The+police

This is an excellent reggae sampler. It should be obvious that everyone's first introduction to reggae should be Bob Marley's great LEGEND which is the reggae desert island disc of all time. That is the place to start for any introduction to reggae. This sampler is a good next step and includes classics from Jimmy Cliff, Burning Spear, Black Uhuru, Toots and the Maytals, and many others. The rhythm section for many of these tracks is the famous Sly and Robbie duo…

The Clash sounded like they could do anything on London Calling. For its triple-album follow-up, Sandinista!, they tried to do everything, adding dub, rap, gospel, and even children's choruses to the punk, reggae, R&B, and roots rock they already were playing…

Despite a huge hit single in the mid-'70s ("The Boys Are Back in Town") and becoming a popular act with hard rock/heavy metal fans, Thin Lizzy are still, in the pantheon of '70s rock bands, underappreciated. Formed in the late '60s by Irish singer/songwriter/bassist Phil Lynott, Lizzy, though not the first band to do so, combined romanticized working-class sentiments with their ferocious, twin-lead guitar attack. As the band's creative force, Lynott was a more insightful and intelligent writer than many of his ilk, preferring slice-of-life working-class dramas of love and hate influenced by Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, and virtually all of the Irish literary tradition…

Atlanta Rhythm Section, sometimes abbreviated ARS, is an American southern rock band. The band unofficially formed in 1970 as former members of the Candymen and the Classics IV became the session band for the newly opened Studio One, Doraville in Doraville, Georgia…

After two albums of muted, mature jazz-inflected pop, the last being an explicit album about death, Sting created his first unapologetically pop album since the Police with Ten Summoner's Tales. The title, a rather awkward pun on his given last name, is significant, since it emphasizes that this album is a collection of songs, without any musical conceits or lyrical concepts tying it together…

Following the bleak But Seriously and Both Sides, Phil Collins delivered the considerably lighter Dance into the Light, his first upbeat pop album since 1985's No Jacket Required. Not only was it a return to the musical style that brought him to the top of the charts during the '80s, but Dance into the Light was the first record Collins released since leaving Genesis, which made it all the more crucial to his career…

With Destruction having staged their comeback live recording one year earlier (the Japan-only Alive Devastation), it was only a matter of time before the other major players of German thrash would follow suit, as the style was coming back to full, bloody bloom in the early 21st century…