Liberation arrives in 2018, six years after Lotus, by far the longest stretch of time between Christina Aguilera albums. During that hiatus Aguilera wasn't exactly in hibernation but she wasn't prominent, taking a couple of seasons off from the televised singing competition The Voice to raise a child and spending as much time onscreen as she did on-stage when she re-emerged in the middle of the 2010s. Aguilera may have been omnipresent in showbiz but she was largely absent from the pop charts. Save a handful of duets – "Moves Like Jagger," which appeared in 2011 in the first flush of The Voice's success; "Feel This Moment," a 2013 Pitbull hit; "Say Something," a 2013 Great Big World single featuring Christina on vocals – Aguilera hadn't reached the American Top Ten since 2008's "Keeps Gettin' Better," fanbait added to her hits collection of the same name.

Katy Perry achieved maturation with Prism, the 2013 album anchored on the self-empowerment anthem "Roar" and the club smash "Dark Horse." Considering how "Roar" scored the closing stages of Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, it would've seemed like a logical move for Perry to build upon its adult alternative affirmation but she's instead chosen to use "Dark Horse" as a blueprint for Witness, the long-awaited 2017 successor to Prism. Perhaps Perry shifted her approach after "Rise," the "Roar"-alike written for the 2016 Olympics that she also performed at that year's Democratic National Convention, failed to crack the Top Ten, perhaps she always planned to construct this album with electronic beats and synths, but Witness is so slick with synths it seems slippery.

"Playlist: The Very Best of Toni Braxton" is the fourth greatest hits compilation released by Braxton, following "The Essential Toni Braxton, in 2007. The album was released on October 28, 2008, by Legacy Recordings, being part of Sony BMG's Playlist series. The tracklist contains Braxton most successful singles, with a few different tracks, such as "A Better Man" from her fourth studio album, "More Than a Woman" (2002), "Maybe", a single from "The Heat" and an Hex Hector remix for "Spanish Guitar". Enhanced section includes the interactive digital booklet with liner notes, photos and more.

Electric studio project with Billy Cobham and group of Italian musicians with guest appearances by Michael and Randy Brecker, Eddie Gomez, and even Gregg Brown from Osibisa. Billy lays down a solid groove and the musicians solo over and around the beat, through instrumental and vocal tracks. The group perform original jazz/funk/fusion material, and a new version of Billy Cobham's 'Red Baron' with vocals.

We switch from London to Denmark for this volume. Father and Daughter intricately mixes many solo voices and choir. The gaunt Kleine Variationen-forme is followed by the touching Song of Värmeland for choir. To a Nordic Princess is a lavishly grandiloquent piece first performed in the Hollywood Bowl as a love gift for his soon-to-be bride, Ella Ström. It verges on Richard Strauss at times. He was not averse to Strauss and wrote a piano Ramble on Rosenkavalier. There is an oddly subdued Stalt Vesselil. The very short choir piece Dalvisa is barely heard – a hummed vocalise. After such sensitivity comes the cheery The Crew of the Long Serpent.

Here Bachs Trio Sonatas BWV 525-530 for organ have been re-imagined in historically informed arrangements for baroque chamber ensemble, made in the spirit of Bach, himself a serial re-arranger of his own works. They are performed by the Tempesta di Mare Chamber Players, an early-music ensemble described by Fanfare as one of the finest in the world.

2010 album from the best-selling singer/songwriter. The album was produced by John Shanks, whose first producer credit was Etheridge's Breakdown, her four-time Grammy-nominated album of 1999. Fearless Love expands on the multiple strengths that have made Etheridge one of the most beloved figures in Rock. It follows The Awakening, her revealing album of 2007, with a rousing tone at once tough and tender, as only she can be. It is that force of presence which has earned her, among other accolades, the 2007 Academy Award for Best Original Song, and two Grammy Awards.

Double live albums were commonplace during the '70s, even for bands that weren't particularly good in concert. As a travelin' band, Lynyrd Skynyrd made their fame and fortune by being good in concert, so it made sense that they released a double-live, entitled One More from the Road, in 1976, months after the release of their fourth album, Gimme Back My Bullets. That might have been rather quick for a live album – only three years separated this record from the group's debut – but it was enthusiastically embraced, entering the Top Ten (it would become one of their best-selling albums, as well). It's easy to see why it was welcomed, since this album demonstrates what a phenomenal catalog of songs Skynyrd accumulated.

Alphaville’s greatest hits from 40 years of the band’s history, in completely new arrangements recorded with the German Film Orchestra of Babelsberg. Alphaville, Germany’s biggest synth-pop export and creator of the legendary 80s anthems “Big in Japan”, "Sounds like a Melody" and "Forever Young", has decided to go symphonic. The band is doing things on the grand scale and catapulting the band’s 40 years of greatest hits out of the orbit of synthesizers and rhythm machines into the world of the human sound machine, the symphony orchestra. "Eternally Yours" is more, much more, than a mere translation of the songs into the sound spectrum of a great orchestra. What it amounts to, rather, is a symbiosis of Marian Gold’s unique vocal capacities, the original Alphaville sound and the majestic power and rich timbres of the concert-hall-sized German Film Orchestra of Babelsberg.

Beck, Bogert & Appice is the eponymous debut album by the 1970s band Beck, Bogert & Appice. They were a supergroup and power trio, with the line up of guitarist Jeff Beck (who had already been a member of The Yardbirds and The Jeff Beck Group), bassist Tim Bogert, and drummer Carmine Appice (both formerly members of Vanilla Fudge and Cactus). The album had solid sales in 1973. One of the most notable tracks is Beck's version of the famous song of Stevie Wonder's and his creation: "Superstition". This was the band's only studio album, as Beck left the band without warning during the recording of their second album, forcing a sudden dissolution in 1974.

Albert Hammond is one of the more successful pop/rock songwriters to come out of England during the 1960s and 1970s, and has also enjoyed a long career as a recording artist, his work popular in two languages on three continents across four decades. Hammond was born in London in 1944 – his family actually came from the British colony on Gibraltar, but wartime considerations caused his mother to be evacuated to London, where she gave birth. He spent his childhood and youth on Gibraltar, where he became fluent in both English and Spanish – that bilingual ability would serve him well in his later career. His family lived modestly on his father's fireman's pay, and one of his early diversions was music – he sang in church and became head choir boy. He also became interested in popular music, sang for his own enjoyment, and also took up the guitar.

The release of 2009's Endgame brings with it a startling realization: if first-generation thrash metal fans had been polled about which of the genre's "Big Four" - Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth - would prove to be the most resilient and consistently prolific over the next quarter century, the only sure-fire consensus would probably have been "well, anyone but Megadeth!" And yet, 12 studio albums and 150-plus songs later - more than any of the other three have managed - that's exactly what's come to pass. It hasn't been easy, and it's rarely been pretty along the way, but despite a few weak efforts, mostly self-inflicted controversy, and no end to verbal diarrhea, none of those other platinum-busting thrash titans have been as productive as Dave Mustaine's bunch - all of which stands as a testament to the man's stubborn drive to prolong Megadeth's career against all odds…