Music / Nightlife

Beloved by her fans, singer-songwriter Tori Amos received a boisterous Seattle welcome at the first U.S. show in her 80-city tour Thursday night at the Paramount Theatre.

The tour supports her 14^th studio album, “Unrepentant Geraldines,” which recently made its debut at an impressive No. 7 on The Billboard 200 album chart. The album, with songs inspired by visual art around the world, follows five years of musical exploration, including a London musical titled “The Light Princess.”

Seated between a grand piano and electric keyboard, the spirited, red-haired musician occasionally played them simultaneously,

Singer-songwriter Tori Amos, who has received multiple Grammy nominations and sold more than 12 million albums, performs the first U.S. show of her 80-city tour Thursday, July 17, at the Paramount Theatre.

The tour supports her current album, “Unrepentant Geraldines,” which made its debut at No. 7 on The Billboard 200 album chart.

(Brian Lowe)

KISS and Def Leppard team up for a headbanging, tongue-wagging night of hard rock Sunday in Auburn. Visiting more than 40 cities, the tandem tour celebrates KISS’ 40th year in music, as well as the band’s induction this year into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Collectively, the two bands have sold more than 200 million albums.

(Peter Boettcher Photography)

Electronic music is so ubiquitous today that EDM (electronic dance music) fans may not appreciate how revolutionary the music was in the early ’70s.

German group Kraftwerk pioneered the sound, releasing the mesmerizing album “Autobahn” and its title track in 1974.

My Goodness, “Shiver + Shake” (Votiv Music LLC)

Go ahead and turn up the volume on this album and let it howl.

“Shiver + Shake,” the new, full-length album by Seattle duo My Goodness, is a gloriously raucous celebration of Seattle-style psychedelic blues-rock.

“Monsters,” a new song by Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan, is about the villains in our lives, the spoilers who bring pain and discontent. “Think what your life would be missing / If you didn’t have him to sing about,” she sings. “We need to have hard things to rub up against,” McLachlan says. “We need that friction…

The members of Soundgarden knew there was something very special about “Superunknown” even when they finished recording the album in 1993.

“We knew we were doing something different from what everyone expected,” bassist Ben Shepherd says of the groundbreaking album rereleased Tuesday, June 3, in multiple formats.

The Backstreet Boys, Thursday night at WaMu Theater. (Lindsey Wasson / The Seattle Times)

When they’re as old as Crosby, Stills & Nash, will the Backstreet Boys ditch their song-and-dance routines and go unplugged?

Fans got a taste of what the future could hold when the biggest boy band in history sat down with their guitars in the middle of a two-hour show Thursday at WaMu Theater to play an acoustic set featuring romantic, laid-back versions of “Get Lucky,” “10,000 Promises,” “Madeline” and “Quit Playing Games With My Heart.”

Lady Gaga, shown here performing in Florida earlier this month. (Kevin Mazur / WireImage)

With Lana Del Rey and Lady Gaga arriving in Seattle for separate shows only a day apart, one wonders if the two old pals will get together for another slumber party as they did in 2012 (with Lindsay Lohan) at Hollywood’s Chateau Marmont.

The Backstreet Boys at the 40th American Music Awards, in Los Angeles. (Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

The Backstreet Boys, the best-selling boy band in history, are still going strong more than 20 years after impresario Lou Pearlman placed an ad in an Orlando, Fla., newspaper seeking young male singers for a group. An extension of their hugely successful tour in support of the album “In a World Like This” features a concert Thursday, May 22, at WaMu Theater, with Avril Lavigne opening.