Make Him Beg For Your Attention

Paying little attention to the extreme death metal sounds their hometown was renowned for, the four natives of Gothenburg, Sweden who formed Hardcore Superstar in 1998 drew upon melodic, glammed-up hard rock, especially the sleazy L.A. pop-metal sound of the '80s. Vocalist Jocke Berg, guitarist Silver Silver, bassist Martin Sandvik, and drummer Magnus Andreasson recorded an album titled It's Only Rock 'N' Roll and released via Gain Records in 1998, attracting praise from Motörhead's Lemmy. After opening for Motörhead on a Scandinavian tour, Hardcore Superstar signed with Music for Nations and recorded their sophomore effort, Bad Sneakers and a Piña Colada, in 1999.

When EMI made their various sonata and concerto recordings with Claudio Arrau in the 1950s, his reputation in this country was at its zenith; and rightly so, to judge from much that their five-CD Beethoven Edition has to offer. Later, a reaction set in, something that first became apparent in these pages in 1963 as Arrau, now a Philips artist, embarked on his cycle of all 32 Beethoven piano sonatas.