if Anderson

1986's Home of the Brave is the soundtrack to a film consisting of live pieces debuted during Laurie Anderson's first world tour, promoting 1984's Mister Heartbreak. Only one song from that album, a radically reworked version of the William S. Burroughs cameo "Sharkey's Night," appears here; the rest of the album is something of a return to the performance art basis of Anderson's earlier work like Big Science and United States I-IV. As a result, Home of the Brave has an oddly reheated quality to it, as if Anderson is merely going through the motions of what had gone before while incorporating snatches of the new, more musical direction she had begun exploring with Mister Heartbreak. (Even the title is a self-conscious echo of United States I-IV.) There are some successes here - "Language Is a Virus" is probably the closest Anderson ever came to a real rock song, and it was a minor dancefloor and college radio hit…

Like so many risk takers, Jethro Tull have had their share of both admirers and detractors over the years. To their admirers, Ian Anderson and his colleagues did a lot to expand rock's boundaries; to their detractors, they epitomized progressive rock's excesses (especially during the '70s) and were a prime example of why the punk movement was needed. It's no secret that Tull – like Yes, Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer – were influenced by European classical music (as well as British folk, Celtic music, blues, and jazz).

Anderson Bruford Wakeman Howe is the only studio album by four alumni of the progressive rock group Yes: Jon Anderson, Bill Bruford, Rick Wakeman, and Steve Howe, released on 20 June 1989 for Arista Records.

The collection of sixteen songs shares its name with the current exhibition at the Country Music Hall of Fame, Bill Anderson: As Far As I Can See, and comes from the opening line of one of the first songs he ever wrote, “City Lights,” the country classic that was a hit for Ray Price in 1958 In addition to such beloved songs as “City Lights,” “Still,” Po’ Folks,” The Tip Of My Fingers,” and “Sometimes,” the album features a new song with country icon Dolly Parton, “Someday It’ll All Make Sense.” The newly recorded duet is joined by Anderson and Parton’s first-ever collaboration, an incredibly rare demo of “If It Is All The Same To You,” recorded in 1964 and eventually released as a duet with Jan Howard on Anderson’s chart-topping 1969 album of the same name. As Far As I Can See: The Best Of, is being released by MCA Nashville/UMe, which has been Anderson’s label home for most of his seven-decade long career.

Some 40 years after the release of Jethro Tull's prog landmark Thick as a Brick, chief Tull Ian Anderson crafts a sequel. Sensibly titled Thick as a Brick 2, this 2012 set brings us up to speed with the life of Gerald Bostock, who was a mere lad of 10 at the time of TAAB but is now an adult shouldering a myriad of responsibilities…