Shay Santa fe (bad Gyal)

Bad Boys Blue is a multinational dance-pop group formed in Cologne, Germany, in 1984 and originally featuring British lead singer John McInerney, American Andrew Thomas, and Jamaican-born Trevor Taylor. After Taylor left the group in 1988, he was replaced by Trevor Travis; upon scoring a number 89 chart hit in 1993 with "Save Your Love," Travis exited as well, and Bad Boys Blue continued as a duo until adding Mo Russel in 1995. His 1999 departure made way for Jo Jo Max.

Besides being noteworthy as an astonishingly good all-covers album, Kicking Against the Pricks is notable for the arrival of a new key member for the Seeds, drummer Thomas Wydler. Besides being a fine percussionist, able to perform at both the explosive and restrained levels Cave requires, Wydler also allowed Harvey to concentrate on adding guitar and keyboards live as well as in the studio, a notable bonus. Race reappears briefly to add some guitar while former Birthday Party cohorts Rowland Howard and Tracy Pew guest as well, the latter on some of his last tracks before his untimely death. The selection of songs is quite impressive, ranging from old standards like "Long Black Veil" to everything from John Lee Hooker's "I'm Gonna Kill That Woman" and Gene Pitney's pop aria "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart." Matching the range of material, the Seeds are well on their way to becoming the rock/cabaret/blues showband of Cave's dreams, able to conjure up haunting, winsome atmospheres ("Sleeping Annaleah") as much as higher-volume takes (Roy Orbison's "Running Scared," the Velvet Underground's "All Tomorrow's Parties").

Keeping the same line-up from Henry's Dream, Nick Cave and company turn in yet another winner with Let Love In. Compared to Henry's Dream, Let Love In is something of a more produced effort – longtime Cave boardsman Tony Cohen oversees things, and from the first track, one can hear the subtle arrangements and carefully constructed performances. Love, unsurprisingly, takes center stage of the album.

Falling somewhere between Medeski, Martin & Wood, Ben Folds Five, and the Oscar Peterson Trio, power jazz trio the Bad Plus deliver more idiosyncratic instrumentals on their sophomore effort, Give. Featuring bassist Reid Anderson, drummer David King, and pianist Ethan Iverson, the Bad Plus follow a similar creative path as on their debut, These Are the Vistas, by interspersing original compositions with covers of popular rock tunes. This time around the Pixies' "Velouria" is turned into a kind of Sergei Rachmaninov does funk jazz number while Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" sounds something like a Claude Debussy arrangement of "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida." Otherwise, the trio evinces free jazz with Ornette Coleman's "Street Woman," and does a bombastic impersonation of Vince Guaraldi on the original "Layin' a Strip for the Higher-Self State Line"…

Prior to the 2015 collection Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy: The Very Best of Bad Company, there were only two Bad Company compilations in release: the lean 1985 set 10 from 6, arriving a full six years after their last hit album, and 1999's The Original Bad Company Anthology, a 33-track double-disc set that dug deep into the group's golden years of 1974-1982. Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy occupies a much-needed middle ground, providing 19 songs on a generous single disc. This, like The Original Bad Company Anthology, focuses solely on the six albums Bad Company cut for Swan Song, which means there's nothing from their late-'80s/early-'90s run on Atco, even though "No Smoke Without a Fire," "Holy Water," "If You Needed Somebody," and "How About That" are also owned by WEA and could easily have been included…

Following on from the successful An Idiot Prayer live album and livestream event released this year, Nick Cave releases B-Sides and Rarities: Part I and Part 2. B-Sides and Rarities: Part 2 was compiled by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis and features 27 tracks. It includes tracks from Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! in 2006 to 2019s Ghosteen and 19 rare and unreleased tracks including first recordings of ‘Skeleton Tree’, ‘Girl in Amber’, ‘Bright Horses’ and ‘Waiting for You’.

Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds are back after a five-year break with their new album Wild God! Across ten tracks, the band dances between convention and experimentation, taking left turns and detours that enhance the rich imagery and emotion in Cave's heartfelt narratives. There are moments that fondly recall the Bad Seeds' past, but they are fleeting and only serve to add another facet to the band's relentless and restless forward momentum. Nick Cave says of the album: "It bursts out of the speaker, and I get swept up with it. It's a complicated record, but it's also deeply and joyously infectious."

Mastered directly from the original master tape by Ryan K. Smith at Sterling Sound.
From the wreckage of Free came Bad Company, a group fronted by singer Paul Rodgers and featuring his drummer bandmate Simon Kirke, Mott the Hoople guitarist Mick Ralphs, and King Crimson bassist Boz Burrell. The latter is something of a ringer, suggesting an undercurrent of adventure in the band, but as the group's eponymous 1974 debut decidedly proves, the band is proudly not progressive. If anything, Bad Company excise the excesses of Free - there are no winding jams and very little added color by way of pianos or even air in the production; those two tricks are evident on their title track/rallying call "Bad Company," and the details make a difference, as do the pastoral acoustics of the closing "Seagull" - reducing their rock & roll to a strong, heavy crunch…