Increasingly, and especially in a day and age where music is so widely and readily available thanks to advanced technologies, when a company or act wants to make a good box set, it had better deliver. To its credit, Beggars Banquet did just that with Rare Cult, an astoundingly comprehensive and entertaining collection that packs in 90 tracks over the course of six discs…
This set collects the seven studio albums from 1984′s Red Roses For Me to Pogue Mahone from 1996 and adds a previously unreleased live album The Pogues with Joe Strummer Live In London (recorded in December 1991). There have been Pogues reissues before of course, notably in 2004 when the albums were re-released on CD with bonus tracks. Rhino also issued an Original Album Series collection in 2009 that brought together the five Shane MacGowan albums in the usual card slipcase packaging. So while in some ways 30 Years treads familiar ground, there is still much to recommend it. First off the band were involved in the project, and were keen to have their say. The decision to revert back to ‘just’ the albums and lose the 2004 bonus tracks was theirs, for instance. Another example of the band’s input was the cover design of the box. The literary types amongst you might notice that the typesetting and design is ‘inspired by’ an edition of James Joyce’s landmark work Ulysses.
Frank Sinatra was arguably the most important popular music figure of the 20th century, his only real rivals for the title being Bing Crosby, Elvis Presley, and the Beatles. In a professional career that lasted 60 years, he demonstrated a remarkable ability to maintain his appeal and pursue his musical goals despite often countervailing trends. He came to the fore during the swing era of the 1930s and '40s, helped to define the "sing era" of the '40s and '50s, and continued to attract listeners during the rock era that began in the mid-'50s. He scored his first number one hit in 1940 and was still making million-selling recordings in 1994. This popularity was a mark of his success at singing and promoting the American popular song as it was written, particularly in the 1920s, '30s, and '40s…
Count Basie was among the most important bandleaders of the swing era. With the exception of a brief period in the early '50s, he led a big band from 1935 until his death almost 50 years later, and the band continued to perform after he died…
As far as the more casual observer is concerned, the prog rock revival of the 80s was kicked off by Marillion and their ‘Market Square Heroes’ EP and subsequent hit album ‘Script for A Jester’s Tear’ in 1983. Marillion certainly flew the flag for prog’s unexpected commercial success during that decade, but the rumblings of a brilliant, but terminally unfashionable musical revival had actually begun much earlier.
Murnau’s Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horrors premiered on March 4, 1922 in the Marble Hall of the Zoological Gardens in Berlin, Germany. It was the first film to be based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula. The audience was small, but the premiere was a lavish affair which began with a discussion and ended with a fancy-dress ball. The reviews of the film were very favorable. In its advance announcements the Prana-Film Company said it was going to create a “Symphony of Horror,” and it completely succeeded. The film preys like a demon on the senses and envelops the moviegoer in its eerie vision…
After Neil Young left the California folk-rock band Buffalo Springfield in 1968, he slowly established himself as one of the most influential and idiosyncratic singer/songwriters of his generation. Young's body of work ranks second only to Bob Dylan in terms of depth, and he was able to sustain his critical reputation, as well as record sales, for a longer period of time than Dylan, partially because of his willfully perverse work ethic…
As far as the more casual observer is concerned, the prog rock revival of the 80s was kicked off by Marillion and their ‘Market Square Heroes’ EP and subsequent hit album ‘Script for A Jester’s Tear’ in 1983. Marillion certainly flew the flag for prog’s unexpected commercial success during that decade, but the rumblings of a brilliant, but terminally unfashionable musical revival had actually begun much earlier.