The Best Women's Delicious

Lounge music is a type of easy listening music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It may be meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place, usually with a tranquil theme, such as a jungle, an island paradise or outer space. The range of lounge music encompasses beautiful music–influenced instrumentals, modern electronica (with chillout, and downtempo influences), while remaining thematically focused on its retro-space-age cultural elements…

Tube City!: The Best of The Trashmen adds their Garrett singles to their lone 1964 album Surfin' Bird. That classic single is here in all of its raw, unfettered glory, and while it does tend to overshadow the rest of the Trashmen's output, the collection shows that their other work was also strong. Their covers of "Miserlou," "It's So Easy," and "Money (That's What I Want)" reflect the band's roots, and aren't overly respectful of the original versions, while "My Woodie" and "Kuk" are respectable surf-pop songs. The Trashmen's instrumentals also fare well, particularly "Tube City" itself , the flamenco-surf of "Malaguena," and "Bird Dance," a silly, tiki-bird infested bid to follow up the success of "Surfin' Bird." "Bird Dance Beat" follows suit, but songs like "Bad News," "Whoa! Dad," and "Real Live Doll" have as much energy, but a little more originality.

A unique compilation of the best and most beautiful rock classics for everyone.

This double-disc set from Trojan includes classic ska, rocksteady and reggae tracks from Desmond Dekker & the Aces, Jimmy Cliff, Lee Perry & the Upsetters, the Melodians, Toots & the Maytals, Bob Marley & the Wailers, Ken Boothe, John Holt and many others. Though there are quite a few Jamaican classics missing from this history of the music, all the tracks included are quite solid.

A very different compilation with little or no overlapping material could just as easily earn the right to be titled The Best of the Durutti Column. Vini Reilly's discography is so deep that any track selection would look somewhat arbitrary. Despite that, this two-disc set, released in 2004, does an admirable job of distilling over 20 years of material into a digestible introduction. Even most of Reilly's longtime, fanatical followers would have to agree - with some reservations, perhaps - that this is a representative way to gain an understanding of one of the most prolific and unique individuals to have started during the punk era. If this set should happen to hit all the right nerves with you, there are no less than ten good to spectacular studio albums waiting to be devoured.

The Best of the Alan Parsons Project, Vol. 2 typically picks up where its predecessor left off. With 11 tracks covering seven albums, including Gaudi, Stereotomy, and Vulture Culture, the songs here are a tad weaker than those on the first collection, since some of the albums that these songs originate from were not of this band's finest caliber. The highlights here include both "Prime Time" and "Don't Answer Me" from Ammonia Avenue, and the provocative instrumental "I Robot," the only non-vocal track on the album. All of the selections on this package convey their purpose much better within their former albums, since each song is a link in the album's conceptual chain.

Doug Sahm once sang, "You just can't live in Texas if you don't have a lot of soul," and, as a proud son of the Lone Star state, he seemed bent on proving that every time he stepped in front of a microphone. Whether he was playing roots rock, garage punk, blues, country, norteño, or (as was often the case) something that mixed up several of the above-mentioned ingredients, Doug Sahm always sounded like Doug Sahm – a little wild, a little loose, but always good company, and a guy with a whole lot of soul who knew a lot of musicians upon whom the same praise could be bestowed. Pulling together a single disc compilation that would make sense of the length and breadth of the artist's recording career (which spanned five decades) would be just about impossible (the licensing hassles involved with the many labels involved would probably scotch such a project anyway), but this disc, which boasts 22 songs recorded over the course of eight years, is a pretty good starter for anyone wanting to get to know Sahm's music.