Marilyn Hanold Portfolio Extenders

Perhaps to prepare fans for their next release, Marilyn Manson have decided to release a five-track EP of dance remixes and live songs. The group does show that they have what it takes to come up with sometimes interesting dance makeovers of popular songs (such as "The Horrible People," a reworking of their hit "The Beautiful People"), but the originals are better and definitive. You'll also find a pair of live tracks, "Dried Up, Tied and Dead to the World" and "Antichrist Superstar," which catch the band in all of their shock-rock glory. And closing the mini-album is a mellow acoustic piece (consisting of just guitar and voice, with a few sound effects here and there) entitled "Man That You Fear," which is a departure from their usual sound.

“Horne is the great star focus…She is predictably brilliant in the coloratura passages, with her commanding presence not getting in the way of a sense of fun…The production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle is brightly attractive, and the direction is at the service of the performance. Levine conducts with characteristic energy.” Penguin Guide

Marilyn McCoo & Billy Davis Jr. are founding members and lead singers of the original 5th Dimension. Marilyn & Billy left the group and won a Grammy award, which is among their collection of seven Grammy wins, with an even greater number of nominations. Billy Davis, Jr. has continued to attract attention as a soloist and a duo partner with his wife, Marilyn McCoo. Although Marilyn & Billy tour regularly, BLACKBIRD: LENNON-MCCARTNEY ICONS is their first major studio album in three decades, and it is inspired by the turbulent and tragic experiences of lives lost in the ongoing struggle for human rights and equality.

This time-honoured production of Verdi's final opera, one that has seen all the greatest Falstaffs of the last four decades hold court at its convincingly shabby Garter Inn and upset the decent folk of its lovingly recreated Tudor Windsor, marked the first appearance at the Met of producer and designer Franco Zeffirelli in March 1964. The Anglophile Zeffirelli had by then made his Shakespearean reputation with a revelatory Romeo and Juliet in London - his films of this play and of The Taming of the Shrew were shortly to follow - as well as with a similar production of Falstaff at Covent Garden, and the attention to visual and psychological detail displayed in his Met Falstaff won it high praise: “a milestone in the history of operatic production in this city" was the judgement of the New York Herald Tribune.

If you're looking for one album documenting the career of Marilyn Horne, this is the one to buy. Composed mostly of operatic excerpts from the 1960s and '70s, but also including some art song and concert selections from the 1980s, Decca's Just for the Record: The Golden Voice captures the sound and fury of Horne in her prime. Most everything Horne was known for is here: Handel, Rossini, Bellini, some Verdi, and Bizet's Carmen.

Two pianos sounding in tandem can feel – given that the instrument belongs to the percussion family – like a kind of 176-key gamelan, an atmospheric orchestra ringing and resonating and radiating in unity. In that way, the music of How to Turn the Moon by pianists Angelica Sanchez and Marilyn Crispell vibrates with a special, luminous quality. In composing all the pieces for this album, Angelica was inspired by Marilyn’s ever-questing sound and sensibility, as well as the uncommon rapport they share as players and as people.