, it might not be easy, but you should hold on to the hope and the optimism."
Drummer Steve Forrest added: "It's the idea that if you love something, it's worth fighting for."

Placebo - Ashtray Heart

"Ashtray Heart" is the third official single from Placebo's sixth studio album, Battle for the Sun. It was released in all of Europe, except for the United Kingdom and Norway, while "The Never-Ending Why" was released in these countries a week before, on 14 September 2009.

"Ashtray Heart" was also the name of the band that would become Placebo. Ashtray Heart was a duo consisted of Molko and Olsdal, before they decided to try out as a serious band and began the search for a drummer.

Bad Religion - American Jesus

This was written in response to US President George H. W. Bush's comment that the US would win the Gulf War (the first one) because God is on their side. It's pretty much a satirical view on the general American thought that the United States is the most powerful nation in the world because it is "One nation under God." 

Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam sang backup on this track.

 

Andrew W.K. - Let's Go On A Date

As a one-man show,  Andrew W.K. played a couple of opening slots for Foo Fighters in the early 2000's. Early shows featured no more than Andrew onstage with a CD player, keyboard, and microphone.

When he finally formed a band, it was with three guitars, a bass and a drummer. One of the guitarists is Jimmy Coup, who played with thrash band Coup de Grace. The drummer, Donald "D.T." Tardy, was in the death-metal group Obituary.

Upon the release of his debut album, NME (a popular British music magazine) dubbed Andrew "The Saviour of Music."

 

 

Andrew W.K. - We Party (You Shout)

Andrew W.K. was born in California, he was raised in Michigan, around the Detroit area. He began his classical piano lessons at age four. Unlike most, he never quit, but moved on to drumming in death-metal groups as a teen.

His sound is basically death-metal with pop melodies. He feels that he shouldn't limit his taste in music and writes what he feels.

 

 

Neil Diamond - I'm a Believer

There is a popular misconception that Neil Diamond wrote and composed these songs specifically for the made-for-TV quartet, The Monkees. In reality, Diamond had written and recorded them for himself, but the cover versions were released before his own. Diamond's version was released on his 1967 album Just For You. The Monkees version benefited from exposure on their television series.

Adele - Rolling in the Deep

Much of 21 including this song is about Adele's life after a tumultuous relationship in the years following her success. "I was angry!" she told Spinner. "I was really, really angry with my personal life up to about a year ago. I've grown up a little as well, and I like to think I've blossomed into who I'm going to become. I'm not really willing to be walked all over like I was with the relationship that the first record is about. I have the upper hand now, so yeah, the whole record is a bit bitter."

Adele described the song to Spin Magazine as a kiss-off to an unfaithful dude. "It's me saying, 'Get the f--- out of my house instead of me begging him to come back. It's my reaction to being told my life was going be boring and lonely and rubbish, and that I was a weak person if I didn't stay in a relationship," she said. "I wrote it as a sort of 'F--k you.'"