Extreme Albums Collection

To celebrate its 50th Anniversay, harmonia mundi presents 50 masterworks in the development of Western classical music, performed by undisputed masters in their field. This set features over 36 hours of music (all complete works, no excerpts) of music in audiophile-quality sound, elequently packaged in a deluxe boxed set and offered at a very low price. Whether you are an inquisitive novice or a discerning connoisseur, you will be thrilled to experience the sonic triumphs of the world's most innovative independent label.

A singer and demon guitarist whose raucous blend of country and rock & roll helped make him a successful crossover act, Junior Brown was born in 1952 and raised in the backwoods of Kirksville, IN. He first learned to play the piano from his father, and was exposed to country through radio and TV, becoming a fan of Ernest Tubb's music and television program. He became a professional musician at the tail end of the '60s, while still in his teens.After honing his guitar skills in relative anonymity throughout the '70s, Brown became an instructor at the Hank Thompson School of Country Music, an affiliate of Rogers State College in Oklahoma. There, while teaching under the auspices of steel guitar legend Leon McAuliffe, a onetime member of Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, Brown met "the lovely Miss Tanya Rae," a student whom he would later marry in 1988 and who eventually joined his band as a rhythm guitarist and backing vocalist…….

Judas Priest was one of the most influential heavy metal bands of the '70s, spearheading the New Wave of British Heavy Metal late in the decade. Decked out in leather and chains, the band fused the gothic doom of Black Sabbath with the riffs and speed of Led Zeppelin, as well as adding a vicious two-lead guitar attack; in doing so, they set the pace for much popular heavy metal from 1975 until 1985, as well as laying the groundwork for the speed and death metal of the '80s….

Originally operating under the moniker Cryptic Warning, Boston, Massachusetts extreme metal trio Revocation emerged in the mid-2000s armed with a super-technical thrash/death metal-style prizing virtuosity as much as heaviness and aggression. As Cryptic Warning, the band found favor with the metal underground via a pair of well-received demos and a full-length…

This Rhino U.K. 2012 budget-priced box set rounds up the prime of the Replacements: five albums, beginning with their debut Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, continuing with the Twin/Tone landmarks Hootenanny and Let It Be, then concluding with their major-label debut Tim and their first post-Bob Stinson album Pleased to Meet Me. These aren't the expanded versions Rhino put out in the 2000s; they're just the albums, but that's enough to make this a worthwhile purchase, particularly at this price. The Replacements were an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1979. Initially a punk rock band, they are considered one of the pioneers of alternative rock.