Sides

Like Face Value before it, Both Sides could be characterized as a "divorce album," but marriage wasn't the only thing Phil Collins was leaving behind in 1993. He was two years removed from We Can't Dance, the 1991 album that turned out to be his last with Genesis, so at a personal and professional crossroads, Collins holed up in his home studio to write and record the songs that became Both Sides…

Wisely, the Cure decided to start fresh upon signing with their new label in 2004 by cleaning house, remastering the old albums, and bringing their fans Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities, 1978-2001. Not only is it the ultimate companion to the official releases, but it is, in a way, the new-super-deluxe-updated version of that cassette release of Staring at the Sea. Every B-side is included, in order, with cleaned-up sound, liner notes, and explanations by the man who made it all happen. All tracks, from "10.15 Saturday Night" (the B-side to the debut single "Killing an Arab") to covers of "Hello, I Love You," "Purple Haze," and "World in My Eyes," to entries from the Bloodflowers singles, are an indication that while the Cure made both strong albums and singles, they were not afraid to experiment along the way, and more importantly, they didn't let pride keep them from not making them available to those who were willing to look for them…

The C-Sides were formed in 2007 by Magenta band members Martin Rosser (guitars, keyboards, voices), Allan Mason-Jones (drums, percussion) and Dan Fry (bass, voices). Taking a modern rock element and weaving it with the classic early 1970's Rush sound, they made the C-Sides (aka The C Sides Project). The music industry is a strange business and it is ultimately music lovers who triumph over the machine. The internet has liberated music from the grip of the record industry and this has made it possible for those of us passionate about our chosen genera to find the sounds we love amidst the plethora of plastic pop being peddled by commercial radio. A thorough search on the internet, Band Camp, Reverb Nation or other similar platform will often be rewarded with great new music.

Mike Oldfield, the self-taught guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger, and producer, is chiefly remembered for his album-length "Tubular Bells" composition, an eerie, fascinating, and conceptual piece that did so much to set the tone for the movie The Exorcist. Oldfield played most of the instruments himself on "Tubular Bells" and it remains, and undoubtedly always will remain, his signature piece, but he's done a lot more than that, exploring styles and musical forms from progressive rock and folk to jazz, ambient, world, pop, and even disco and beyond throughout his maverick recording career. This two-disc set, selected and sequenced by Oldfield himself, provides a nice survey of his shifts and turns, and illustrates the restless and often brilliant way he produces a sound and style that manages to be expansive and insular, popular and eccentric, and sometimes all of these at once…