Jay Reatard

Even though he was taken from us way too early, Jimmy Lee Lindsey — known to the world at large as Jay Reatard — packed more raw, rampaging rock 'n' roll into his 29 years than most artists manage in twice as much time. He'd already had a dizzying number of bands in and around Memphis before breaking out as a solo artist in 2006, but on blood-spitting, teeth-gnashing bursts of punk-pop passion, like "See/Saw" and "Oh It's Such a Shame," he sounds like he spent the late '70s (i.e. before he was born) in Manchester studying at the feet of hard-edged hookmeisters the Buzzcocks. Fast and furious wasn't the only way he knew how to rock, though — the new-wave keyboards and downright bubblegummy feel of acoustic strumfest "I'm Watching You" reveal Reatard's love for pure, unabashed power pop. Leap into the fray as Jay takes his punk-fueled fury over the edge, in Next Steps.

In the grand punk tradition of everyone from the Sex Pistols to Iggy Pop, Jay Reatard was a true rock 'n' roll provocateur, a boundary-pushing wildman notorious for taking everything to the extreme, including getting into punch-ups with audience members. He made music to match his powder-keg personality, too — the frenzied, six-string savagery he wreaks on "Blood Visions" and the push-it-past the limit attitude that leaps out as he hurtles 90 miles an hour down a dead-end street on the beyond-driven "Hiding Hole" leave little doubt about just how hard Reatard could rock. And when he chugs and growls through the garage-rocking grit of the lower-than-lo-fi "Haunting You," it sounds like the whole track could spontaneously self-destruct before it reaches the end.

Jay Reatard didn't just play rock 'n' roll — he lived it. The sonic saboteur spent his tragically short life bursting at the seams with so many ideas that he seemed to turn out raucous, raging tunes with every single breath, each one a stiff middle finger in the face of complacency, exploding with blistering, punk-powered energy. But even at his most unhinged, Reatard held pop as close to his heart as punk, and every one of his songs revolved around infectious riffs and steel-sharpened melodic hooks. When he died, he was well on his way to a level of stardom beyond the cult anti-hero status he'd already achieved, but he lived so fast that his manic momentum caught up with him too quickly and cut it all much too short. The best way to remember him is by bashing, slamming, and bopping along to the best of the bounty he left behind — and lucky for you, that's exactly what we've gathered up right here.