The Band Udcd

For many "The Joshua Tree" is one of the finest rock records made. Others see it as overwrought and overly earnest. But this was a band with a conscience and who on the evidence of this record could write damn fine songs. After the bold experimentation of "The Unforgettable Fire", with its sprawling ambience produced by the winning partnership of Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno, "The Joshua Tree" was a more focussed affair, with the production more subtle and assured. The remastering on this re-issue, supervised by The Edge, brings out all the details and nuances in the Lanois/Eno soundscape. Just listen to the shimmering sound of The Edge's "infinite guitar" on the intro to "With Or Without You"! Never has it sounded so gorgeous!

"War Child"'s achievement is in its music: some of the richest in recent memory, the arrangements are consistently stunning in their execution, courting excess but impossibly balanced by admirable dexterity. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that "Skating On The Thin Ice of The New Day" is one of my favorite songs (a musical epiphany, if you will).

After dispensing with his services in December 1967, the remaining members of Traffic reinstated Dave Mason in the group in the spring of 1968 as they struggled to write enough material for their impending second album. The result was a disc evenly divided between Mason's catchy folk-rock compositions and Steve Winwood's compelling rock jams. Mason's material was the most appealing both initially and eventually: the lead-off track, a jaunty effort called "You Can All Join In," became a European hit, and "Feelin' Alright?" turned out to be the only real standard to emerge from the album after it started earning cover versions from Joe Cocker and others in the 1970s.

Queen were straining at the boundaries of hard rock and heavy metal on Sheer Heart Attack, but they broke down all the barricades on A Night at the Opera, a self-consciously ridiculous and overblown hard rock masterpiece…

To Our Children's Children's Children is the fifth album by The Moody Blues, released in November 1969. It was the first album released on the group's newly formed Threshold record label, which was named after the band's previous album from the same year, On the Threshold of a Dream…

After dispensing with his services in December 1967, the remaining members of Traffic reinstated Dave Mason in the group in the spring of 1968 as they struggled to write enough material for their impending second album. The result was a disc evenly divided between Mason's catchy folk-rock compositions and Steve Winwood's compelling rock jams…

Instead of playing it safe and writing Moving Pictures, Pt. II, Rush replaced their heavy rock of yesteryear with even more modern sounds for 1982's Signals. Synthesizers were now an integral part of the band's sound, and replaced electric guitars as the driving force for almost all the tracks…

The San Francisco Bay Area rock scene of the late '60s was one that encouraged radical experimentation and discouraged the type of mindless conformity that's often plagued corporate rock. When one considers just how different Santana, Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape, and the Grateful Dead sounded, it becomes obvious just how much it was encouraged. In the mid-'90s, an album as eclectic as Abraxas would be considered a marketing exec's worst nightmare…