Who October 26, 2020

UMC/Virgin has announced today, Mark Knopfler’s 71st birthday, that it will release a six-CD box set of all Dire Straits’ studio albums on October 9, 2020. Dire Straits – The Studio Albums 1978-1991 includes of all the seminal British band’s studio LPs released during that time, all of which are certified multi-platinum.

Pianist Khatia Buniatishvili specialized mostly in virtuoso repertory in the early years of her tenure with the Sony Classical label, but she goes in a different direction with Labyrinth, a collection of mostly slow, reflective pieces from various periods and in various styles. The labyrinth involved might be a winding path through musical styles or through an individual soul. The program is of the sort that one shouldn't try to hard to pin down; Buniatishvili posted on social media (October 9, 2020) that "the voice you hear is the voice of a human being – my voice, your voice," but it's quite evocative.

A Very Trainor Christmas is the fourth major-label studio album, and debut Christmas album, by American singer-songwriter Meghan Trainor, released on October 30, 2020, by Epic Records and her own label, Honest OG Recordings. The album contains cover versions of Christmas standards, such as "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" (1951) and "Last Christmas" (1984), as well as six original recordings. Trainor worked with producers including her brother Justin Trainor and Asa Welch, and co-wrote songs with the former and her other brother Ryan, among others, to create the album. Artists who are featured on A Very Trainor Christmas include Earth, Wind & Fire, Seth MacFarlane, Trainor's cousins Jayden, Jenna & Marcus Toney, and father Gary Trainor. A Target edition of the album includes a cover version of "A Holly Jolly Christmas" (1964) and the original song "I'll Be Home", which first appeared on the Epic EP I'll Be Home for Christmas (2014).

Craft Recordings honors the music of The Gospel Truth Records, a subsidiary of Stax Records, with the first-ever complete collection of all 34 singles issued by the imprint between 1972 and 1974. The compilation features in-depth liner notes by Jared Boyd, a Memphis-based journalist and NPR radio host, who captured new interviews with Stax Records executive Al Bell, trailblazing gospel artist Rance Allen, and Mary Peak Patterson, who helped establish the label. The Gospel Truth stands as an essential part of Stax’s enduring legacy and marks a landmark moment in gospel music history.

In 1990 Neil Hannon started recording and releasing under the name The Divine Comedy. Thirty years and twelve great albums later, Hannon is rightly adjudged one of the finest singer songwriters of his generation. To celebrate, Divine Comedy Records are remastering and reissuing nine of the band's classic albums.

Come Go With Me: The Stax Collection presents all of The Staple Singers’ studio albums released on the iconic Stax label, spanning 1968-1974. The final, seventh disc offers rarities, non-album singles, and several live recordings from the legendary 1972 Wattstax music festival. Housed in a slipcase, the collection also includes a deluxe booklet with archival photos and new liner notes from American music specialist and curator Levon Williams (formerly of the Stax Museum and the National Museum of African American Music), and folklorist, ethnomusicologist and writer Dr. Langston Wilkins.

Among the most sampled groups of the '60s and '70s by a slew of top rap and hip-hop artists of the '90s and beyond, the legendary New Orleans band and Grammy Lifetime Achievement awardees The Meters created an instantly recognizable sound through almost a decade of recording, initially for the Josie label and then for Reprise and Warner Brothers. Group members guitarist Leo Nocentelli, bassist George Porter Jr., drummer Joseph 'Zigaboo' Modeliste and keyboardist/singer Art Neville formed the core of the band, later augmented by Art's younger brother, percussionist/singer Cyril who joined The Meters in 1975. This wonderful 116-track, 6-CD SoulMusic Records' box set showcases The Meters' entire recorded output for Josie Records (1968-1971), Reprise and Warner Brothers (1972-77). In addition to their eight full albums, this luxurious package (with a 40-page booklet) includes non-album singles, bonus material, single edits and a rare 1977 disco mix of 'Disco Is The Thing Today', available for the first time on CD.

This recent gospel compilation from Swedish producer and collector Per Notini is a three disc, 84 track set focused exclusively on a capella singing without any instrumental accompaniment. Featuring many well-known quartets such as the Fairfield Four and Soul Stirrers as well as lesser known artists, the set traces stylistic changes over a thirty year period, concluding in 1969 before the ‘contemporary’ gospel era. These groups created some of the most inventive and progressive African American vocal music of the post-war period, which had a profound effect on later R&B and soul artists, not to mention artists across all other genres.