their entire catalog in remastered versions. Girls To Chat & Boys To Bounce originally hit the Billboard charts in 1981.  (less)

else--Jimi Hendrix was one fine blues guitarist. Combining the fluid lines of B.B. King with the spikiness of Hubert Sumlin and the crying tone of Elmore James with his usual synapse-frying intensity, Hendrix manages to both honor the music tradition while remaining uniquely himself. These studio outtakes and warm-ups (plus one previously released track, the magnificent "Hear My Train a Comin'") include a playful "Mannish Boy," the slow burn of "Once I Had A Woman," and a metallic "Bleeding Heart." --Steven Mirkin  (less)

Catch Bull at Four proves that the Cat had seen darkness, too, and that those darker elements had become more pronounced than they'd been in the past. His vocal style shifts from the cool croon that made Tea for the Tillerman and Teaser and the Firecat top sellers to a harsher, almost growling delivery. The album's standouts--the wistful reverie "Sitting" and the delightfully infectious "Can't Keep It In"--are resolute in lyric and melody. Rambling, mystical odes such as "The Boy with a Moon & Star on His Head," "Angelsea," and "Sweet Scarlet" offer quaintly romantic imagery and lavishly undulating melodies. But it's the mercurial dynamics and driving melody of "18th Avenue (Kansas City Nightmare)" and the bitter conviction...  (less)

differences be fended off for long? But, of course, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and the boys had a juggernaut on their hands, generating a dozen top 10 hits in their initial eight-year spurt. Selected Works: 1972-1999 gathers all the highlights from the group in all of its '70s and early '80s glory on three discs, dubbed "The Early Years," "The Ballads," and "The Fast Lane." The handsome box is fleshed out with a live disc from New Year's Eve 1999. With striking packaging, extensive liner notes, and a surplus of vintage photos, Selected Works is a suitable retrospective on a band that defined the California sound and took it easy, and, in the process, took it to the limit. --Steven Stolder  (less)

Boy and a Thin White Duke. He went on to invent synth-pop with Tony Visconti and Brian Eno and then disappeared behind the make-up of Pierrot when the New Romantics mixed all of his eras together. And then, he became a truly global megastar in the 80s. This collection contains four UK No. 1s, 15 Top 10, six Top 20 and 14 Top 75 hits; 338 weeks of UK chart history. But David Bowie could never be contained by statistics alone: any collection that contains Starman, The Jean Genie, Fame, "Heroes", Sound and Vision, Ashes To Ashes, Under Pressure and Let's Dance spells it plainly - this is a collection of some of the greatest and best-known music of the 20th Century by one of its very finest performers. 57 tracks in total. EMI. 2005.  (less)

cooperation with WQED/Pittsburgh by the same team that created the famed Doo Wop 50 special (the #1 PBS fundraiser of all time). This new box set contains sixty chartbusting hits, from the genesis of rock in the mid-Fifties, through doo-wop, surf music, Motown, Brill Building pop and the British Invasion. The track list is a Who’s Who of rock: Elvis Presley, The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, The Supremes, Roy Orbison and many, many more. With the PBS special airing throughout the holiday season, Rock ‘n’ Roll at 50 makes a perfect gift item for the last-minute shopper! Includes a 40-page booklet--chock-full of photos and track-by-track liner notes--and attractive digibook-style packaging. Every track was a Top 40 hit, and most wer...  (less)

To The Jungle'), including performances by members of Quiet Riot, Faster Pussycat, Bang Tngo, L.A. Guns, Pretty Boy Floyd, The Bullet Boys, Warrior Soul, Hurricane, Love/ Hate and more! 1999 release.  (less)

a Thin White Duke. He went on to invent synth-pop with Tony Visconti and Brian Eno and then disappeared behind the make-up of Pierrot when the New Romantics mixed all of his eras together. And then, he became a truly global megastar in the 80s. This collection contains four UK No. 1s, 15 Top 10, six Top 20 and 14 Top 75 hits; 338 weeks of UK chart history. But David Bowie could never be contained by statistics alone: any collection that contains Starman, The Jean Genie, Fame, 'Heroes', Sound and Vision, Ashes To Ashes, Under Pressure and Let's Dance spells it plainly - this is a collection of some of the greatest and best-known music of the 20th Century by one of its very finest performers. 57 tracks in total. EMI. 2005.  (less)

the three decades that followed. Cherry-picking from a selection many times larger than the 14 tracks presented here, the compilation's producers reach as far back as a 1971 live cover of Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock" and navigate through the Stones' forays into blues (Muddy Waters' "Mannish Boy" from 1977; "Fancy Man Blues" from 1989), rhythm & blues (1986's "Harlem Shuffle" and a 1998 live take of Let It Bleed's "Live With Me") and disco (the seven-minute dance mix of the 1978 hit "Miss You"), as well as stripped-down 1995 versions of Glimmer Twins gems "Wild Horses" and "Tumbling Dice." The accompanying compendium of liner notes and band member comments testify that the Rolling Stones still believe that rock and roll will ne...  (less)

barbershop quartets of a previous era, were an innovation in '30s popular music, arguably laying the groundwork for '50s doo-wop and by extension even the music of the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync (but don't hold that against them!). This collection serves as a good introduction to the Mills Brothers' legacy, serving up a dozen of their infectious hits, a few of which ("Lazy River," "You Always Hurt the One You Love") still stand among the definitive renditions of the classic American songbook. And what other band has had a seven-decade career (their sons, nephews, and grandsons now filling the ranks), scoring Top 40 hits ("Paper Doll" and "Cab Driver") 46 years apart? --Jerry McCulley  (less)

40 hit machine was meteoric. Building on the success of his mainstream breakthrough The Joker , Miller's mastery of the indelibly catchy pop song yielded not only the radio-staple title track (since successfully revived by Seal), but an almost embarrassing wealth of other deceptively simple, hook-laden songs (including the standout "Wild Mountain Honey" as well as the hit singles "Take the Money and Run" and "Rock'n Me") to make Eagle play more like a greatest hits album than a standard collection of songs. This is Miller at his '76 pop-perfectionist peak, and one of the decade's most enduring surprises. --Jerry McCulley  (less)

else--Jimi Hendrix was one fine blues guitarist. Combining the fluid lines of B.B. King with the spikiness of Hubert Sumlin and the crying tone of Elmore James with his usual synapse-frying intensity, Hendrix manages to both honor the music tradition while remaining uniquely himself. These studio outtakes and warm-ups (plus one previously released track, the magnificent "Hear My Train a Comin'") include a playful "Mannish Boy," the slow burn of "Once I Had A Woman," and a metallic "Bleeding Heart." --Steven Mirkin  (less)