Saturn Return 87 The Secret Sisters

Modernizing the harmony vocal pop of '30s and '40s groups like the Andrews Sisters, London's Puppini Sisters took the name of Marcella Puppini, who founded the act after being inspired by the music in the film The Triplets of Belleville. Puppini, a native of Bologna, Italy, moved to London in 1990 to study fashion and quickly became immersed in the city's music scene. Though she had a career at Vivienne Westwood's design studio, she left to focus on music, and in 2003 earned a music degree at Trinity College of Music. Jazz was her passion, and Puppini spent time as the musical director and orchestra conductor for the Whoopee Club, as well as leading her own quartet.

Given the diversity of songs recorded and released by the Pointer Sisters over the years, finding a well-rounded greatest-hits package isn't all that easy. The group's Millennium Collection isn't definitive by any stretch of the imagination, missing such obvious hits as "I'm So Excited," yet it does offer a good variety of Pointer Sisters highlights. It covers the early, eclectic years: the Sisters' first hit, "Yes We Can Can"; the bluesy "Wang Dang Doodle"; their Grammy-winning country hit, "Fairytale"; the epic funkfests "How Long (Betcha' Got a Chick on the Side)" and "Going Down Slowly"; and the Car Wash soundtrack inclusion "You Gotta Believe."

The music of Robbie James has been described as "a journal through time and space with deep respect for our vast and varied land."

The Pointer Sisters' first two fantastic albums for Blue Thumb Records, dating from 1973 and 1974. This package features the US Top 40 hits 'Yes We Can Can' and 'Fairytale'. In the early 1980s, The Pointer Sisters had huge international success with their disco/pop hits. Digitally remastered.

The Puppini Sisters take on the Christmas season with their third album, an eclectic collection touching on their neo-swing tendencies. This is a British trio (their accents slip in on the occasional syllable here and there) who may take after the Andrews Sisters overtly, but who, on the evidence of this disc, are at least as interested in George Michael and Mariah Carey as they are in Bing Crosby and Patty Andrews. So, for example, they revive the 1980s Wham! hit "Last Christmas" (much more of a hit in the U.K. than in the U.S.), a catchy if melancholy ballad, as well as Carey's "All I Want for Christmas Is You." But they also traipse back to the ‘40s and ‘50s for Crosby- and Crosby/Andrews-related numbers like "White Christmas" and "Mele Kalikimaka."