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During the Belle Époque, Jules Massenet rose to become France’s leading composer of opera, as notable for his acute dramatic sense as for the refined sensuality of his music. Encompassing three decades of his career, and settings as diverse as Biblical Judea and the Paris of Massenet’s time, the seven operas in this box range from the enduringly popular Manon and Werther through works occasionally revived for star singers (Thaïs and Don Quichotte) to three fascinating rarities (Hérodiade, Le Jongleur de Notre Dame and Sapho). They represent nearly 40 years of recording history and feature a host of celebrated singers and conductors from France and around the world.

One of several concerts from which 1970s official live Doors album Absolutely Live was sourced is offered in its entirety on this double-CD, Live in Philadelphia, of a May 1, 1970 show…

During the Belle Époque, Jules Massenet rose to become France’s leading composer of opera, as notable for his acute dramatic sense as for the refined sensuality of his music. Encompassing three decades of his career, and settings as diverse as Biblical Judea and the Paris of Massenet’s time, the seven operas in this box range from the enduringly popular Manon and Werther through works occasionally revived for star singers (Thaïs and Don Quichotte) to three fascinating rarities (Hérodiade, Le Jongleur de Notre Dame and Sapho). They represent nearly 40 years of recording history and feature a host of celebrated singers and conductors from France and around the world.

All of Billy Squier's best material is dished out on 16 Strokes, from the simplistic contagiousness of "The Stroke" to the Van Halen-like fervency of "Tied Up." His rock & roll flamboyancy, a mix of hard but not heavy guitar riffs wrapped around spirited just-for-fun three-minute outpourings, was best established through his singles and not the entirety of his albums. Squier's wild, sexually inundated feistiness is best represented here on a compilation, where the sleekness of "Everybody Wants You" is found in the same place as the naughty "She Goes Down." Both "In the Dark" and "My Kinda Lover" from 1981's Don't Say No pop up here, as does his smoothest of songs, "Emotions in Motion" from the album of the same name.