UB40 have a catalogue of poignant original material and era-defining cover versions that make the band so loved. In 2014, a 20-track collection ‘Red Red Wine: The Collection’ was released and enjoyed incredible success. Four years on, UMC brings you ‘Red Red Wine: The Collection – volume 2’ a carefully compiled sequel to the original release which features 20 further recordings by the chart-topping Birmingham outfit. Featured here is a selection loaded with chart successes, including some of their undisputed highlights – ‘Rat In Mi Kitchen’, ‘Sing Our Own Song’, a much-loved extended version of their UK Chart No. 1 ‘Red Red Wine’ as well as great live versions of ‘Food For Thought’ and ‘I Got You Babe’. It is a fine, unmistakable body of work that has been part of the fabric of the UK music scene for over three decades.
The concept of The Romantic Piano Concerto series was born at a lunch meeting between Hyperion and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra sometime in 1990. A few months later tentative plans had been made for three recordings, and the first volume, of concertos by Moszkowski and Paderewski, was recorded in June 1991. In our wildest dreams, none of us involved then could ever have imagined that the series would still be going strong twenty years later, and with fifty volumes to its credit.
Five years after the highly-praised release of Volume 3, Sir Andrew Davis returns to his exploration of Holst’s orchestral works with the brilliant BBC Philharmonic, a series initiated almost ten years ago by the late Richard Hickox, then taken over by another expert in British repertoire. This selection of orchestral works by Holst provides a remarkable overview of his career, ranging from such early works as A Winder Idyll – composed in 1897 when he was still studying at the Royal College of Music – to the Scherzo of a symphony on which he was working towards the end of his life.
There were a lot of heavy metal bands in the 1980s and there were a lot of pop bands too; there weren't many who combined the two styles as well as Def Leppard did. This is a statement that the simply titled The CD Collection, Vol. 1 proves over and over during the course of its playing time. Made up of the four albums the band released during the 1980s, a live show recorded in 1983 (which was issued as part of the deluxe edition of Pyromania), a disc of B-sides and rarities, and a mini-disc of the band's self-titled 1979 EP, the set is filled with razor-sharp riffs, hooky choruses, thudding backbeats, inferno-hot guitar soloing, keening vocal harmonies, and the inimitable yelp of singer Joe Elliott as it runs through their early career.