Give Jim Belushi and Dan Aykroyd credit for at least one thing: the subtitle of "Big Men - Big Music" to their 2003 album, Have Love Will Travel, is pretty fun, and partially accurate. The two comedians-cum-retro-bluesmen are indeed big men, and they at the very least have a big band: the back cover features no less than 12 musicians, including the duo, begging the question of just how much does the Have Love Will Travel Revue actually pull in per gig. That's a question better settled by accountants and auditors, of course, but a lot of musicians does mean that the music at the very least sounds busy, even if it doesn't necessarily sound big. But that's really no change from Aykroyd's previous musical excursion, the Blues Brothers, who always utilized a big band to make faithful music.

Later hailed as one of the key goth rock albums of the '80s and considered by many hardcore Cure fans to be the band's best album, Pornography was largely dismissed upon its 1982 release, witheringly reviewed as a leaden slab of whining and moping. The truth, as usual, is somewhere in between: Pornography is much better than most mainstream critics of the time thought, but in retrospect, it's not the masterpiece some fans have claimed it to be. The overall sound is thick and murky, but too muddy to be effectively atmospheric in the way that the more dynamic Disintegration managed a few years later. For every powerful track like the doomy opener "One Hundred Years" and the clattering, desolate single "The Hanging Garden," there's a sound-over-substance piece of filler like "The Figurehead," which sounds suitably bleak but doesn't have the musical or emotional heft this sort of music requires. Pornography is an often intriguing listen, but it's just a bit too uneven to be considered a classic.

When all is said and done regarding the most influential power pop bands of the '60s, Herman's Hermits and Tommy James & the Shondells emerge as the clear-cut winners for the same reason: Their music was so diverse and well constructed that it showed the different dimensions of a genre that inspired music smart enough to respect its roots which, in turn, inspired music too hip for its own good – the modern rock movement that was not half as much fun as "the new wave," or as essential as anything found on ABKCO's perennial release of Herman's Hermits' Their Greatest Hits.

Fridrich Bruk – born in Kharkov in 1937 and a Finnish resident since 1974 – made his name as a composer of tangos. But the heart of his music lies in a series of (to date) 21 symphonies, which have a strong narrative element, some reflecting Jewish themes, others inspired by Karelia and Finland. The three most recent together form a kind of meta-symphony premised on the persecution of the Jews in the first half of the twentieth century. Bruk’s kaleidoscopic use of orchestral colour, his angular but expressive melodies and his dramatic musical language reflect this urge to chronicle the outrage visited on his fellow Jews – and which directly impinged on his own life.

This harpsichord recital by Scott Ross was first broadcast on the French radio France Musique in 1986. It was only released on CD in 2009 by Diapason. In this recital, Scott Ross plays the Suite in E minor and the First Concert in C minor by Jean-Philipe Rameau, the 4th suite in D major by Johann Sebastian Bach and three sonatas (K215, K492 and K27) by Domenico Scarlatti.

Uchida's performances seem completely natural as if that is the way the performances were intended. Not a point of cunning escapes her. Yet there is never a trace of self-consciousness in her point-making, not even in the heightened intensity of the tragic B minor Adagio. It is Mozart at his purest.

When I founded my ensemble Les Arts Florissants in 1979, I knew at once that I wanted the battle I was launching to make the baroque repertory popular again to be fought not only in the concert hall but also through that wonderful weapon of seduction, recordings.

Loreena McKennitt's fourth release, and first for a major label, is a quietly majestic tapestry of worldbeat and Celtic pop that effortlessly weaves together traditional and contemporary songs into lush showcases for her fluid voice and harp. The multi-talented Canadian utilizes all of her strengths here, resulting in her most rewarding batch of tunes to date. With larger production values and more ambitious arrangements than the sparse Elemental and Parallel Dreams, her flair for the dramatic and the theatrical runs rampant throughout. Whether she's toasting the souls of the departed with Pagan glee on the delicious "All Souls Night," or reinterpreting King Henry VIII's "Greensleeves" through Tom Waits, it's never without both feet in the water.

German/British rock band, established 1971 in Krefeld, led by Colin Orr. In Germany, a British band, Janus, who were re-writing the rules of progressive music, by combining ear-shattering rock with classical and flamenco music, were the first band to be signed to Harvest in Germany. They released the legendary “Gravedigger” album, and one single, at the tail end of 1972, but then went into self-destruct mode, by burning through their advance royalties in a 12 month party, which may well have achieved an even greater legendary status than their debut album.