N Spawn

Eggs Over Easy, the American band that invented pub rock, influenced the careers of Nick Lowe, Huey Lewis, Loudon Wainwright III and Elvis Costello, and laid the groundwork for a grass roots movement that would spawn UK punk, is finally getting its due with a deluxe 3xLP/2xCD set.

After scoring their commercial breakthrough with "I'm Not in Love" from 1975's The Original Soundtrack, 10cc continued to build on their good fortune with How Dare You. It didn't spawn another massive hit like "I'm Not in Love," but it is a well-crafted album that shows off 10cc's eccentric humor and pop smarts in equal measure…

Together with their countrymen Kreator and Sodom, Germany's Destruction constituted the dominating triumvirate of Teutonic thrash metal during the 1980s. And even though they ultimately failed to match these peers in terms of commercial success and longevity, at least two of their albums still qualify among the crème de la crème of the decade's speed metal. Heavy metal underwent a worldwide revolution in the early '80s, when the lingering lessons from '70s giants like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest crashed head-on with the D.I.Y. ethos of punk rock and the sheer velocity of Motörhead to spawn the much ballyhooed New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which, in turn sparked a far more powerful and lasting bastard offspring: thrash metal. Of all the nations contaminated by this musical virus as it proliferated unchecked, Germany was second only to the U.S. in terms of widespread infection…