Sting recorded 'The Bridge' during the pandemic with a coterie of trusted musicians beaming into his studio remotely. That easy sense of musical camaraderie, connection and kinship is on full display in the lead single 'If It's Love', an unabashed pop song which is lent wings by a whistled refrain, joyful handclaps, and uplifting brass and strings. The urgently staccato, electric guitar-driven 'Rushing Water' soars with Sting's trademark melodic invention and vivid imagery. The decidedly romantic 'For Her Love' is a delicate pledge that harkens back to some of Sting's classic ballads.

The Breakaways were the premier providers of female backing vocals for mid-'60s British pop, working closely with Tony Hatch backing his stable of singers as well as with most of the big names like Burt Bacharach, Dusty Springfield, Lulu, Jackie DeShannon, Joe Meek, Shel Talmy, and Andrew Loog Oldham. It might be easier to list who they didn't work with! They were the U.K. equivalent of the Blossoms or the Sweet Inspirations in the U.S. Like those bands, the Breakaways attempted to make it as artists in their own right but never made much of an impact. On this collection there are a handful of excellent singles released under the Breakaways name, but the majority of the disc features them as backup singers to artists like Jackie Trent, Petula Clark, Jimmy Justice, and Tony Jackson. The closest thing the group had to a hit was the stomping "That's How It Goes," which marries their brash unison vocals to a Wall of Sound production and a glorious hook.

Since releasing their self-titled debut album in 1995, Gov't Mule have remained close to their trademark bluesy hard rock roots. While they cover classic blues tunes regularly, they apply that musical signature. Heavy Load Blues marks the first time the quartet have recorded an album devoted strictly to blues. They cut it in one small room in a New England studio standing very close to one another – without headphones – using small vintage amplifiers. The band played stripped-down blues live from the studio floor; the few overdubs were added later. The 13-song standard version of the set offers six excellent Warren Haynes originals alongside covers by masters such as Ann Peebles, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Bobby "Blue" Bland, and others. Haynes co-produced the set with John Paterno.

Voyage is the ninth and final studio album by Swedish group ABBA, released on 5 November 2021. It is the group's first album of new material in 40 years following The Visitors (1981), and contains 10 songs all composed by ABBA's songwriters, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. The album was supported by a double A-sided single release, "I Still Have Faith in You" and "Don't Shut Me Down", released alongside the album announcement on 2 September 2021. A digital concert residency, also called ABBA Voyage, will take place in London beginning May of 2022.

Although it shook the band's fan base to its core, the acrimonious departure of vocalist Ian Gillan and bassist Roger Glover served to rejuvenate Deep Purple in time for 1973's aptly named Burn album, which unquestionably showed huge improvement over their lackluster previous effort, Who Do We Think We Are. And in an interesting twist rarely attempted before or since, new recruits David Coverdale (vocals) and Glenn Hughes (bass and vocals, ex-Trapeze) traded lead singing duties on virtually every one of its songs – an enviable tag team, as both possessed exceptional pipes.

Italian-born Caterina Valente comes from one of Italy's most prestigious families of artists. Her mother Maria Valente was the most famous circus clown of her time, her brother Silvio Francesco (1927-2000) was also active in show business and made numerous recordings and performances together with Caterina. Caterina was already performing in the circus ring with her siblings at the age of five. Her extraordinary international career began in 1953 as a guest singer with the Kurt Edelhagen Orchestra. Her first record, Istanbul, reached the top 20 of the German charts. With her first No. 1 hit Ganz Paris träumt von der Liebe, Caterina Valente remained in the German charts for 36 weeks. The song sold half a million copies in Germany, which was unusually high for the time. Other top placings included Baiao Bongo (#2, 1955) and her second No. 1 hit Wo meine Sonne scheint (1957), followed by Tschau Tschau Bambina (#2, 1959) and her third No. 1 Ein Schiff wird kommen (1960). At the beginning of the 1960s, Caterina Valente achieved further top placings with Pepe (#3, 1961), Ein Seemannherz (#5, 1961), Quando, Quando (#9, 1962) and Rosen sind rot (#7, 1962).

A sketchy and underfocused debut, Rocka Rolla nonetheless begins to delineate the musical territory Judas Priest would explore over the remainder of the decade: frighteningly dark in its effect, tight in its grooves, and capable of expanding to epic song lengths. On the other hand, Rocka Rolla is also murkier, less precise and powerful in its riff attack, and more blues-based; the stylistic debts to Black Sabbath and Deep Purple are obvious at this juncture, although they would become much less apparent on subsequent releases.

UK five CD set. Evolving from the line-up that had recorded the highly-regarded Ora LP in 1969, Byzantium recorded two early Seventies albums - Byzantium and Seasons Changing, both featuring future Ian Dury MD Chaz Jankel - for the A&M label. After leaving A&M, the band self-financed the 1974 Live/Studio album in an effort to attract new representation before splitting the following year. Although they received relatively little attention from the music industry at the time, Byzantium's progressive rock-based combination of musical eclecticism, strong harmonies and timeless song writing have belatedly attracted an audience, with collectors now paying significant sums to acquire original vinyl pressings of their recordings.

The 1974 live recordings celebrates the 50th anniversary of bob dylan’s return to touring that year. Featuring all professionally recorded shows from the artist’s 1974 performances backed by the band, the collection will be available as a deluxe box set across 27 cds. The 1974 live recordings offers fans 417 previously-unreleased bob dylan live tracks – including 133 recordings newly mixed from 16-track tape, and every single surviving soundboard recording – along with new liner notes by journalist and critic elizabeth nelson.

It’s been said before but April ‘78 was an incredible month for the Dead. Like May ‘77, you could throw a dart and guarantee you hit a stellar show. - KyloRensPecs, r/gratefuldead, Reddit …. April/May '78 has a lot of the same qualities of Spring '77 but with some extra edge and a much bigger sound from the Rhythm Devils. A really special era that often gets neglected. - viewtiful_alan, r/gratefuldead, Reddit Sportatorium - April 7, 1978 when drums started I thought, oh s*#!, i hate drum solos and Billy and Mickey stopped me in my tracks. Wow, these guys are really good. Little did I know the pervasive influence this phenomena would have on my life. - pearlybakerbest, Dead.net. Huntington Civic Centre, West Virginia – 16 April 1978 This is another must-hear concert by The Grateful Dead. The sound and mix are almost ‘absolutely perfect'… It’s difficult to pick out highlights because everything is played so well; the band are tight, Donna is great and the set list is strong. - Grateful Ted, gratefulted.co.uk

This gargantuan 35-disc set of Alfred Brendel's complete Vox, Turnabout, and Vanguard recordings released in late 2008, concurrent with his retirement from concert life, will be mandatory listening for anyone who reveres the Austrian virtuoso. When these recordings were made between 1955 and 1975, Brendel was at the start of his international career, and his performances here have a fire, energy, and a drama that his later recordings sometimes lack. Brendel devotees, however, may also find his performances lack the intellectual rigor of his middle period recordings and the poetic depths of his later recordings. Compare his demonic account of Mozart's Twentieth Concerto here, for instance, with his more elegant later account.

This final recital has been previously released on Naxos Historical (review) and elsewhere, but the edition presented here uses tape from the original 1950 French Radio Broadcasting (R.T.F.). At this time of the performance Dinu Lipatti was very ill with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma from which he had been suffering since 1943, but cortisone treatment provided temporary relief, during which he was able to give two public performances: Mozart’s Concerto in C Major K.467 with Herbert von Karajan at the Lucerne Festival on August 23, and this solo recital at the 3rd Besançon International Music Festival on September 16.

Known to Tchaikovsky as the ‘Russian Brahms’ and to Rachmaninov as ‘a master composer [and] a pinnacle of musical Moscow’, Sergey Taneyev was one of the most highly regarded and influential musical figures of his time. His unfinished Symphony No. 2, begun while Taneyev was a student at the Moscow Conservatoire, was recognised by his teacher, Tchaikovsky, as a work of considerable promise. It is heard here in Vladimir Blok’s edition, first performed in 1977. Taneyev’s Symphony No. 4, composed twenty years later, is a large-scale masterpiece considered by many to be his finest orchestral work.

'Yesterwynde' is the Finnish/Dutch/British troupe Nightwish's tenth studio album. The band are one of the most fascinating rock bands of the last decades, whose enigmatic paths have proceeded from acoustic passages to symphonic heavy metal and from catchy folk to progressive majesty. If there is one trait the band has year after year, it might be this: expect something familiar but also expect the unexpected. Nightwish has indeed broken all kinds of boundaries - never deliberately, but perfectly naturally.

Legendary German Hard Rock band Victory (with ex ACCEPT member Herman Frank) is releasing their new studio album "Circle of Life" incl.10 huge tracks with a mixture of true Hard Rock and Heavy Metal vibes. Get ready for powerful guitar riffs and razor-sharp lyrics in best Victory tradition.