Real People From 17 November 2016

Styx was one of the titans of the hugely popular AOR movement – along with Boston, Foreigner, Journey, and REO Speedwagon – embraced by the U.S. mainstream in the late '70s and early '80s. The end of the Chicago-based band's peak period coincided with one of the most ambitious and notorious projects of the time, the 1983 concept album Kilroy Was Here…

Particles presents the first ever box set anthology of Ireland's 1960s rock music scene. Only two long-out-of-print compilations have ever emerged to profile Ireland's rock roots, making this anthology doubly inviting. From the R&B/blues scene in Belfast to the late 1960s psychedelia of Dublin, People! Let's Freak Out reveals a wider account of the beat scene, and its transition into psychedelia and blues rock. While Ireland has never been given equal acclaim to that of its neighboring England, it nevertheless produced some of the most iconic and influential bands of the period. As Van Morrison and Them were leaving Belfast for London, a slew of new hopefuls arrived to establish their own niche under the nose of the dominant showband scene. Compiled here, are 125 original recordings featuring various groups from Eire and Northern Ireland, some of whom went on to huge success in the 1970s. From Ian Whitcomb to Eire Apparent, The Bye-Laws to the Belfast Gypsies and Gentry to Sugar Shack, People! Let's Freak Out is a fascinating account of Ireland's more obscure and vibrant music scene of the 1960s. Spanning five discs with rare and previously unreleased recording People! Let's Freak Out offers an excellent companion to similar anthologies such as Nuggets, Rubble, and Buried Alive.

The Planets, composed between 1914 and 1916, is a suite of seven movements. Holst's starting point for the music was the astrological character of each planet, though his interest in astrology went no deeper than its musical suggestiveness…