The Pornographer Der Pornograph (2001) [re Up]

Features 20 music videos, band commentary, narration by the video directors, never-before-seen outtakes and bonus behind-the-scenes documentaries + a short film by Jonas Akerlund, never before commercially available.

On Grab It for a Second, Golden Earring continued in the straightforward hard rock direction they started with 1977's Contraband. They also went for a more radio-friendly sound by teaming up with producer Jimmy Iovine, who polished their sound to a new level of slickness and also fleshed out the group's sound with session musicians like percussionist Jimmy Maelen. The result is an album that rocks hard, but loses sight of the band's personality. Much of Grab It for a Minute feels like an attempt to compete with the likes of Bad Company or Aerosmith: rockers like "Roxanne" and "Tempting" crackle with energy but feel like they could have been performed by any second-tier hard rock band of the 1970s.

Time Out of Mind was a legitimate comeback, Bob Dylan's first collection of original songs in nearly ten years and a risky rumination on mortality, but its sequel, Love and Theft, is his true return to form, not just his best album since Blood on the Tracks, but the loosest, funniest, warmest record he's made since The Basement Tapes…

Stone Cold Queen: A Tribute features a number of hard rock performers covering some of Queen's best-known songs. Many of the featured performers are industry veterans: Billy Sheehan, Matt Sorum, Marty Friedman, Geoff Tate, Gunnar Nelson, Jake E. Lee, Richie Kotzen, Vinny Appice, Kip Winger, Carmine Appice, Tommy Shaw, Dweezil Zappa, and Bruce Kulick are just a few of the featured performers…

God Bless the Go-Go's is the Go-Go's fourth studio album, released May 15, 2001. It was their first studio album in 17 years since the release of Talk Show in 1984.

The Jazz in Paris: Jazz and Cinema series of Verve CD reissues examines jazz recorded for French film soundtracks in the late '50s and early '60s. This third compilation is the least successful of the first three, as few of the tracks stand on their own merit away from the movies they accompanied. Written for the film Les Loups Dans la Bergerie, the compositions of Serge Gainsbourg might be labeled cool, though they are rarely given time to develop and feature no major soloists in Alan Gouraguer's arrangements. Less successful are Andre Hodeir's somewhat boppish charts for Les Tripe au Soleil, which have extremely distracting scat vocals by Christiane Legrand that frequently seem off-key. The best of the lot is a remake of four songs composed by Freddie Redd for The Connection, which began life as a play…

California Dreamin' reminds us that '60s pop paragons The Mamas & The Papas had an appealing new sound, made some terrific records, and left behind a legacy that lives on more than 35 years after they called it quits. This hour-long documentary, originally aired on PBS, has all the standard elements of the genre: interviews (including some from 2004 and '05 with surviving members Michelle Phillips and Denny Doherty, as well as 1986 recollections by John Phillips, who died in '01, and a few brief words from Cass Elliot, who passed away in '74), photos, home movies, and a generous helping of music clips…