The ultimate compendium of a half century of the best music, now revised and updated. 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die is a highly readable list of the best, the most important, and the most influential pop albums from 1955 through today. Carefully selected by a team of international critics and some of the best-known music reviewers and commentators, each album is a groundbreaking work seminal to the understanding and appreciation of music from the 1950s to the present. Included with each entry are production details and credits as well as reproductions of original album cover art. Perhaps most important of all, each album featured comes with an authoritative description of its importance and influence.
Over the course of three discs, VOYAGE neatly navigates the long, rich career of David Crosby. Though he's best known as one-third of Woodstock-era folk-rock harmonists Crosby, Stills & Nash, the man with the angelic voice and the walrus moustache boasts a resume whose high points extend well beyond that association. VOYAGE doesn't stint on CSN (and sometimes Y) material, but the journeys into his early days with the Byrds, his solo albums, duo recordings with Graham Nash, and latter-day work with CPR are equally telling. From the mid-'60s Byrds tracks up to the present day, Crosby's knack for close, complex vocal harmonies, unusual jazz-influenced chord structures, and raga-tinged melodic lines serves as a connecting thread. VOYAGE allows listeners to follow Crosby's winding path through disparate eras, stopping off to marvel at the gorgeous sonic scenery along the way.
Is there a more consistent and harder working band in music today than Blackberry Smoke? With three top 40 albums under their belt, including 2 consecutive number one albums on the US country and UK rock charts with "Holding All The Roses" and "Like An Arrow", Atlanta's finest are back with a fine collection of 13 impeccably constructed tracks.
British pianist/vocalist Jamie Cullum's previous effort, Twentysomething, was an uncomplicated mix of piano-driven melodic pop with a jazzy twist and some reworked jazz standards. 2005's Catching Tales follows a similar format but falls short of its predecessor's simple approach by muddying up the production with dated electronic flourishes. Which isn't to say it's a bad album.