The Morbid Anatomy Anthology

What's in a name? If you love mid-'60s folk-rockers the Mamas & the Papas, this four-volume U.K. Complete Anthology (2004) speaks for itself. The 101 selections run in excess of five hours centering on the vintage long-players If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears (1966), The Mamas & the Papas (1966), The Mamas & the Papas Deliver (1967), The Papas & the Mamas (1968), People Like Us (1971), and The Monterey International Pop Festival (1971)…

Gram Parsons' legend is so great that it's easy for the neophyte to be skeptical about his music, wondering if it really is deserving of such effusive praise. Simply put, it is, and if you question the veracity of that statement, turn to Rhino's peerless double-disc set, Sacred Hearts and Fallen Angels: The Gram Parsons Anthology. This is the first truly comprehensive overview of Parsons' work, running from the International Submarine Band, through the Byrds, to the Flying Burrito Brothers and his two solo albums, scattering appropriate rarities or non-LP tracks along the way…

Anthology essentially replicates the previous collection Greatest Hits and adds singles from There's a Riot Goin' On and Fresh to the end of the album. Where Greatest Hits didn't follow chronological order, Anthology presents every single in the order it was released – and, with the exception of the latter-day singles and the inclusion of "Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey," that is the major difference between the two collections…

Unquestionably the finest collection of a major band that did much to launch American folk-rock in the mid-'60s. Anthology jams 26 cuts onto a single CD, including all of their hits and some of their strongest album tracks, drawing mostly from their 1965-1966 prime…

In October 1990, Lou Reed interviewed Vaclav Havel, playwright, poet, president of the newly emancipated Czechoslovakia, and – surprisingly? – a Velvet Underground fan. During the course of their conversation, Havel handed Reed a book. "These are your lyrics, hand-printed and translated into Czechoslovakian. There were only 200 of them. They were very dangerous to have. People went to jail." Nobody will go to jail for owning Between Thought and Expression, but Reed's lyrics remain dangerous – not, as in Communist Czechoslovakia, for what they are, but for what they say…