Drawing from a tradition that embraces excess -- whether it be in poetry, rock 'n' roll, life, or all of the above -- Patti Smith brings passion and wit to her rough-edged, anarchist music. Her songs recall the lives of such debauched, ecstatic souls as Rimbaud, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and James

Agitated, Bombast, Dissonant, Gritty, Hard rock, Punk, Religious, Rough

Huang Yongping is a rebel who playfully rejects cultural dogma. He identifies neither with Asian tradition nor with trends imported from the West -- though he employs both. His work is a perpetual contestation of received ideas, an attempt both to empty cultural space of its ideological clutter and t

Bombast, Citational, Deconstructive, Event, Formless

His delivery was flat. His beady eyes revealed a mind constantly at work. Andy Kaufman threw every joke away -- he delivered bad lines, well, badly. Herein lay the source of his genius: he committed to the premise of the joke and ignored punchlines as byproducts of the comedic process. Every bad gag,

Bombast, Clever, Excessive, In-your-face, Rebel, Wise assy

The unlucky landlord of "Rent" died the night his smash Broadway musical was born in 1996. Following the musical's final dress rehearsal, Broadway's Great White Hope for the American musical unexpectedly perished in his apartment of an aortic aneurysm at the age of 35. Theater's wunderkind reworked

Bombast, Dramatic, New american musical, Overflowing, Pop, Tragic