Paul Revere & The Raiders The Complete Columbia Singles Collection (2010)

The Spirit of '67, Paul Revere and the Raiders' third gold-selling, Top Ten album to be released in 1966, marked the triumph of the group's in-house writing team of lead singer Mark Lindsay, Paul Revere, and producer Terry Melcher. "Hungry," the Top Ten follow-up to "Kicks," was written, like the earlier hit, by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, but Lindsay-Revere-Melcher then hit the Top 40 with "The Great Airplane Strike" and the Top Ten with "Good Thing." (Actually, Revere was not a writer on "Good Thing," as subsequent releases indicated.) Those hits anchored this collection, which was filled out by showcases for bassist Phil Volk and drummer Mark Smith (guitarist Drake Levin had been replaced by Jim Valley), plus some secondary material by the group's leaders…

The Byrds were one of the most progressive and exciting band in '60s rock, with no peers outside the Stones-Beatles-Beach Boys triumvirate. This box set, which collects their original Columbia albums, represents over 90-percent of their career, basically everything they released, all 12 albums (aside from their 1973 reunion album recorded for Asylum). This material was frequently astonishing at the time, and still is, ranging from their debut single "Mr. Tambourine Man" through the bracing folk-rock of their first two LPs, growing psychedelia and experimentation during 1966 and 1967, then a sudden detour into country-rock and mellow pop for the rest of the '60s…

This double-CD set presents a real conundrum, on a lot of levels. For starters, on its face, 55 songs may well seem like overkill to the casual fan who only knows or remembers (or thinks they only remember) five or six big hits by Paul Revere & the Raiders. And there are more modest single-CD collections to be found on this band that seem less daunting. But as it turns out - for those who give this set a try - Paul Revere & the Raiders did have just enough hits, when coupled with a sufficient number of respected album tracks and B-sides, to sustain a double-CD set. And that goes double for anyone who likes plain old rock & roll - even when this band got ambitious and a little bit progressive and serious, they never lost sight of the value of a great beat and carefully placed vocal and instrumental hooks, and they were always fun…

Midnight Ride marked just about the pinnacle of Paul Revere & the Raiders' history as a source of great albums. Even more to their credit, most of the music on Midnight Ride was written by the bandmembers themselves, and not just Mark Lindsay and Paul Revere, but Phil Volk, Drake Levin, and Mike Smith getting a shared songwriting credit. The irony is that this was the last album on which that egalitarian spirit was to dominate; alongside the tight, hard, eminently danceable rock & roll sounds that comprise about two-thirds of this album, there are signs of the softer, more introspective balladry that lead singer Mark Lindsay was starting to favor in his songwriting ("Little Girl in the Fourth Row," etc.)…

The Complete Motown Singles has been a dream project of Motown and soul fanatics for many years, ever since the first decade of Stax/Volt singles was compiled in an impressive nine-disc box set in 1991. Prior to that, no soul label had its output as thoroughly documented as that set – there had been the Atlantic R&B box, which collected highlights, but it never attempted to capture the label's entire run – and while The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968 missed a B-side or two, it was an exceptional piece of music history, and pretty damn entertaining to boot.

The Complete Motown Singles has been a dream project of Motown and soul fanatics for many years, ever since the first decade of Stax/Volt singles was compiled in an impressive nine-disc box set in 1991. Prior to that, no soul label had its output as thoroughly documented as that set – there had been the Atlantic R&B box, which collected highlights, but it never attempted to capture the label's entire run – and while The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968 missed a B-side or two, it was an exceptional piece of music history, and pretty damn entertaining to boot.

The Complete Motown Singles has been a dream project of Motown and soul fanatics for many years, ever since the first decade of Stax/Volt singles was compiled in an impressive nine-disc box set in 1991. The Complete Motown Singles might have seemed like a logical move to soul collectors and fanatics, but it remained in the realm of fantasy for many years because, as enticing as that set was, it was difficult to create.

Igor Stravinsky The Complete Columbia Album Collection is an unprecedented reissue of the complete recordings of his works that Igor Stravinsky made for CBS/American Columbia, bringing together for the very first time on CD all of the mono "Stravinsky conducts Stravinsky" recordings issued in the 1940s and 1950s alongside the more familiar stereo remakes from the 1960s, as well as all the authorized performances that Stravinsky's assistant Robert Craft conducted for the label in the composer's presence, after age and infirmity had restricted his own ability to do so.

The Complete Motown Singles has been a dream project of Motown and soul fanatics for many years, ever since the first decade of Stax/Volt singles was compiled in an impressive nine-disc box set in 1991. Prior to that, no soul label had its output as thoroughly documented as that set – there had been the Atlantic R&B box, which collected highlights, but it never attempted to capture the label's entire run – and while The Complete Stax-Volt Singles 1959-1968 missed a B-side or two, it was an exceptional piece of music history, and pretty damn entertaining to boot.