Focus Japan

Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for David Bowie's hard-rocking glam, and Aladdin Sane essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs. Bowie abandons his futuristic obsessions to concentrate on the detached cool of New York and London hipsters, as on the compressed rockers "Watch That Man," "Cracked Actor," and "The Jean Genie." Bowie follows the hard stuff with the jazzy, dissonant sprawls of "Lady Grinning Soul," "Aladdin Sane," and "Time," all of which manage to be both campy and avant-garde simultaneously, while the sweepingly cinematic "Drive-In Saturday" is a soaring fusion of sci-fi doo wop and melodramatic teenage glam.

Legendary Deep Purple and Rainbow guitarist Ritchie Blackmore shifted his musical focus away from hard rock in the late '90s and started concentrating on his love of Renaissance-era music. He formed Blackmore's Night with his fiancée, vocalist/lyricist Candice Night, and recruited other musicians from around the world to combine elements of world music, Renaissance, new age, folk, and rock & roll. Blackmore didn't exactly retire his Fender Stratocaster, but he plays acoustic guitar almost exclusively in Blackmore's Night. His acoustic guitar melodies and Night's clear, ethereal voice blend with a host of instruments such as mandolins, keyboards, pennywhistles, violins, tambourines, military drums, and hurdy-gurdies. Blackmore once described the band's sound as "Mike Oldfield meets Enya."

The last album with Rob Dean, Gentlemen Take Polaroids was also unquestionably the album in which Japan truly found its own unique voice and aesthetic approach. The glam influences still hung heavy, particularly from Roxy Music, but now the band found itself starting to affect others in turn. Even the back cover photo says as much – looking cool in glossy, elegant nightwear, the quintet had a clear impact on Duran Duran, to the point where Nick Rhodes obviously was trying to be Sylvian in appearance. Musically, meanwhile, the swooning, hyper elegant Euro-disco sheen of Quiet Life was polished to an even finer edge throughout, the title track and the obvious descendant of "Quiet Life" itself, "Methods of Dance," in particular sheer standouts. Sylvian's sighing, luscious croon is in full effect on both, and the arrangements are astonishing, Karn's fretless purring between Jansen's crisp, inventive, and varied drumming, Barbieri's icy keyboards filling out the corners. What makes Gentlemen Take Polaroids even more of a success is how the group, having reached such a polished peak, kept driving behind it, transforming their exquisite pop into something even more artistic and unique.

The last album with Rob Dean, Gentlemen Take Polaroids was also unquestionably the album in which Japan truly found its own unique voice and aesthetic approach. The glam influences still hung heavy, particularly from Roxy Music, but now the band found itself starting to affect others in turn…

Vocalist Graham Bonnet fronts this group consisting of drummer extraordinaire Cozy Powell, guitarists Ray Fenwick and Jan Akkerman, with Chris Cozens on keyboards, and guests like Terry Pack and Mo Foster on bass. The album begins awkwardly with a bit of bombast called "Hit and Run" but gets more hard pop with "Always," a drum beat that Roxy Music utilized on Manifesto, and that Elton John chose for "Healing Hands" under a melody that sounds totally derivative. Rocking harder than "Touch Me," the 1974 hit Fenwick composed for his group Fancy, but not as aggressive as that Top 20 song, there's the balancing act going on here of Cozy Powell's arena rock attitude and Ray Fenwick's pop sensibilities. Graham Bonnet isn't the best choice for a vocal sound on Denny Laine's composition, "Stay Away," and the reggae, almost calypso sound also clashes with what could have been a pure pop masterpiece.

Endangered Species: A Compilation Of Rare And Obscure Tracks is a 2000 compilation album by British singer-songwriter Des'ree. As suggested by its title, it is not a greatest hits compilation, but a collection of assorted b-side only tracks, songs from soundtracks, and live versions of her hits from her first three albums. The selection features five b-sides from her different singles (with "Warm Hands, Cold Heart", a b-side to "You Gotta Be" being a new mix specially done for the compilation), five live songs, an acoustic mix, the song "Silent Hero" which was recorded for the 1995 film Clockers, and one then-unreleased song, "Soul Mates". It is Des'ree's only compilation to date. Des'ree was taking time off from music at the time to focus on her private life and the making of her fourth album Dream Soldier and therefore did not promote the album, which did not chart.