The Island 1980

The Game is the eighth studio album by the British rock band Queen. It was released on 30 June 1980 by EMI Records in the UK and by Elektra Records in the US. The Game features a different sound than its predecessor, Jazz (1978). The Game was the first Queen album to use a synthesizer (an Oberheim OB-X). A critical and commercial success,The Game became the only Queen album to reach No. 1 in the US, and became their best-selling studio album in the US, with four million copies sold to date, tying News of the World's US sales tally. It is estimated to have sold a further 4 million copies in other countries. Notable songs on the album include the bass-driven "Another One Bites the Dust" and the rockabilly "Crazy Little Thing Called Love", both of which reached No. 1 in the US. The Game was the first Queen album to be recorded digitally.

Robert Palmer’s back catalogue has been shamefully out of print for many years, and only recently have US specialist Culture Factory sought to do something about this, with a few select reissues. However, Island Years 1974-1985 is a rather special box set released only in Japan in 2007, with an exclusive (and excellent) remastering that has never been used anywhere else. It includes all Robert Palmer’s albums originally released on the Island label between 1974 and 1985: Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley (1974), Pressure Drop (1975), Some People Can Do What They Like (1976), Double Fun (1978), Secrets (1979), Clues (1980), Maybe It’s Live (1982 – with original cover), Pride (1983) and Riptide (1985). Each disc is presented in an exquisitely detailed mini LP-style vinyl replica sleeve.

Heartattack and Vine is Tom Waits' seventh and final album for Asylum. As such, it's transitional. As demonstrated by its immediate predecessors, 1978's excellent Blue Valentine and 1977's Foreign Affairs, he was already messing with off-kilter rhythms even in the most conventionally structured blues and jazz songs, with nastier-sounding guitars - he plays a particularly gnarly style of rhythm on this entire album. Five of these nine tracks are rooted in gutbucket blues with rock edges and primal R&B beats. By this time, his singing voice had deteriorated to a gasping-for-breath whiskey-and-cigarettes growl that could make words indecipherable from one another, but his jazzman-inspired phrasing more than compensated…

It is a hefty box in every sense: 13 CDs, supplemented with two DVDs, accompanied by a gorgeous hardcover book and a variety of tchotchkes, including a poster that traces the twisted family trees and time lines of the band and, just as helpfully, replicas of legal documents that explain why the group didn't retain rights to its recordings for years…