merican columnist Sydney J. Harris once said, “Opposites attract because they are not really opposites, but complementaries.” Harris was referring to human relationships, of course, but his theory can be applied to pop music as well, where over the decades, a number of oddball, worlds-colliding type moments have taken place. Here are 10 of the more notable ones.

Worlds Collide
At New York’s Delmonico Hotel, a quartet of Scousers in Edwardian four-button suits meet a sparrow-faced, Minnesotan folkie with perpetual bedhead.
What Happens Next
After cursory hellos and feet-shuffling silence, Bob Dylan livens up this shindig the only way he knows how: by busting out the funny cigarettes. Towels stuffed in front of door cracks and curtains drawn, the Beatles bust their cannabis cherries and toke to their heads’ content. (Ringo is alleged to have hogged the first joint, which we can only hope led to a bemused John blurting out, “Don’t bogart it, la!”) The star summit gives birth to a zillion stories—both real and imagined—regarding how each artist came to influence the other.


Worlds Collide
Sometime in mid-1978, guitar deity Jimmy Page spends an afternoon at Swan Song Record’s London offices, jamming with a then unknown (and today, slightly less unknown) gofer by the name of Dan Treacy.
What Happens Next
Treacy, without a smidgen of irony, deems Page to be “quite good on the guitar.” After being canned shortly afterwards, the indie pop pioneer pools his wages and retreats to a Shepherd’s Bush studio to record Television Personalities’ Where’s Bill Grundy Now? EP, one of the U.K.’s seminal DIY releases. Page, scornfully regarded as a dinosaur by Treacy’s very contemporaries, will see his career officially become extinct a few years later when he founds the Firm.


Worlds Collide
Peroxide harridan Courtney Love, living off a trust fund and fully immersed in her self-described “teenage bag lady days,” arrives in post-punk era Liverpool. There, she befriends and moves into the Toxteth home of a blobbed-out aspiring musician named Julian Cope.
What Happens Next
Cope—who penned brilliance as diverse as The Modern Antiquarian and “Use Me”—is perfectly described as inhabiting “an arcane intersection of intelligence and sanity that often resembles idiocy and madness.” Love, meanwhile, is just idiotic and mad. No idea if plans for a BBC One reality television show are scrapped when Cope becomes too immersed in his toy car collection.


Worlds Collide
Among the media-fueled fanfaronade, England’s punk archfiends, the Sex Pistols, continue their infernal journey through the Bible Belt. They arrive in San Antonio to play at Randy’s Rodeo, a ballroom stuffed with 2,200 wrangle-gangle Texans, the third stop on a seven-city, 1978 dust-up through the States.
What Happens Next
Johnny Rotten sports a t-shirt depicting two homosexual cowboys, Sid Vicious delivers a few choice words for the crowd and for once, makes use of his bass (as a weapon, though)—all while the crowd hurls a constant barrage of detritus and insults. The next day, a local paper reads: “Sex Pistols win the San Antonio Shoot-Out.” The high-energy gig is arguably the finest the group ever played—as well as one of the last.


Worlds Collide
At an all-ages, downtown Olympia club known as Tropicana, flaky minimalists Beat Happening open for Black Flag, the ultimate purveyors of exhilarating anguish. Backstage, doe-eyed Calvin Johnson meets his polar opposite in the testosterone-fueled Henry Rollins.
What Happens Next
During the opening set, Johnson prances about like the stick-figured kitty-cats that adorn his gig posters. Rollins, feeling he’s being mocked, defiantly plants himself in the front row and at one point, reaches up to cover Johnson’s crotch. “Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” Johnson responds without missing a beat, and then continues the show uninterrupted. Final score: twee 1, machismo 0.


Worlds Collide
Soft rock eunuch Peter Cetera strikes all the standard pop crooner poses in the kitschy video for Chicago’s 1984 hit, “You’re the Inspiration”—all while wearing a Bauhaus “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” t-shirt.
What Happens Next
The Goth band tee leads to a groundswell of popularity for Bauhaus and sales for 1983’s Burning from the Inside absolutely soar… Eh, not quite. However, Cetera is likely the fashion inspiration for a Bauhaus-displaying Jordan Knight in New Kids on the Block’s “(You Got It) The Right Stuff.” Dark entries, indeed.


Worlds Collide
Knuckles polished and quid in pocket, Manchester post-punk laureate Mark E. Smith journeys down to the Hacienda to see what all the rave fuss is about.
What Happens Next
We’d like say to the caustic Smith drowned some snotty, fishing-hat-wearing yob from Wilmslow in the dancefloor swimming pool, but alas, nothing of the sort occurred. (The water was too shallow.) However, Smith did admit to the L.A Weekly some years ago that the original script for 24 Hour Party People had him cracking a few baggy skulls at the Hacienda. Ironically, the verbose Smith has his role pared down to just two words.


Worlds Collide
Officially at the 14:59 mark of their “She Don’t Use Jelly”-fuelled 15 minutes, the Flaming Lips rock the Peach Pit After Dark on a 1994 episode of the primetime teen soap “Beverly Hills 90210.”
What Happens Next
Balding, frat-weasel Steve Sanders boldly declares, “You know, I’ve never been a big fan of alternative music, but these guys rocked the house!” Three years later, Zaireeka listening parties sweep Beverly Hills and Sanders’ mind is really fucking blown.


Worlds Collide
During the 1996 Brit Awards, a Larkin specs-wearing, hair-in-the-eyes hobbledehoy named Jarvis Cocker runs onto the stage during one of Michael Jackson’s patented self-aggrandizing performances: surrounded by venerating children, an arms-outstretched King of Pop does his best Jesus Christ pose. Cocker shakes his booty, scales a pyramid prop, and is later arrested.
What Happens Next
Initially pilloried by the tabloids (“Jacko Pulps Lout Cocker,” reads The Mirror headline the next morning), “the weed in tweed” is later lauded for his actions and for the first (and only) time in his career, English housewives chat about him over their tea. Meanwhile, the crucified Jackson rises from the dead on the third day to discover that even Noel Gallagher thinks he’s an asshole.


Worlds Collide
Paul McLaughlin, ex-lead singer for the painfully obscure Scottish punk band the Prats, is commuting to his home in Chelmsford when his cell phone rings. On the other line are representatives from Jonathan Demme’s office. It seems Demme wants permission to use the Prats’ “General Davis” in his blockbuster remake of The Manchurian Candidate.
What Happens Next
McLaughlin is speechless—mainly because he’s never even heard of Demme—and then gives his blessing. A 45-second snippet of the song is featured during the film’s opening credits and just like that, the Prats become one of the least unlikely bands to be immortalized on a movie soundtrack. “We’re now getting the worldwide acclaim we craved 20 years ago,” McLaughlin jokes.