At the end of the month, Edsel will issue Songs, a 12CD box set that brings together Michael Nesmith solo albums issued under two different labels. The set kicks off in 1970 with Magnetic South, as a prolific Nesmith went on to issue six albums on RCA in just three years, including the ironically-titled …And The Hits Just Keep on Comin’ which included his own version of ‘Different Drum’, which had been a hit for Linda Ronstadt back in 1967. 1975’s The Prison was the first album on his own label Pacific Arts. This conceptual offering included a novella that was meant to be read while listening to the album as its ‘soundtrack’. Nesmith did the same with 1994’s The Garden (also included here).

Astonishingly daring debut album, not as focused or overpowering as King Crimson's first but still crashing down barriers and steamrolling expectations. The mix of medieval harmonies and electric rock got stronger on subsequent albums, but the music here is still pretty jarring. Kerry Minnear was probably the only prog rock keyboard player of the era who allowed his synthesizers to sound like themselves and not mimic orchestras; Gary Green's guitars are alternately loud and brittle or soft and lyrical, and always surprising; and the presence of saxes and trumpets (courtesy of Phil Shulman) was unusual in any rock band of the era – all of which explains how Gentle Giant managed to attract a cult following but hadn't a prayer of moving up from that level of recognition. "Funny Ways" was the softest prog rock song this side of Crimson's "I Talk to the Wind," but a lot of the rest is pretty intense in volume and tempo changes. "Nothing at All" by itself is worth the price of purchase.

Classic early '60s pop! Here are all Lesley's recordings for Mercury between 1963 and 1965, and they just about sum up an era. t's My Party, Judy's Turn To Cry, She's A Fool, You Don't Own Me, are just four of the all-time hits. Lesley Gore talks in-depth about being a star at 17, and the producers talk about the recordings. An in-depth look at a golden era in American pop. February 16, 2015, Lesley Gore died in Manhattan, New York, at the age of 68.

So Close To What 21-Track Digital Deluxe Download with Alt Cover feat. acoustic versions of "Sports car", "It‚'s ok I‚'m ok", and "Greenlight" from Sirius XM live in LA available until 9p PT Thursday only.

Album has been out of print for over 30 years. Recorded live in front of a small private audience in a residential studio in Miami in 1978. This unique album includes brand new songs along with some classics such as: ‘Nickel Song’, ‘Ruby Tuesday‘, ‘Brand New Key‘. The latter was performed in the style that Melanie had originally envisioned it to be. The pinnacle of this album is arguably the stunning version of the single “Cyclone” which segues into the classic “Candles in the Rain “. Of this album Melanie defiantly said, “I wasn’t making this album for the music industry, I was making it for me - this is who I am, this is what I do, and if you don’t like, too bad.” And the album sounds all the better for it, being as organic as you can get - a singer songwriter and an elite band of musicians doing what they do best…this album is one of the overlooked classics in the Melanie catalogue.

Deluxe 50th anniversary edition. Includes Bonus Tracks.

BIG STIR RECORDS proudly presents a new, never-before heard full-length album from legendary NYC power pop pioneers SORROWS, the third and final chapter of a legacy that's only grown since their late '70s debut. PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW, recorded in a one-night whirlwind session in 1981 and capturing the band at their fiery peak, includes the indie hit preview single “Out Of My Head” along with ten more previously unreleased Sorrows originals and three choice covers.

MUSHROOM RECORDS was founded in London’s Chalk Farm district in 1970 by producer Vic Keary, an experienced industry veteran who’d spent most of the 1960s working as Maximum Sound Productions. Over the course of three years, Mushroom issued a dizzying variety of records, embracing a broad range of music styles from Prog Rock (Second Hand, Chillum) to Singer-Songwriters (Simon Finn, Andreas Thomopoulos), Traditional Folk (Callinan-Flynn, The Liverpool Fishermen), Indian music (Pandit Kanwar Sain Trikha, Nitai Dasgupta), avant garde jazz (Lol Coxhill) and world music (Les Flambeaux). And in Magic Carpet, Mushroom hosted a group who reflected most of the above genres on one album.

Bachman-Turner Overdrive's Four Wheel Drive album is most often overlooked, mainly because all of the attention was focused on the singable "na na na naa"'s of one of B.T.O.'s biggest hits in "Hey You." But the rest of the album is made up of the band's lunch-pail rock & roll sound, combining ample amounts of factory-made blues to street-dirty guitar rock. Although it can't really hold a candle to Not Fragile, B.T.O.'s best album, there's still a fair amount of well-played radio rock to hold Four Wheel Drive up.

Two CD set containing a pair of albums plus bonus tracks from the music industry legend. A songwriter, producer, singer, entrepreneur, artist and candidate for the title of Fifth Season, Crewe was one of music's true renaissance men. With Bob Gaudio, he co-wrote and produced most of the Four Seasons greatest hits, and he also guided the careers of Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, Oliver, and many others. Yet one period of his extraordinary career has been long overlooked… until now. During 1976 and 1977, Crewe was signed to Elektra Records, where he released two remarkably diverse albums. 1976's Street Talk resurrected The Bob Crewe Generation, best-known for the swinging bachelor pad classic Music to Watch Girls By, for the disco age. As a disco-rock ballet concept album aimed at Broadway, Street Talk reflected the exuberant, uninhibited and provocative spirit of the era with it's lush, orchestral disco style. The following year, Crewe emerged as a singer/songwriter with the solo Motivation. Helmed by legendary rock producer Jerry Wexler and famed Muscle Shoals musician Barry Beckett, Motivation was inspired by Carole King's Tapestry and remains a passionate, spiritual and raw pop statement from an artist who had plenty to say.

“The enormous, long river of storytelling, fed by ancient headwaters, shoring up time, bounded by landscape and people and witness to the beauty and anguish of each. Deconstructed ballads and reveries of drunk ghosts, obtuse and palatable superimposed. The relatable not just accompanied but defined by the very weird. Kitchen-table images from a spotty memory, beater cars mystically lifted, characters coming and going, old friends on the porch. In this town everyone knows each other, knows each others’ business, and everyone’s got strange trouble. Big Ugly is beer-fisted radio country from a post-verbal hermit; “Oh what country, friends, is this,” a line from “Twelfth Night,” uttered by Viola after being shipwrecked on an unfamiliar shore, one that might hold new life or prove to be another disappointment. Nobody moves. The voice is home, but home is a mystery. We get older and learn nothing, our world barely recognizable. We help each other out. We stay in a place that is losing its future, whether out of commitment or despondency. Big Ugly is Southern mountain rock, Southern lit, made and dedicated to the inextricable entity of land and people, to visions of community and utopia and testament to erosion. The country is a steady drum beat and fried guitar. The language is a dream.” – Dan Wriggins

Return of Saturn is an almost defiantly mature record about two things: Stefani's exploration of a troubled romance and her own romantic ideals, plus a serious attempt by the group to not only keep new wave alive, but to make that adolescent music relevant to an older audience. It's a high concept, but Return of Saturn is filled with satisfying contradictions. It's melodic, but deceptively complex; it can seem frothy, but it's never frivolous. No Doubt's desire to expand the emotional template of new wave is the perfect match for Stefani's themes – she may be writing about love, but she's not writing adolescent love songs. Fragments of her teenaged romantic fantasies remain, but she's writing as a woman in her late 20s. She's tired of being another "ex-girlfriend" – she wants to fall in love, get married, and have a family. It's a subject that's surprisingly uncommon in pop music, which would alone make Return of Saturn an interesting album. What makes it a successful one is that the band delivers an aural equivalent of Stefani's lyrical themes.

It's easy to take Robert Cray for granted, for the singer-guitarist has altered his approach so little since he first burst on the scene. Nonetheless, the changes from his early albums to Some Rainy Morning are no less real for having been subtle. Cray is still combining urban-blues guitar and Southern-soul vocals on stories of romantic treachery and working-class frustration, but he has distilled that strategy until nothing superfluous remains. "Some Rainy Morning," recorded with his stripped-down road quartet, is full of breathing room so Cray's singing and playing are set off more dramatically than ever. In addition to the eight originals by Cray and his bandmates, the album includes remakes of Wilson Pickett's "Jealous Love" and Syl Johnson's "Steppin' Out," and Cray does a great job of matching Pickett's raucous shouts and Johnson's silky crooning. On his own songs, Cray sounds better than ever when he's holding out notes for effect or communicating paradoxical emotions.

The Allman Brothers Band's comeback album, and their best blues-based outing since Idlewild South that restored a lot of their reputation. With Tom Dowd running the session, and the group free to make the music they wanted to, they ended up producing this bold, rock-hard album, made up mostly of songs by Dickey Betts (with contributions by new keyboardman Johnny Neel and lead guitarist Warren Haynes), almost every one of them a winner. Apart from the rippling opening number, "Good Clean Fun," which he co-authored, Gregg Allman's contribution is limited to singing and the organ, but the band seem more confident than ever, ripping through numbers like "Low Down Dirty Mean," "Shine It On," and "Let Me Ride" like they were inventing blues-rock here, and the Ornette Coleman-inspired "True Gravity" is their best instrumental since "Jessica".

Marilyn Monroe was not much of a recording artist per se, but she sang in many of her motion pictures. This European two-CD set presents dialogue and musical performances drawn directly from the soundtracks to the movie musicals Ladies of the Chorus, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The River of No Return, and There's No Business Like Show Business. She also sings briefly in non-musicals Niagra, Bus Stop, and The Prince and the Showgirl, plays "Chopsticks" in The Seven Year Itch, and exchanges witticisms with Groucho Marx in Love Happy; and there are a few stray non-movie song recordings. The second half of the second disc is taken up by miscellaneous recordings, not all of them musical, including a TV commercial, the presentation of several awards (she says, "Thank you"), radio sketches with Edgar Bergen and Jack Benny, and Monroe's appearances in Korea (singing "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend") and at the 1962 birthday party for President Kennedy at which she sang "Happy Birthday".