Ringo Starr Bad Boy (1978) & Stop And Smell The Roses

The second half of the '90s was difficult for the Cranberries, not just because of changing fashions, but because the group embraced both a social consciousness and a prog rock infatuation, crystallized by the Storm Thorgerson cover of Bury the Hatchet. Thorgerson has been retained for their fifth effort, Wake Up and Smell the Coffee, but the group has hardly pursued the indulgent tendencies of their previous collaboration with him – instead, they've re-teamed with producer Stephen Street and come up with an album that's as reminiscent of their debut as anything they've done since. So, even if it's wrapped in new clothing, this is essentially a return to basics, and it's a welcome one, since it's melodic, stately, and somber – perhaps not with the post-Sundays grace of "Linger," but with a dogged sense of decorum that keeps not just the group's musical excesses in check, but also O'Riordan's political polemics (although she still sneaks in cringe-inducing lines like "Looks like we've screwed up the ozone layer/I wonder if the politicians care").

The Beatles never quite made a commercially released Christmas album, though they put together special singles for their fan club every year from 1963 to 1969, then compiled them as The Beatles Christmas Album, also just for the fan club, in 1970. These recordings were more spoken-word than musical, though there was a song, "Christmas Time (Is Here Again)," heard in excerpts on the 1967 record. It has been left to Ringo Starr to release the first full-length Christmas album from a Beatle, and I Wanna Be a Santa Claus is very much in the group's spirit. Since he returned to recording in 1992, Starr has made a point of making music reminiscent of the Beatles, hooking up in 1998 with a group led by Mark Hudson dubbed the Roundheads. Hudson is everywhere on I Wanna Be a Santa Claus, co-writing the half-dozen originals with Starr and others, co-producing with Starr, and handling a variety of instruments. He and keyboard player/arranger Jim Cox clearly are steeped in the Beatles, and they have effectively recreated a Beatles sound on the record, in some cases aping specific songs.

Ringo Starr, continuing to recognize a good thing when he sees it as he did back in 1962, is still organizing all-star (or "All-Starr") bands and touring regularly with them. This disc melds a concert performance at the Casino Rama in Ontario, Canada with a good deal of backstage documentary-style footage…

Spanning three discs and 47 tracks, The Anthology So Far collects highlights from all of Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band tours, which means it doesn't just have hits from Ringo (basically, all of his solo and Beatles anthems), it also has signature songs from fellow classic rockers like Dr. John, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Joe Walsh, John Entwistle, Dave Edmunds, Timothy B Schmidt, Felix Cavaliere, Randy Bachman, Burton Commings, Peter Frampton, Simon Kirke, Jack Bruce, Eric Carmen, and the great Todd Rundgren…

Spanning three discs and 47 tracks, The Anthology So Far collects highlights from all of Ringo Starr & His All Starr Band tours, which means it doesn't just have hits from Ringo (basically, all of his solo and Beatles anthems), it also has signature songs from fellow classic rockers like Dr. John, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Joe Walsh, John Entwistle, Dave Edmunds, Timothy B Schmidt, Felix Cavaliere, Randy Bachman, Burton Commings, Peter Frampton, Simon Kirke, Jack Bruce, Eric Carmen, and the great Todd Rundgren…

Ringo actually started recording his first solo album in late 1969, before the Beatles had officially split. Partially to please his parents, he set out to record an album not of rock & roll, but of standards from the 1930s and 1940s, with help from a bellyful of top arrangers (Richard Perry, Chico O'Farrill, Maurice Gibb, Klaus Voorman, George Martin, Quincy Jones, Elmer Bernstein, Oliver Nelson, and Paul McCartney)…

Ringo Starr went back to work in the summer of 1989 fronting a tour of rock stars who, like him, had become golden oldies. Ringo sang hits like "It Don't Come Easy" and "Photograph," Dr. John sang "Iko Iko," Levon Helm of the Band sang "The Weight," his bandmate Rick Danko sang "Raining in My Heart," an old Buddy Holly tune, Billy Preston sang "Will It Go Round Iin Circles," and Joe Walsh sang the Eagles' "Life in the Fast Lane."…

Given the disappointing sales of the previous two All-Starr Band live albums, Ringo's star wasn't bright enough to get this release out on a major label or even a conventional label. As a stopgap, it was available only in Blockbuster Music stores for a brief time – at the rock-bottom bargain price of 5.99 dollars – and further volumes were not forthcoming. A shame, actually, for this was the best of the three All-Starr albums up to that point, representing what was probably Ringo's finest all-around group of the 1990s. Recorded in Tokyo's Nippon Budokan Hall, this round robin of golden oldies sounds like a straight transfer of the concert, following the order of the first part of the show with the rest presumably saved for the unissued volume two.

Early in his career, Ringo Starr realized that he couldn't quite carry an entire album by himself, so he established the practice of the "all-star" (or "All-Starr," as he later dubbed it) album, drafting in his musician buddies to help him make an album…