The word opera conjures up images of large casts, a huge orchestra and chorus and massive logistical issues. Not Cooperstown! A jazz opera in nine innings, Cooperstown utilizes five solo singers and a 1950s modern jazz quintet. Based on A. Bartlett Giamatti's essay, "The Green Fields of the Mind," composer Sasha Matson has, with librettist Mark Miller, used baseball as an art form, with the capacity to express the deepest emotional truths about individuals and society. Matson reflects baseball's own specific historical musical attributes in his composition. One is the sound of the stadium organ, which led him to score the music for a "Miles" jazz quintet. This particular grouping of instruments is as capable as any large orchestra of realizing music in all its potential variety.

A Place for Us to Dream: 20 Years of Placebo celebrates the nihilistic English alt-rock veterans' first two decades via a handsome two-disc set that also boasts a 32-page book of pictures curated by co-founders Brian Molko and Stefan Olsdal. Opening with the band's propulsive 1998 hit "Pure Morning," the perfect distillation of Placebo's seedy Suede-meets-Harvey Danger brand of goth and Brit-pop-tinged glam rock, A Place for Us to Dream drops a little fan bait early on via the soaring new single "Jesus' Son." Less sordid than live staples like "Nancy Boy," "Taste in Men," and "The Bitter End," all three of which are included here, it retains the group's nervy energy, but leans harder on the anthemic side of things. Obviously, the collection's biggest selling point over 2004's Once More with Feeling: Singles 1996-2004, is the inclusion of post-Sleeping with Ghosts gems like "Meds," "Infra Red," "Too Many Friends," and Molko and Olsdal's brooding rendering of Kate Bush's "Running Up That Hill."

Crown Heights rapper Mr. Muthafuckin’ eXquire is back with his second studio album, a record packed with lustful stories, the true “Confessions of A SexAddict”. The record serves as a cautionary tales for his daughter, as he explains in his own words: “I wrote this record as a time capsule for my newborn daughter Ava Marie Allison.I won't let her hear this for 18 years. You can hear it now tho! Major Love, The Black Genius”

Life Live? More like Life-less. After Thin Lizzy wrapped up their successful "farewell" tour, their second live album was issued. It was originally supposed to be issued during the tour, but extensive overdubbing and nitpicking pushed the album's release toward year's end, after the publicity from the tour had died down.

Thunder and Lightning is the twelfth and final studio album by Irish hard rock band Thin Lizzy, released in 1983. Guitarist John Sykes was hired to replace Snowy White after 1981's Renegade, and Sykes helped to provide a heavier sound and guitar tone than Thin Lizzy had used on previous albums. However, the bulk of the songwriting (except for "Cold Sweat") was completed before he joined the band. Keyboard player Darren Wharton also offered a stronger musical influence to Thin Lizzy's final studio album, co-writing many of the tracks including "Some Day She Is Going to Hit Back", and the final single "The Sun Goes Down". A farewell tour followed the album's release, followed by the live album Life. The group's co-founder, frontman and bass player Phil Lynott died in 1986 from drug-related causes.