Wwe Raw The First 25 Years

An amazingly titled triple-cd compilation of early material on Virgin Records. Provides a pretty great survey of the mid-1970s: Captain Beefheart, Faust, Robert Wyatt, Fred Frith, even Can… very nice! The cover deftly imitates a well-worn old record from the period, and the set also comes with extensive liner notes.

This lavish box set contains a whopping 68 discs, a hardcover book, and five DVDs; in short, it's Murray Perahia's entire recorded career through 2010. Although the title says "The First 40 Years," the final disc in the set is a Vox Turnabout disc of Mozart chamber music that Perahia recorded with Boris Kroyt and Harold Wright in 1967, but not released until 1976. Chamber music is not something Perahia is usually known for, nor is vocal music.

In recognition of his 40th anniversary with the label, Sony Classical is proud to present Murray Perahia: The First 40 Years. This limited- edition box set includes the artist’s complete recordings for Sony Classical on 68 CDs packaged in mini sleeves featuring the original album cover artwork.

Universal will issue a seven-CD Fairport Convention box set in July that features ‘key album tracks’, non-album singles, radio sessions and previously unreleased live recordings from all of the classic line-ups. This collection celebrates Fairport’s first 10 years, beginning with their eponymous debut for Polydor in 1968, through all of their albums for Island Records and finishing with tracks from their two albums for Vertigo, The Bonny Bunch of Roses and Tippers Tales.

Six years after the commencement of a major Elvis Costello reissue campaign at Rhino, his catalog transferred over to Universal, which had been releasing new Elvis music since 1998's Painted from Memory. Like every one of his previous two big catalog shifts – a campaign with Rykodisc/Demon in 1994, a jump to Rhino in 2001 – the 2007 series is preceded by a new hits collection, this time The Best of Elvis Costello: The First 10 Years, a 22-track collection of highlights that's pretty much exactly what it says it is. It is quite similar to the last previous single-disc collection, the 1994 Ryko/Demon set The Very Best of Elvis Costello and the Attractions, which also ran 22 tracks, 19 of which also appear on The First 10 Years. The three omissions – "Watch Your Step," "New Amsterdam," and "Love Field" – will not be missed by anybody looking for a new Costello comp in 2007, particularly because all three substitutions are better choices for the casual man: "New Lace Sleeves," "Almost Blue," and "(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes," which bizarrely wasn't on the 1994 set. With these three songs rubbing shoulders with "Alison," "Watching the Detectives," "Pump It Up," "Oliver's Army," "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love & Understanding," and all the other usual suspects, The Best of Elvis Costello: The First 10 Years winds up being the best single-disc summary and introduction to Costello's prime years.