Lb Lost Boyz

Michael Milligan and The Altar Boyz describe their unique sound as "Texas Blues with Louisiana Attitude". This is what happened when they combined their ethnic mixture of original sounds. Front man/Lead singer Michael Milligan, raised in Angelton, Texas with roots In Louisiana, has been a working musician since the early 70's…

This is not a George Lynch best-of or anthology. This is a two-disc collection of outtakes, demos, collaborations, and other assorted goodies designed to appease the most die-hard of Lynch fans. Selections from Dokken and Lynch Mob as well as his earlier bands like A, the Boyz, and Xciter are all here, but the second disc is where the metal gems truly lie. Collaborations with vocalists Stephen Pearcy (Ratt), Vince Neil (Mötley Crüe), and John Corabi (also formerly of Mötley Crüe) are all fun little sessions and definitely add to the quality of the set. At two discs, The Lost Anthology would be a bit much to handle for those who aren't true Lynch fanatics, but those who are will be pleasantly surprised at how well this maps out Lynch's evolution as a guitarist over three decades.

In the liner notes for Collide, Boyz II Men's first album since 2011's Twenty, the trio say their approach was "sing whatever you like," "sing whatever feels right," a move they see as "risky after many years of the same old thing." More revealingly, they confess that they had "lost the joy" and were too concerned with airplay and sales. While those words seem like they should be written in support of an album involving a great deal of creative self-control, Collide was made with at least three dozen songwriters and producers. In fact, Nathan, Shawn, and Wanya produced only the vocals and did none of the writing – surprising, given the amount of effort they put forth for Twenty.

In the liner notes for Collide, Boyz II Men's first album since 2011's Twenty, the trio say their approach was "sing whatever you like," "sing whatever feels right," a move they see as "risky after many years of the same old thing." More revealingly, they confess that they had "lost the joy" and were too concerned with airplay and sales. While those words seem like they should be written in support of an album involving a great deal of creative self-control, Collide was made with at least three dozen songwriters and producers. In fact, Nathan, Shawn, and Wanya produced only the vocals and did none of the writing – surprising, given the amount of effort they put forth for Twenty.

Slade gets the shaft. Maybe because of jealousy (like Hugh Hefner) or who knows why, these British boyz are nuked by the mainstream, metalheads, critics, and America. Well, I'm proclaiming my allegiance and membership as a Slademanian because slabs by Slade constantly deliver the goods. In 1987, the quartet still gives great noize 20-odd years after forming as the 'N Betweens. Every track here stomps out a variation on the Slade theme of "Sing Shout (Knock Yourself Out)." …

The peak of the so-called boy band craze in pop music came in about the year 2000; by 2002, the fashion was over. Altar Boyz, a musical about a boy band, arrived off-Broadway on March 1, 2005, which may be as close to currency as the musical theater gets. But there is nothing as out as that which was recently in, and the show plays as a period piece no less than Forever Plaid, another off-Broadway musical about a male vocal group. And similar to Forever Plaid, Altar Boyz is intended as a lightly satiric, yet affectionate take on its subject. The big joke here is that the fictional Altar Boyz are a group of Catholics – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Juan (and, oh, yes, Abraham, who, for reasons never really explained, is Jewish) – and they are here to sing about their faith. They do so in the combination of dance, Latin, and ballad styles, complete with overly emotive harmony and solo singing, that will be familiar to anyone who's ever heard a Backstreet Boys album…

Released a decade into Boyz II Men's enormously successful career and a year after another best-of collection, Ballad Collection, Legacy: The Greatest Hits Collection puts all the quartet's hits on one disc. Songs like "Motownphilly" and "End of the Road" were phenomenons during their reign atop the Billboard charts, and many of the other songs here were nearly as ubiquitous at various points in the '90s.