Billy Fury A Thousand Stars: The Best Of (2014)

Here You Are: The Best Of Billy Ocean is a new 2CD unique collection from original King Of Soul, packaged with a career spanning celebration of one of Britain’s biggest stars. Billy is a Grammy award winner with worldwide sales of over 30 million. He hit the number one spot across three continents in the 70s and 80s, counting no fewer than six UK top 10 singles. ‘Caribbean Queen’ stormed to number one on both the US singles chart and US R&B chart, and is amongst Billy’s six US top 10 singles. With top 10 albums the world over, Billy has notched up an impressive three Platinum albums (including two which are certified 2x Platinum).

After kicking around on various labels for half a dozen years and developing a reputation as a stellar sideman, Billy Preston finally broke through to mass success as a recording artist with the instrumental "Outa-Space" on A&M Records in 1972, and he had a string of other hits over the next several years, including the chart-toppers "Will It Go Round in Circles" and "Nothing From Nothing." This discount-priced best-of features all of his Top 20 pop and R&B hits, including the 1979 duet with Syreeta, "With You I'm Born Again," a Top Five hit on the Motown subsidiary Tamla that now resides in the Universal vaults along with the A&M catalog.

The 2014 career-spanning anthology Keep Me in Your Heart for a While: The Best of Madeleine Peyroux, showcases tracks from throughout the Georgia-born, Paris-based vocalist's career. Starting with her 1996 debut album, Dreamland, and running through her 2013 studio effort The Blue Room, Keep Me in Your Heart for a While reveals Peyroux's transformation from a bluesy, Billie Holiday-influenced vocal ingenue to a mature and sophisticated interpreter of popular song, both new and old. Here we get such tracks as "La Vie en Rose," "Smile," "Between the Bars," "Dance Me to the End of Love," and more. Also included is Peyroux's previously unreleased recording of Warren Zevon's "Keep Me in Your Heart," from the film Union Square.

When Bruce Dickinson launched his solo career with 1990's Tattooed Millionaire, it was clear that not everything he did on his own would resemble his work with Iron Maiden. Some of the British headbanger's solo output has been very forceful and Maiden-like, but some of it is has been lighthearted, glossy pop-metal that wouldn't be out of place on an album by Bon Jovi, Winger, or Def Leppard. Assembled in 2001, this excellent, well-rounded collection reflects Dickinson's diversity as a solo artist…