"Strange Hobby" is a cover album (Pink Floyd, The Beatles, Status Quo, The Who, Kaleidoscope, The Kinks, Bob Dylan, The Hollies, The Move…) by Arjen Anthony Lucassen (Ayreon), released in 1996.
In the mid 1990s Arjen Anthony Lucassen wanted a break from composing epic prog operas for his long-running Ayreon project and decided to record a bunch of his favourite tunes from the 60s. Strange Hobby was originally released anonymously and, after being out of print for a decade, here it comes again, beefed up with four bonus cuts.
Lucassen plays and sings everything himself and gives everything a heavy glam rock sheen, although the decision to put so much compression and to layer effects on the vocals renders everything a little inhuman.
Formed in 1965, the now legendary California band, Papa Doo Run Run, quickly discovered their forte - they sounded like the Beach Boys! That sound led them to surf music icons, Jan & Dean, and from 1976-80 Papa toured North America with the duo. In the 80s Papa graduated from J&D to the Beach Boys, and toured and recorded with members of that band throughout the next 2 decades. The group also had an unprecedented 15-year run as the "Celebrity House Band" at Disneyland from 1975-90! In the mid 80's Papa Doo became the darlings of corporate entertainment, performing at up to 150 corporate events a year! Their fun packed show is still a favorite of dozens of Fortune 500 companies. Their ground breaking CD “California Project” (1985) exploded onto the Billboard Hot 100 Chart at no. 17 and earned the band their second Gold Record and a Grammy Nomination.
20 Golden Greats is a 1976 greatest hits album by the Beach Boys that was released in the UK by EMI's newly created TV advertising division. It became the second biggest selling album of the year, spending a total of 86 weeks on the UK Albums Chart and peaking at number one in July 1976, where it remained for 10 weeks…
"The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time" is a 2003 special issue of American magazine Rolling Stone, and a related book published in 2005. The lists presented were compiled based on votes from selected rock musicians, critics, and industry figures, and predominantly feature British and American music from the 1960s and 1970s. From 2007 onwards, the magazine published similarly titled lists in other countries around the world.