America Afz

America's debut album is a folk-pop classic, a stellar collection of memorable songs that would prove influential on such acts as the Eagles and Dan Fogelberg. Crosby, Stills & Nash are the group's obvious stylistic touchstone here, especially in the vocal harmonies used (compare the thick chordal singing of "Sandman" and "Children" to CS&N's "You Don't Have to Cry" and "Guinevere") and the prominent use of active strummed acoustic guitar arrangements (contrast "Riverside" to CS&N's "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"). America's intricate interplay of acoustic guitar textures is more ambitious than that of their influences, however…

When Stevie Wonder applied his tremendous songwriting talents to the unsettled social morass that was the early '70s, he produced one of his greatest, most important works, a rich panoply of songs addressing drugs, spirituality, political ethics, the unnecessary perils of urban life, and what looked to be the failure of the '60s dream – all set within a collection of charts as funky and catchy as any he'd written before…

After successfully establishing themselves as one of America's best commercial progressive rock bands of the late '70s with albums like The Grand Illusion and Pieces of Eight, Chicago's Styx had taken a dubious step towards pop overkill with singer Dennis DeYoung's ballad "Babe." The centerpiece of 1979's uneven Cornerstone album, the number one single sowed the seeds of disaster for the group by pitching DeYoung's increasingly mainstream ambitions against the group's more conservative songwriters, Tommy Shaw and James "JY" Young…

Legends: Crank It Up features 18 original versions of pop/rock hits from the '60s, '70s, and '80s. Among the highlights are the Doobie Brothers' "Listen to the Music," Jackson Browne's "Running on Empty," Rod Stewart's "Tonight's the Night," America's "Sister Golden Hair," the Pretenders' "Back on the Chain Gang," and Ace's "How Long."…

Songs in the Key of Life was Stevie Wonder's longest, most ambitious collection of songs, a two-LP (plus accompanying EP) set that – just as the title promised – touched on nearly every issue under the sun, and did it all with ambitious (even for him), wide-ranging arrangements and some of the best performances of Wonder's career…

Styx was the perfect blend of soft ballads and hard rock tunes. "The Grand Illusion" would catapult them to multi-platinum superstar status. The album produced two huge hits with "Fooling Yourself" and "Come Sail Away" the centerpiece of the entire Styx catalog. Reaching number six on the Billboard charts, this crisply produced seventh studio album contains all of the elements that made Styx what they were - the unquestioned mastery of their musical instruments, their remarkable vocals and their ethereal lyrics and arrangements. This excellent combination of pop and art-rock was the first to display the gelled accomplishments of both Dennis De Young and Tommy Shaw as a tandem and Shaw's guitar work, along with James Young's, is full and extremely sharp.

Cuts Like a Knife is the third studio album by the Canadian rock artist Bryan Adams. Released on 18 January 1983 through A&M Records, the album became a huge commercial success in Canada and the United States whereas outside North America, the album did poorly. After the release of Reckless the album would chart on the British album chart and would later be certified Silver by the BPI. It was recorded at Little Mountain Sound, Vancouver, Canada. The album was a commercial success and sold over 4 million copies worldwide.