Save Big

Big Bad Voodoo Daddy did more than any other band to fuel the sing revival of the '90s, due largely to the group's appearance in the 1996 film Swingers. Since then, the craze has waned, although you couldn't tell it by BBVD. If anything, the combo has approaches their fifth album with more gusto and verve than ever, infusing their old-school jive and greasy horns with a New Orleans sensibility and panache and, in the process, creating their strongest album yet. Although their songs sound like they were lifted right out of the Zoot-suited '40s, the band writes all their own material, taking swing into a raw and modern direction. Big Bad Voodoo Daddy by rights will still be here when the next wave of swing arrives.

With their ringing, bagpipe-like guitars and the anthemic songs of frontman Stuart Adamson, Scotland's Big Country emerged as one of the most distinctive and promising new rock bands of the early '80s, scoring a major hit with their debut album, The Crossing; though the group's critical and commercial fortunes dimmed in the years to follow, they nevertheless outlasted virtually all of their contemporaries, releasing new material into the next century.