The Sweet Japan

Fresh Cream represents so many different firsts, it's difficult to keep count. Cream, of course, was the first supergroup, but their first album not only gave birth to the power trio, it also was instrumental in the birth of heavy metal and the birth of jam rock…

French pop star (and significant other of Johnny Depp) recorded her English-language debut record in 1991; the self-titled disc was a bit of a flop commercially, but, surprisingly, succeeds artistically. Producer Lenny Kravitz gives Vanessa Paradis some of his best songs and she really can carry a tune with her breathy little-girl vocals. The highlights of the record are many, but the songs that will have you smiling like a fool at the sheer poptasticness of it all are the gliding funk with orchestra of "Natural High;" the strutting girl group of "Be My Baby;" the sweet-as-sugar sunshine pop of "Sunday Mondays;" the psych-soul of "Your Love Has Got a Handle on My Mind" (which features Paradis' most assured vocal and a nice background assist from Kravitz); and the sweet soul of "Just as Long as You Are There."

Epic/Legacy's 2005 release All Over the World: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra is the latest installment in the seemingly endless series of ELO comps. Since it follows 2003's handy single-disc The Essential Electric Light Orchestra by merely two years, it's easy to wonder what distinguishes this from the other ELO collections on the market, and whether it was necessary to release another single-disc set so quickly after the last. The biggest differences between All Over the World and Essential is that the 2005 release has some very nice but altogether too brief liner notes from Jeff Lynne along with five more tracks than the 15-track 2003 release.

The 1981 compilation Assemblage gives a skewed, incomplete picture of Japan's early career; this is not necessarily a bad thing, as Japan's early career frankly wasn't very good, and it certainly had little to do with the mature, studied art-pop of their later albums…