50 Contemporary Artists You Should Know

This is the fifth of five Edsel packages that reissue the ten solo albums by country superstar Kenny Rogers, released on the United Artists and Liberty labels at the height of his worldwide popularity between 1976 and 1983. "Love Will Turn You Around" (1982) was another million-seller and features the # 1 hit title track and "A Love Song", The title track of "We've Got Tonight" (1983), a classic penend by Bob Seger, was yet another massive worldwide hit, sung as a duet with Scottish singing star Sheena Easton.

Unlike other labels subjected to exhaustive multi-disc retrospectives like this whopping ten-disc Revolutions in Sound: Warner Bros. Records – The First Fifty Years, Warner Brothers never embodied a scene or sound: they've always embodied what a major label should be – a dominant force that chronicles and dictates the sound of the mainstream. Coming out at the tail-end of 2008, when the influence of major labels is on a slow steady decline, Revolutions in Sound can be seen as a portrait of a time that's beginning to recede into the past: a time when there was such a thing as mass entertainment, when the pop audience all shared a common bond of hit records they either loved or rallied against. Perhaps the greatest things about this monumental box set is that it captures that colossus while also illustrating that for a while, majors did take risks. Of course, Warner was the riskiest of all the majors, never held back by an anti-rock & roll sourpuss like Mitch Miller, who struggled to keep CBS out of the tumult of the '60s (this with no less than Bob Dylan as the label's flagship rock artist). Instead, Warner embraced the underground, recording some of the strangest to shake out of the '60s, and that adventure fits a label that turned to rock & roll to help establish themselves as a real player at the turn of the '60s.

Celebrate 70 years of the Official Singles Chart with NOW #1s – 5CDs featuring 100 of the greatest #1s of all time.
CD1 Kicks off in magnificent style with the peerless classic ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ by Queen. Huge 70’s number ones from Paul McCartney & Wings, Rod Stewart and 10cc follow The Beach Boys and Roy Orbison, plus Classic Rock and Roll from Elvis Presley, Bill Haley & His Comets and The Everly Brothers. Led by Lionel Richie’s beautiful ‘Hello’, up next is an extraordinary run of 80’s number ones including hits from The Police, The Human League and Frankie Goes To Hollywood, before New Wave number ones from Blondie and The Pretenders and drawing to a close with unforgettable film themed love songs from Céline Dion and Whitney Houston.

In November 2023 we celebrated NOW’s 40th anniversary with a collection of 100 massive Pop hits – but with 40 years of hits to choose from we had to leave out so many fantastic tracks – so it’s time to continue that celebration with NOW That’s What I Call 40 Years - Part 2 – 100 more essential hit tracks across 5 CDs – again honouring the legacy with a stellar selection from the past four decades of NOW. Embark on a musical journey from 1983 right up to the present day, making at least one memorable stop in each year along the way. Opening with Duran Duran’s 1983 #1 ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’, which featured on the first NOW album along with ‘Temptation’ by Heaven 17. Unforgettable hits including ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ by Eurythmics, and Synth-Pop smashes from Howard Jones with ‘What Is Love?’ and ‘Smalltown Boy’ by Bronski Beat are up next. ‘Two Tribes’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood spent 9 weeks at #1 in 1984 and features ahead of covers including the #1 collaboration between UB40 and Chrissie Hynde, and Kim Wilde’s version of ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ which hit #1 in the U.S. The production team Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit Pop gold in the late ‘80s and huge hits they produced for Bananarama and Hazell Dean are included. The first disc closes with 1989 classics from Fine Young Cannibals, and the first #1 from Simple Minds ‘Belfast Child’.

In November 2023 we celebrated NOW’s 40th anniversary with a collection of 100 massive Pop hits – but with 40 years of hits to choose from we had to leave out so many fantastic tracks – so it’s time to continue that celebration with NOW That’s What I Call 40 Years - Part 2 – 100 more essential hit tracks across 5 CDs – again honouring the legacy with a stellar selection from the past four decades of NOW. Embark on a musical journey from 1983 right up to the present day, making at least one memorable stop in each year along the way. Opening with Duran Duran’s 1983 #1 ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’, which featured on the first NOW album along with ‘Temptation’ by Heaven 17. Unforgettable hits including ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ by Eurythmics, and Synth-Pop smashes from Howard Jones with ‘What Is Love?’ and ‘Smalltown Boy’ by Bronski Beat are up next. ‘Two Tribes’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood spent 9 weeks at #1 in 1984 and features ahead of covers including the #1 collaboration between UB40 and Chrissie Hynde, and Kim Wilde’s version of ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ which hit #1 in the U.S. The production team Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit Pop gold in the late ‘80s and huge hits they produced for Bananarama and Hazell Dean are included. The first disc closes with 1989 classics from Fine Young Cannibals, and the first #1 from Simple Minds ‘Belfast Child’.

In November 2023 we celebrated NOW’s 40th anniversary with a collection of 100 massive Pop hits – but with 40 years of hits to choose from we had to leave out so many fantastic tracks – so it’s time to continue that celebration with NOW That’s What I Call 40 Years - Part 2 – 100 more essential hit tracks across 5 CDs – again honouring the legacy with a stellar selection from the past four decades of NOW. Embark on a musical journey from 1983 right up to the present day, making at least one memorable stop in each year along the way. Opening with Duran Duran’s 1983 #1 ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’, which featured on the first NOW album along with ‘Temptation’ by Heaven 17. Unforgettable hits including ‘Here Comes The Rain Again’ by Eurythmics, and Synth-Pop smashes from Howard Jones with ‘What Is Love?’ and ‘Smalltown Boy’ by Bronski Beat are up next. ‘Two Tribes’ by Frankie Goes To Hollywood spent 9 weeks at #1 in 1984 and features ahead of covers including the #1 collaboration between UB40 and Chrissie Hynde, and Kim Wilde’s version of ‘You Keep Me Hangin’ On’ which hit #1 in the U.S. The production team Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit Pop gold in the late ‘80s and huge hits they produced for Bananarama and Hazell Dean are included. The first disc closes with 1989 classics from Fine Young Cannibals, and the first #1 from Simple Minds ‘Belfast Child’.

The Soul of Designer Records Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Chances are, you've never heard of Designer Records. One of many independent labels run on a little less than a shoestring in the '60s and '70s, Designer Records was one of the many imprints run by Style Wooten, a Memphis recordman who recruited new talent in classified ads in the back of local newspapers (this also happened to be how he found his wife). Wooten's rates ran low but he wasn't cheap. As long as the musicians had the cash, he took his time in the studio, coaxing the best possible performances out of his nonprofessional artists, which wasn't a particularly easy thing to do due to his own amateur status. He could play a little, but he left a lot of the actual recording up to Roland Janes, a former studio guitarist for Sun who had played with Billy Lee Riley and Jerry Lee Lewis before he departed to set up Sonic Studios in Memphis in 1962. Two years later, Style became a regular customer of Sonic, cutting a wide variety of artists – country, rockabilly, soul, rock & roll – and issuing them on a bewildering number of imprints, many of them named after cars.

Martika's Kitchen is the second album released by pop singer Martika. Released in 1991, it features four songs written and produced by Prince. The album was a departure in musical styles from Martika's debut album. Martika's Kitchen incorporates elements of gospel, jazz, funk, R&B and traditional Cuban music. The title track cracked the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Prince-penned gospel song "Love… Thy Will Be Done" made the top 10. The four Prince songs (tracks 1, 2, 3 and 10) on the album were recorded by him and then sent to Martika to overdub. Three of those songs were based on a lyrics notebook Martika had given Prince for inspiration.

Compilation Simply Number Ones meeting in the huge amount of tracks on each day and the mood, and maybe the same attitudes and beliefs! Featuring a stunning array of rock, pop and soul anthems from various artist across the decades, including All Saints, Alice Cooper, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Madness, Simply Red and many more! Featuring the very best major label repertoire from the most sought after aritists. Each album is encased in a sleek digipack with the elegantly crafted contemporary design that simply is renowned for the world over. This is simply re-imagined for 2016.

In some circles Philip Glass is known as "The Godfather of Trance" and that popularity has led many young producer/musicians from around the world to create remixes of his music. Glass's own label Orange Mountain Music has put together its most unusual CD to date with this collection of 13 exciting remix tracks, some unsolicited, covering a wide selection of his pieces - from vocal, instrumental and orchestral music to film scores. These absorbing new interpretations of Philip's work represent a very diverse programme without any one dominant style - dance, techno, trance, ambient and downtempo influences are all there.