John Edward Prine (October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American country folk singer-songwriter. He was active as a composer, recording artist, live performer, and occasional actor from the early 1970s until his death, and was known for an often humorous style of original music that has elements of protest and social commentary…
B'z The Best XXV 1988-1998 is a compilation album by the Japanese hard rock duo B'z. It was released on June 12, 2013, simultaneously with B'z The Best XXV 1999-2012, and it is part of their 25th anniversary celebration. It reached #1 at Oricon charts and Billboard Japan Top Albums…
At various times in his long career, saxophonist, composer, playwright, and educator Archie Shepp has been regarded as a musical firebrand, cultural radical, soulful throwback to the jazz tradition, contemplative veteran explorer, and global jazz statesman…
Rhino's – or, more accurately, Sire/Warner/Rhino's – Best of Talking Heads follows 2003's box set Once in a Lifetime by a year, and it features the same remastering from that set. It also shares part of a title with the 1992 U.K. compilation The Best of Talking Heads: Once in a Lifetime, which was released the same year as the American double-disc overview Popular Favorites: Sand in the Vaseline. Given the similar titles, similar release dates, and similar track listings, it's easy to get confused at first, but all you need to know is that if you're looking for a comprehensive collection, get the Rhino box, and if you want a disc of hits, get this single-disc Rhino collection…
Being the quintessential album rock band, Pink Floyd hasn't had much luck with "best-of" and "greatest-hits" compilations, like A Collection of Great Dance Songs and the bizarro follow-up, Works. Since both of those were released in the early '80s (and time travel being unavailable even to Pink Floyd), they obviously left out any tracks from the post-Roger Waters era albums…
Since it's founding in Freiburg in 1958, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi has been one of the most important and ambitious labels for period performances. Over decades, globally-acclaimed recordings were created with outstanding musicians. The limited edition "Deutsche Harmonia Mundi: 100 Great Recordings" contains 100 outstanding DHM recordings with some of the most important and best artists in their field: Nuria Rial, Dorothee Mields, Al Ayre Espanol, Hille Perl, Concentus Musicus Wien, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, the Freiburger Barockorchester, Skip Sempé, Capriccio Stravagante, La Petite Bande, Gustav Leonhardt, Andrew Lawrence-King, Frieder Bernius, the Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, Thomas Hengelbrock and many others.
Nick Cave is a singular figure in contemporary rock music; he first emerged as punk rock was making its presence known in Australia, but though he's never surrendered his status as a provocateur and a musical outlaw, he quickly abandoned the simplicity of punk for something grander and more literate, though no less punishing in its outlook…
The 1990 collection The Very Best of Elton John (available in the U.K. and Australia) is an excellent 30-track summary of his peak years, running from "Your Song" to "You Gotta Love Someone." In a sense, it's the concise counterpart to the box set To Be Continued, released that same year but spanning four discs and filled with rarities…
In honor of Philip Glass' 70th birthday, Sony has devoted two CDs to 18 short works and movements of larger works, from recordings in its archive. The set provides a useful introduction to the composer's work from a relatively brief span in his long career, from 1976 to 1988. It was an exceptionally productive period for Glass; works written during that period include his three large-scale portrait operas – Einstein on the Beach, Satyagraha, and Akhnaten – all represented here, as well as two very popular albums of short pieces: Glassworks and Songs From Liquid Days.