A Pink Floyd album with no musical instruments; a Who album that predicted the World Wide Web; a Sex Pistols album more incendiary than Never Mind the Bollocks; a sci-fi rock opera by Weezer—the history of rock 'n' roll is littered with intriguing albums that never saw the light of day. Presenting dozens of derailed masterworks, this heavily illustrated history untangles the self-doubts, clashing egos, record company politics, thefts, and even deaths that doomed them, along with cover art imagined by veteran album designers and "What Happened Next" and "Will It Ever Happen?" sidebars. Here are lost gems by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Prince and Neil Young, Brian Eno and Frank Zappa, Green Day and Dr. Dre.