John Cale

John Cale has enjoyed one of the most diverse and adventurous careers in rock music, building a bridge between the avant-garde, contemporary classical music, and pop and rock. Cale's work as a founding member of the Velvet Underground would be enough to earn him an esteemed place in music history, but he's also celebrated as a solo artist, a songwriter and composer, a skilled instrumentalist, and a producer who helmed seminal albums by Patti Smith, the Stooges, and the Modern Lovers. In his own recordings, intelligence and creative restlessness are the hallmarks of Cale's catalog, and he sounds as comfortable with sophisticated pop (1970's Vintage Violence) and artful minimalism (1982's Music for a New Society) as with confrontational rock (1974's Fear) and electronic soundscapes (2023's Poptical Illusion). There is no consistent "John Cale Sound," but the bold eagerness to experiment is the through-line in his repertoire.