Opus Classic Edition

“It was quite earth-shattering,” Marina Diamandis tells Apple Music. “The feeling of not knowing what you want to do with your life is terrifying. And I’d never had that before because I had the luxury of being very focused for 10 years.” The singer-songwriter is describing the career knife-edge she found herself on following 2015’s Froot. Fortunately, an extended hiatus allowed a musical recharge, and with her streamlined stage name and double album, we’re all witnesses to a glorious pop return. “I’m at peace with myself,” she says. “I feel less nervous than I’ve ever felt. And besides, when you’re uncertain, you don’t have anything to lose.” Here, she takes us through both sides of her opus: the radiant pop of LOVE and the darker, more introspective FEAR.

After years of playing a dispiriting game of musical chairs with various lead singers during the early '80s, Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi finally stumbled upon a dependable frontman when he admitted relative unknown Tony Martin into the fold, thereby initiating the original heavy metal band's long awaited return to respectability – if not chart-topping success. Martin joined the oft-interrupted sessions for what would become 1987's The Eternal Idol album already in progress, stepping in for an unreliable Ray Gillen when the latter moved on to Jake E. Lee's Badlands, and helping Iommi rescue an astonishingly solid long-player from the jaws of complete and utter chaos.

Nowadays, what's the point of chronicling this "Remasters" when the group released "Mothership" in 2007, which makes it obsolete? Because this record is historic. It is the first to be officially released under the LED ZEPPELIN name since "Coda" in 1982. The 1985 reformations for Live Aid and the 1988 reformation for the 40th anniversary, with Jason Bonham behind the sons, son of the late John n ' will have been occasional and here, there is no place for a fanfare of the Airship. Jimmy Page just wanted to deliver a compilation worthy of the name years after the band's smashing debut, years after a half-hearted ending. How many of you have known LED ZEPPELIN with this "Remasters"? How many of you have had a breath of nostalgia when you saw this cover?

In the beginning of its career, Swedish power metal sextet Sabaton was considered the next big thing in the metal scene. Nowadays, the band has become a synonym for predictable repetition appealing only to occasional metal fans during the festival season. One has to wonder at what point the band reached its turning point. In hindsight, this climax is obviously the moment when the two guitarists, the keyboarder and the drummer simultaneously left the band that was then painfully reconstructed by the remaining bassist and singer. The last record released by the classic line-up was Carolus Rex, marking both the band's greatest hour and its last peak so far…

Melancholic and reflective, Kevin Ayers' third solo effort, Whatevershebringswesing (this time sans the Whole World as a collective), finds the ultimate underachiever languishing in a realm of ballads, free (for the most part) from the façade and pretensions of prog rock that plagued the previous project. Released in January 1972, Whatevershebringswesing was Ayers' most commercially accessible album to date. The opening track, the "There Is Loving" suite, was both apropos and deceptive. The song picks up nicely from the previous album, linked by its Soft Machine/prog rock sound and fronting the lyrics from the single "Butterfly Dance"; however, for the very same reason, this was a deceptive opener for an album that was far removed from the prog subgenre…

This excellent recording is largely considered to be Le Orme's magnum opus. The trio, comprised of Aldo Tagliapietra (vocals, bass, guitar), Toni Pagliuca (organ/Mellotron, piano), and Michi Dei Rossi (drums), produced some of the best Italian progressive rock ever recorded. Influenced by Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Genesis, the band forged their own unique blend of sophisticated symphonic prog rock. Tagliapietra's vocals give the music an ethereal quality, and he actually sounds quite a bit like Sting (or the other way around). Their high level of musicianship is evident on "Sospesi Nell 'Incredibile," but the focus is more on mood, song structure, and texture. The original recording contains Italian lyrics, while Van Der Graaf Generator vocalist Peter Hammill penned English lyrics for a subsequent release. Stick with the Italian version for the full effect of this prog rock classic.