Free online radio at AOL Radio offers over 350 Internet radio stations with song skipping and includes music, news, sports and talk.

Jonathan Richman

Born in Boston, MA

Jonathan Richman's Genre:

Proto-Punk, Alternative/Indie Rock, College Rock, Contemporary Pop/Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock

Biography

Jonathan Richman was one of rock's most eccentric and unpredictable cult figures, a performer whose eternally childlike public persona and seeming naiveté -- typified by songs like "Ice Cream Man," "Hey There Little Insect" and "I'm a Little Aeroplane" -- tended to obscure the dexterity and craft of his music, which skirted from garage rock to country to Latin stylings and back. Born May 15, 1951 in Boston, Massachusetts, Richman began playing guitar at the age of 15, and within a year was making his first public appearances. In 1969 he relocated to New York, the home of the Velvet Underground (his central musical influence), and spent his first two weeks in the city sleeping on the Velvets' manager's couch.

While working a series of odd jobs, including a tenure as a foot messenger for Esquire magazine, Richman attempted to find a venue to perform his music, but his simple songs and adenoidal voice were roundly rejected; he ultimately moved back to Boston in 1970, where he formed the first incarnation of the influential proto-punk band the Modern Lovers with guitarist John Felice, drummer David Robinson and bassist Rolfe Anderson. Within a few months, Anderson had been replaced by Ernie Brooks, and keyboardist Jerry Harrison stepped in for Felice. After recording some demos with Kim Fowley in the spring of 1971 (unissued until 1981), in 1973, the Modern Lovers (with producer John Cale) recorded the demos which comprised their seminal self-titled debut, featuring long-standing Richman favorites like "Roadrunner," "Pablo Picasso" and "Hospital." Problems with their label, however, blocked the songs' release until 1976; at the same time, Richman wanted to quiet the group's minimalist, garagey sound, leading to their breakup in 1973.

Eventually, Richman formed a new, acoustic Modern Lovers with guitarist Leroy Radcliffe, Rubinoos bassist Greg "Curly" Keranen and drummer Robinson. In 1977, they debuted with Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers, which emphasized the doo-wop flavor and wry pop melodies that remained hallmarks of Richman's career. That same year, the group issued Rock 'N' Roll With the Modern Lovers (with D. Sharpe on drums) and scored a major European hit with the instrumental "Egyptian Reggae." A year later, Richman went solo, and in 1979 issued Back in Your Life.

After a period of self-imposed exile, he resurfaced in 1983 with Jonathan Sings A series of strong pop records followed, including 1985's Rockin' & Romance, 1986's It's Time for Jonathan Richman & the Modern Lovers (recorded with Andy Paley), and Modern Lovers 88. In 1990, he released the self-explanatory Jonathan Goes Country; later, he made another left turn with 1993's Jonathan, Te Vas a Emocionar!, a collection of Latin-influenced songs performed entirely in Spanish. No matter what path his music took, however, Richman's cult following remained fiercely loyal, and saw its ranks expand courtesy of his frequent appearances on the NBC program Late Night With Conan O'Brien; in 1998, he was also prominently featured in the hit film comedy There's Something About Mary. I'm So Confused appeared later that year. Richman began dipping his toes into slightly more sophisticated musical forms with 2001's Her Mystery Not of High Heels and Eye Shadow, which also documented his continuing interest in the Spanish language, as did 2004's Not So Much to Be Loved as to Love. ~ Jason Ankeny

AOL Radio Stations Jonathan Richman is Featured on (6)

Indie Halloween

It’s often hard to tell the difference between costumed Halloween revelers and sullen hipsters. For this reason, Halloween is the most indie-rock holiday of the year. On this station, you’ll hear Indie artists singing about blood, death, bones, ghosts, pumpkins, and other loosely-related Halloween topics.

Boston Strong

The residents of Boston have had a heartbreaking and difficult week. Today, Slacker is paying tribute to the resilient residents of one of the greatest cities in the world the only way we know how: via the universal language of music. On this station you'll hear the greatest musical artists to come from Boston, and there's a ton of them. The music spans many genres and eras, but they are all united by one thing: they are all Boston Strong.

Alternative Workout

Even Alternative people like to work up a sweat. With this in mind, Alternative Workout serves up a continuous barrage of high energy tunes from the complete Alternative spectrum. We've got grunge, punk, and all decades of Alt-rock covered. Let's do this already.

Classic Alternative

Call it "Alternative," "Modern Rock," "College Rock" - call it whatever you like. Classic Alternative on Slacker Radio is all of those things and more- from the golden age of Alternative. Spanning various decades, this is radio for people that were raised on 120 Minutes. David Bowie, The Clash, The Smiths, Erasure, Depeche Mode, New Order, INXS, Midnight Oil, R.E.M., 10,000 Maniacs, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Weezer, and many more!

Adult Alternative

Adult Alternative on Slacker has all the good stuff without the angst-ridden teens and their complicated haircuts. You’ll hear cutting-edge artists like Gotye, The Lumineers, and The Head & The Heart as well as established artists like Dave Matthews, Arcade Fire, U2, R.E.M., the Black Keys, and Talking Heads. If you’ve graduated from keg stands to craft beer, this is the soundtrack to your next party.

Jonathan Richman

This station plays the best music from and music from related artists like The Velvet Underground, XTC, Elvis Costello, Lou Reed, Violent Femmes, Talking Heads, The Feelies, Television, R.E.M., The Modern Lovers and more.

All Stations

Jonathan Richman's Selected Discography (19)

O Moon, Queen of Night On Earth

2010 Vapor Records201014 Songs

Because Her Beauty Is Raw and Wild

2008 Vapor Records200814 Songs

Not So Much to Be Loved as to Love Album Cover

Artists Related to Jonathan Richman (50)

	The Velvet Underground	Few rock groups can claim to have broken so much new territory, and maintain such consistent brilliance on record, as the Velvet Underground during their brief lifespan.
	XTC	XTC was one of the smartest -- and catchiest -- British pop bands to emerge from the punk and new wave explosion of the late '70s.
	Elvis Costello	When Elvis Costello's first record was released in 1977, his bristling cynicism and anger linked him with the punk and new wave explosion.
	Lou Reed	The career of Lou Reed defies capsule summarization. Like David Bowie (whom Reed directly inspired in many ways), he has made over his image many times, mutating from theatrical glam rocker to strung-out junkie to avant-garde noiseman to straight rock & roller to your average guy.
	Violent Femmes	The textbook American cult band of the 1980s, the Violent Femmes captured the essence of teen angst with remarkable precision; raw and jittery, the trio's music found little commercial success but nonetheless emerged as the soundtrack for the lives of troubled adolescents the world over.
	Talking Heads	At the start of their career, Talking Heads were all nervous energy, detached emotion, and subdued minimalism.
	The Feelies	Of the countless bands to emerge from the New York City underground during the post-punk era, few if any were as unique and influential as the Feelies; nerdy, nervous, and noisy, even decades later their droning, skittering avant-garde pop remains a key touchstone of the American indie music scene.
	Television	Television were one of the most creative bands to emerge from New York's punk scene of the mid-'70s, creating an influential new guitar vocabulary.
	R.E.M.	R.E.M. marked the point when post-punk turned into alternative rock. When their first single, "Radio Free Europe," was released in 1981, it sparked a back-to-the-garage movement in the American underground.
	The Modern Lovers	Singer/songwriter Jonathan Richman is sufficiently well-established as a solo artist, and it's easy to overlook the fact that the moniker sometimes used for his backing band, the Modern Lovers, was once connected to a coherent group of which Richman was a member.
	The Replacements	The Replacements initially formed in 1979, when Paul Westerberg joined a garage punk band formed by brothers Bob (guitar) and Tommy Stinson (bass) and drummer Chris Mars.
	Pixies	Combining jagged, roaring guitars and stop-start dynamics with melodic pop hooks, intertwining male-female harmonies and evocative, cryptic lyrics, the Pixies were one of the most influential American alternative rock bands of the late '80s.
	Gang of Four	Formed in 1977 by Leeds University students Jon King (vocals), Andy Gill (guitar), Dave Allen (bass), and Hugo Burnham (drums), Gang of Four (along with the Fall, Mekons, and Liliput) produced some of the most exhilarating and lasting music of the early English post-punk era of 1978-1983.
	They Might Be Giants	Combining a knack for infectious melodies with a quirky, bizarre sense of humor and a vaguely avant-garde aesthetic borrowed from the New York post-punk underground, They Might Be Giants became one of the most unlikely alternative success stories of the late '80s and early '90s.
	Robyn Hitchcock	Robyn Hitchcock is one of England's most enduring contemporary singer/songwriters and live performers.
	Iggy Pop	There's a reason why many consider Iggy Pop the godfather of punk: every single punk band of the past and present has either knowingly or unknowingly borrowed a thing or two from Pop and his late-'60s/early-'70s band, the Stooges.
	Camper Van Beethoven	Back in the day, before alternative rock was invented and indie rock was still shy of roots music and other folk elements, Camper Van Beethoven's merging of punk, folk, ska, and world music was truly a revelation.
	David Bowie	The cliché about David Bowie says he's a musical chameleon, adapting himself according to fashion and trends.
	Big Star	The quintessential American power pop band, Big Star remains one of the most mythic and influential cult acts in all of rock & roll.
	Squeeze	As one of the most traditional pop bands of the new wave, Squeeze provided one of the links between classic British guitar pop and post-punk.
	Tom Waits	In the 1970s, Tom Waits combined a lyrical focus on desperate, low-life characters with a persona that seemed to embody the same lifestyle, which he sang about in a raspy, gravelly voice.
	The Kinks	Although they weren't as boldly innovative as the Beatles or as popular as the Rolling Stones or the Who, the Kinks were one of the most influential bands of the British Invasion.
	Sonic Youth	Sonic Youth were one of the most unlikely success stories of underground American rock in the '80s. Where contemporaries R.
	T. Rex	Initially a British folk-rock combo called Tyrannosaurus Rex, T. Rex was the primary force in glam rock, thanks to the creative direction of guitarist/vocalist Marc Bolan (born Marc Feld).
	Nick Lowe	As the leader of the seminal pub rockers Brinsley Schwarz, a producer, and a solo artist, Nick Lowe held considerable influence over the development of punk rock.
	The Lemonheads	The Lemonheads' evolution from post-Hüsker Dü hardcore punk rockers to teenage heartthrobs is one of the strangest sagas in alternative music.
	Hüsker Dü	Hüsker Dü and R.E.M. were the two American post-punk bands of the '80s that changed the direction of rock & roll.
	The Ramones	The Ramones are the first punk rock band. Other bands, such as the Stooges and the New York Dolls, came before them and set the stage and aesthetic for punk, and bands that immediately followed, such as the Sex Pistols, made the latent violence of the music more explicit, but the Ramones crystallized the musical ideals of the genre.
	The Smiths	The Smiths were the definitive British indie rock band of the '80s, marking the end of synth-driven new wave and the beginning of the guitar rock that dominated English rock into the '90s.
	The Cure	Out of all the bands that emerged in the immediate aftermath of punk rock in the late '70s, few were as enduring and popular as the Cure.
	Joe Jackson	In his 1999 memoir, A Cure for Gravity: A Musical Pilgrimage, Joe Jackson writes approvingly of George Gershwin as a musician who kept one foot in the popular and one in the classical realms of music.
	Echo & The Bunnymen	Echo & the Bunnymen's dark, swirling fusion of gloomy post-punk and Doors-inspired psychedelia brought the group a handful of British hits in the early '80s, while attracting a cult following in the United States.
	The Clash	The Sex Pistols may have been the first British punk rock band, but the Clash were the definitive British punk rockers.
	The B-52's	The first of many acts to cement the college town of Athens, GA, as a hotbed of alternative music, the B-52's took their name from the Southern slang for the mile-high bouffant wigs sported by singers Kate Pierson and Cindy Wilson, a look emblematic of the band's campy, thrift-store aesthetic.
	Roxy Music	Evolving from the late-'60s art-rock movement, Roxy Music had a fascination with fashion, glamour, cinema, pop art, and the avant-garde, which separated the band from their contemporaries.
	The Soft Boys	The Soft Boys have turned out to be one of the most influential bands in shaping contemporary alternative music, though few are completely familiar with the quirky band's legacy.
	The Jam	The Jam were the most popular band to emerge from the initial wave of British punk rock in 1977; along with the Sex Pistols, the Clash, and the Buzzcocks, the Jam had the most impact on pop music.
	The Jesus and Mary Chain	Like the Velvet Underground, their most obvious influence, the chart success of the Jesus and Mary Chain was virtually nonexistent, but their artistic impact was incalculable; quite simply, the British group made the world safe for white noise, orchestrating a sound dense in squalling feedback which served as an inspiration to everyone from My Bloody Valentine to Dinosaur Jr.
	Marshall Crenshaw	The pop-minded singer/songwriter Marshall Crenshaw built up an impressive body of work over the course of his career, showing a fine craft for everything he approached while stubbornly following his own creative muse to reach that end.
	Aztec Camera	For most intents and purposes, Aztec Camera is Roddy Frame, a Scottish guitarist/vocalist/songwriter.
	Devo	One of new wave's most innovative and (for a time) successful bands, Devo was also perhaps one of its most misunderstood.
	Wire	Wire emerged out of the British punk explosion but, from the outset, maintained a distance from that scene and resisted easy categorization.
	Alex Chilton	In a business that reinvents itself at every turn, Alex Chilton thrived for four decades with a three-fold career -- his early recordings with the Box Tops, the albums he did with Big Star in the mid-'70s and after the group re-formed with a new lineup in 1993, and the spate of cool but chaotic solo albums he recorded beginning in the late '70s.
	The dB's	Playing sharp, tuneful songs with a hint of psychedelia and some challenging melodic angles, the dB's were the band that bridged the gap between classic '70s power pop (defined by bands such as Big Star, Badfinger, and the Scruffs) and the jangly new wave of smart pop, personified by R.
	Let's Active	Mitch Easter carved his place in music history as a hip producer in the '80s, most notably for the early R.
	Minutemen	More than any other hardcore band, the Minutemen epitomized the free-thinking independent ideals that formed the core of punk/alternative music.
	Blondie	Blondie was the most commercially successful band to emerge from the much-vaunted punk/new wave movement of the late '70s.
	The Psychedelic Furs	The Psychedelic Furs, whose name was inspired by the 1966 Velvet Underground song "Venus in Furs," were formed in England in 1977 by brothers Richard Butler (vocals) and Tim Butler (bass), along with saxophone player Duncan Kilburn and guitarist Roger Morris.
	Bob Mould	Guitarist/singer/songwriter Bob Mould was initially a member of Hüsker Dü, one of the most influential American bands of the '80s.
	The Breeders	One of alternative rock's most promising -- and frustrating -- bands, the Breeders were conceived initially as a way for Pixies bassist Kim Deal and Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donelly to let out some suppressed creative energy and to take a break from being the second bananas in each of their main bands.