I Can't Put My Finger On It The Housemartins

A more succinct and straightforward anthology of the Housemartins than 1988's Now That's What I Call Quite Good!, 2004's The Best of the Housemartins is a 14-track overview that sticks to the basics. While it does not contain the significant BBC sessions, B-sides, and album cuts featured on Quite Good!, it does feature superior sound and all the material (such as "Happy Hour," "Sheep," "The People Who Grinned Themselves to Death," and their cover of the Isley Brothers' "Caravan of Love") that casual fans truly need. Most of the band's biggest fans will tell you, of course, that the two studio albums are absolutely necessary.

Ex-boxer Screamin' Jay Hawkins' live show, full of on-stage coffins, skulls, and toilets, prefigured the extravagant concert productions of later artists like Alice Cooper and George Clinton, and Hawkins' full awareness of the visual aspect of rock music extended even to his lyrics, which were purposefully graphic and surreal. In essence, Hawkins was a one- or two-trick pony, but boy, those ponies could run. His masterpiece was "I Put a Spell on You," which he originally recorded for OKeh Records (supposedly while extremely drunk) in 1956, and while Hawkins' version was never even close to being a commercial hit, the song has been covered so many times (most notably by Nina Simone) that it has deservedly been certified as a rock and R&B classic.

Ever since Running Wild began to slide after their The Rivalry album, fans had been clamoring for a return to form and even after their reunion, things still hadn’t been quite fully back up to par yet. But a Swedish band named Blazon Stone sailed into the port with their fabulous Return to Port Royal album that emulated Rock’n’Rolf’s sound, just way better and more energetic than the original and now Argentina is throwing in a candidate for the “I sound more like Running Wild than Running Wild” contest in the form of Buenos Aires-based quintet Skull & Bones and their debut album The Cursed Island…