0 Day Week of 2002 09

Like politicians, pop superstars staging a comeback need to be on message, devising a story line and sticking to it from conception to completion. Celine Dion's message is a simple one – one that would be evident to anybody paying the slightest bit of attention. After a ballyhooed semi-retirement following 1999's semi-collection All the Way – a retirement where she gave birth and tended to her manager/husband's recovery from cancer – it was time to begin a new chapter in her life, something made explicit in the title of the comeback, A New Day Has Come. Of course, the new day is the new chapter of Celine's life – she's still a caring, loving wife and mother, but she's ready to return to music with a vigor, including a three-year stint as the main attraction at Caesars in Las Vegas.

Released as part of Union Square's The Soho Collection, The Golden Years of Frank Sinatra is a triple-disc set of highlights from Sinatra's recordings for Columbia from the '30s and '40s. The set is assembled into three thematic CDs: the first is "Romantic," the second "Swing," the third "The Crooner." It's a good way to organize the material, which does contain a lot of familiar but classic versions of standards, and helps make this a worthwhile budget-priced collection of Sinatra's early years.

On the 13th Day is the 17th studio album from the rock group Magnum (including Keeping the Nite Light Burning and ignoring Evolution), which was released in September 2012, under the label of Steamhammer Records/SPV. The album entered the charts at number 3 in the UK Rock & Metal Charts, number 5 in the UK Indie Charts, number 28 in the German Album Charts, #36 Swedish Album Charts, #43 UK Album Charts during its first week, making it their most successful album since their reformation in 2002 at the time of its release. Bob Catley has stated that he considers On the 13th Day to be Magnum's rockiest album to date, with the track Dance of the Black Tattoo standing out as particularly heavy for a Magnum album.

Monumental isn’t even a word strong enough to describe the new Epica offering, Ωmega, the first collection of all-new material in five long years. On their eighth full-length, the Dutch symphonic metal titans go all cinemascope, in a stunt both effortlessly and cunningly unleashing their biggest, grandest, flashiest opus yet. Mind you, that’s not lightly said for a band like Epica. Formed by composer Mark Jansen after leaving After Forever back in 2002, they quickly gained attention outside their home country, taking big steps towards becoming the leading symphonic metal superpower they have long proven to be. After their ambitious debut The Phantom Agony (2002) and the surprisingly eclectic sophomore work, Consign To Oblivion (2005), the road took them to new heights via their first concept masterpiece, The Divine Conspiracy (2007) and their global breakthrough, Design Your Universe (2009).

The Rolling Stones’ 1981 tour was the biggest rock and roll event of the year. The size of the production, the length and the pubulicity surrounding it were unprecedented. They played in the biggest arenas, sometimes for multiple nights, and orchestrated a media blitz which saw them appear on television somewhere in the world at least once a week on local stations, syndicated shows like Rona Barrett’s new news program “Inside & Out” and on cable television with several appearances on the brand new channel MTV. The big tour finale was the pay-per-view broadcast by satellite on the final night…