Closer UK 19 January 2018

The soundtrack to the Queen biopic will please both casuals and obsessives. For the former, lots of hits: “Crazy Little Thing Called Love,” “Under Pressure,” and, of course, the grandiose title track among them. And for the latter, Queen struts out rare live tracks and fresh updates to classics. “We Will Rock You” merges a studio and live performance, “Don’t Stop Me Now” features newly recorded guitar parts from Brian May. The surviving members of Queen also recorded their very own arrangement of the famous 20th Century Fox theme. But the biggest jewel in the crown is the addition of five songs from the band’s dramatic 1985 Live Aid performance—a faithful re-creation of which serves as the movie's climax—now available for the first time. Ayyy-oh!

Edwin Hawkins was an American gospel musician, pianist, choir master, composer, and arranger. He was one of the originators of the urban contemporary gospel sound.

To say that Aretha Franklin was one of the greatest American artists of all time is an understatement. Her multi-octave voice moved millions around the world during an unrivaled career that spanned six decades and garnered the singer-songwriter every achievement and honor imaginable. Her reign as the Queen of Soul will play out across four discs on a new boxed set from Rhino that is the first to span her entire career, including songs from every label she recorded with.

Combining sessions that blues pianist Sunnyland Slim and blues guitarist Johnny Shines recorded separately on the same day in Chicago in 1968 for the Blue Horizon imprint, this interesting little set shows two blues veterans doing what it was they did, which was, in part, to push and pull the Delta blues one small step closer to being in the modern urban world. The Slim sides, several of which are new to digital disc, are a bit more interesting than the Shines sides, but only by degree. Slim's songs can appear on the surface to be tossed-off exercises in the usual blues clichés, but they were actually carefully written, while Shines worked similar territory, giving old blues figures a slightly ironic twist. Since both played at one time or another with Robert Johnson, and both straddle the old and new worlds of the blues as it transfigured into an electric and urban form, it makes perfect sense to stick these two sessions together in one package.