Second Best To None

Men at Work were one of the more surprising success stories of the new wave era, rocketing out of Australia in 1982 to become the most successful artist of the year. With its Police-styled rhythms, catchy guitar hooks, wailing saxophones, and off-kilter sense of humor, the band's debut album, Business as Usual, became an international blockbuster, breaking the American record for the most weeks a debut spent at the top of the charts. Their funny, irreverent videos became MTV favorites, helping send "Who Can It Be Now?" and "Down Under" to number one. Men at Work's momentum sustained them through their second album, 1983's Cargo, before the bottom fell out of the band's popularity. After releasing Two Hearts in 1985, Men at Work broke up, becoming one of the better-remembered phenomena of new wave.

There are no highlights in this cycle - the level of consistency is remarkable - but Dohnanyi's Third has always been regarded as one of the three or four reference recordings of the symphony. And rightfully so. Rarely are conductors been able to elicit such an unclogged sound from an orchestra on modern instruments while maintaining such a high level of focused energy. The brass work in the first movement is stunning while the wind parts all register with appropriate clarity. The appearance of the coda is violent and awesomely effective.

The Best of 1990–2000 is the second greatest hits compilation album by Irish rock band U2. The album was released on 5 November 2002 by Island Records, except in the United States where the album was released on the Interscope label as a single-disc CD compilation. The Best of 1990–2000 & B-Sides was released on the same day with a second disc featuring 14 of the b-side singles released from 1990 to 2000 and a bonus DVD with a trailer for the album and three other segments.

For roughly half a decade, from 1968 through 1975, the Band was one of the most popular and influential rock groups in the world, their music embraced by critics (and, to a somewhat lesser degree, the public) as seriously as the music of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Their albums were analyzed and reviewed as intensely as any records by their one-time employer and sometime mentor Bob Dylan.

About a decade ago, the word "angular" was rarely heard outside of a geometry class, and this was what Mercury Prize nominations sounded like. Doves did enough anthemic rafter-reaching to honor predecessors like Oasis and the Verve. They were also studio-centric and tech-savvy enough to satisfy an OK Computer jones, while having enough British classicism for people not ready to follow Radiohead down the rabbit hole. And there were many of them, to the point where "new Radiohead" (ironically sounding like the old Radiohead) became one of the early new century's most briskly populated UK indie subgenres.

New York Philharmonic - The Historic Broadcasts 1923 to 1987 (1997) {10CDs Box Set NYP 9701}
XLD rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 2.09 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 1.54 Gb
Full Artwork @ 600 dpi (jpg) -> 520 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1923-87, 1997 New York Philharmonic | NYP 9701
Classical / Orchestral / Concerto / Symphony

Culled from New York Philharmonic broadcasts spanning 75 years, this remarkable 10-disc compilation testifies to the strong-willed yet chameleon-like orchestra's virtuosity and versatility under a diverse assemblage of podium personalities. Stylistically speaking, the earlier items are the most interesting, revealing, for instance, a more vibrant Otto Klemperer and freer Arturo Toscanini than their later commercial efforts sometimes suggest. Other artists are heard in repertoire which they otherwise didn't record: Fritz Reiner's Brahms 2nd, Leonard Bernstein's Berg and Webern, and a wrenching concert version of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle under Kubelík's direction, to name but a few. From program notes to transfer quality, not one stone is left unturned to ensure first-rate results.