Tonights The Night (1987) Bobby Roth, Belinda Bauer, Jack Blessing, Max Gail

Under the expert guidance of Peter Holman, as formidable a scholar of the period as he is experienced executant, these performances by the Parley of Instruments remain as fresh and incisive as on their first appearance over a decade ago. With no special interpretative axe to grind, they remain classic accounts, deserving of a place in anyone’s CD collection, specialist and general listener alike.

It's ironic that the Cure, a band whose albums have always seemed like definitive artistic statements, were at their best as a singles band. On the group's singles, Robert Smith's ideas reached their full potential, since they captured not only the group's off-kilter pop sense, but also the haunting melancholy and wacky humor that interlaced Smith's songs. Galore rounds up the singles from the second part of the Cure's career, beginning with "Why Can't I Be You?" from 1987's Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me and ending with "Gone!" from 1996's Wild Mood Swings. Between those two are 15 more songs, nearly every one of which is a gem. The Cure were never a repetitive singles band, and there's a dizzying array of styles here, from infectious jangle pop ("Friday I'm in Love," "Mint Car") and monolithic, chilly goth rock ("Fascination Street," "Pictures of You," "Just Like Heaven")…

To describe Alvin Stardust's hit-making career as deceptive is to do the man (and the music) a major disservice. He never pretended, after all, to be anything but an old time rocker reborn for the glam age; nor, once he and producer Pete Shelley had driven their first great idea into the ground, did he even threaten to return with anything so viscerally vibrant as his debut hit. But "My Coo Ca Choo" was more than a hypnotic guitar riff, a lyric steeped in lascivious sensuality and a really scary-looking singer who held his microphone upside down. It was forbidden sex and secret code, it was yowling subversion and evil intent, it was "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Be Bop a Lula" breathlessly updated and whipped into shape.

Men Without Hats broke big with their 1982 debut, Rhythm of Youth. Though they never maintained that level of success, their third album Pop Goes the World was a smart, well-crafted, woefully underrated offering. The album chronicles the quest for and backlash of fame on songs like the title track, on which Ivan sings "Johnny and Jenny had a crazy dream/See their pictures in a magazine." Perhaps it was a way of dealing with the band's sudden success/failure, particularly on "Lose My Way" and "The Real World.." Thankfully, a wild sense of humor and a heartbreaking poignancy keeps the album from becoming too serious. Additionally, each song is vastly different: there are some lullabies ("Moonbeam"), some anthems ("Jenny Wore Black"), and some dirges ("Bright Side of the Sun" - which is criminally short, adding to its power)…

Although he shared the same rockabilly roots as Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison went on to pioneer an entirely different brand of country/pop-based rock & roll in the early '60s. What he lacked in charisma and photogenic looks, Orbison made up for in spades with his quavering operatic voice and melodramatic narratives of unrequited love and yearning. In the process, he established rock & roll archetypes of the underdog and the hopelessly romantic loser. These were not only amplified by peers such as Del Shannon and Gene Pitney, but also influenced future generations of roots rockers such as Bruce Springsteen and Chris Isaak, as well as modern country stars the Mavericks.

As one-third of Yellow Magic Orchestra and an Academy Award-winning composer for his work on the soundtrack for The Last Emperor, synth pop innovator Ryuichi Sakamoto is among the most groundbreaking artists to have emerged since the late '70s. The driving force behind "Neo Geo," a cutting-edge fusion of Asian and Western classical music with other global textures and rhythms, he has been equally adept in electronic and acoustic settings, whether recording in solitude or in tandem, with decades of steady activity. His discography is immense and varied, including solo piano works, proto-techno, experimental ambient, and glitch.

The better-than-usual repertoire (including the calypso "Duke or Iron," "Dancing in the Dark" and the Warren & Dubin number "I'll String Along with You") makes this outing by Sonny Rollins's usual band (with trombonist Clifton Anderson,, keyboardist Mark Soskin, electric bassist Jerome Harris and drummer Marvin "Smitty" Smith) one of the more interesting Rollins albums of recent times. Although not up to the level of his best live performances, this studio album is quite enjoyable and gives one a clear idea as to how Sonny Rollins sounded in the 1980s.

Men Without Hats broke big with their 1982 debut, Rhythm of Youth. Though they never maintained that level of success, their third album Pop Goes the World was a smart, well-crafted, woefully underrated offering. The album chronicles the quest for and backlash of fame on songs like the title track, on which Ivan sings "Johnny and Jenny had a crazy dream/See their pictures in a magazine." Perhaps it was a way of dealing with the band's sudden success/failure, particularly on "Lose My Way" and "The Real World.." Thankfully, a wild sense of humor and a heartbreaking poignancy keeps the album from becoming too serious. Additionally, each song is vastly different: there are some lullabies ("Moonbeam"), some anthems ("Jenny Wore Black"), and some dirges ("Bright Side of the Sun" - which is criminally short, adding to its power)…