Throwaways 00

This Rhino U.K. 2012 budget-priced box set rounds up the prime of the Replacements: five albums, beginning with their debut Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, continuing with the Twin/Tone landmarks Hootenanny and Let It Be, then concluding with their major-label debut Tim and their first post-Bob Stinson album Pleased to Meet Me. These aren't the expanded versions Rhino put out in the 2000s; they're just the albums, but that's enough to make this a worthwhile purchase, particularly at this price. The Replacements were an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1979. Initially a punk rock band, they are considered one of the pioneers of alternative rock.

During the great John Lennon revival of the late '80s, Yoko Ono licensed to have the Westwood One Radio Network air scores of unreleased home recordings and demos as the Lost Lennon Tapes radio show. At the time, there was endless speculation about when highlights would be released, likely as a box set…

Issued before the release of Chrominance Decoder, April March's first large-scale U.S. album, Lessons of April March collects tracks March recorded with Bertrand Burgulat (three of which appear on Chrominance Decoder), as well as cuts from her Sympathy for the Record Industry releases (Los Cincos, Chick Habit and Paris in April). As such, the record has a pasted-together feel, largely due to the sheer number of collaborators March has worked with – but at points, it's a lovely showcase for her re-creations of 1960s French pop and yè-yè music. Case in point: the track "Chick Habit," which adapts English lyrics from Serge Gainsbourg's "Laisser Tomber les Filles," originally sung by France Gall. March's more modern tracks are a hit or miss affair here – those which later appeared on Chrominance Decoder are slick, unique and thoroughly worthwhile, but some of the earlier work collected on the album (and the closing track "Jesus and I Love You," from the Orgazmo soundtrack) seem like tacked-on throwaways.

There never was a supergroup more super than the Traveling Wilburys. They had Jeff Lynne, the leader of ELO; they had Roy Orbison, the best pop singer of the '60s; they had Tom Petty, the best roots rocker this side of Bruce Springsteen; they had a Beatle and Bob Dylan, for crying out loud! It's impossible to picture a supergroup with a stronger pedigree than that (all that's missing is a Rolling Stone), but in another sense it's hard to call the Wilburys a true supergroup, since they arrived nearly two decades after the all-star craze of the '70s peaked, and they never had the self-important air of nearly all the other supergroups. That, of course, was the key to their charm: they were a group of friends that fell together easily, almost effortlessly, to record a B-side for a single for George Harrison, then had such a good time they stuck around to record a full album, which became a hit upon its 1988 release.

Coming along in 1976, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers were part of a movement back to basic, pop-oriented rock & roll that has proven to be the most lasting legacy of a decade otherwise given over to such stylistic flameouts as disco and punk…