The Road to You

The collection features seven of the band's classic albums: 1974's Todd Rundgren's Utopia , 1975's Another Live , 1977's Ra and Oops! Wrong Planet , 1979's Adventures in Utopia , 1980's Deface the Music and 1982's Swing to the Right . It also includes 15 bonus tracks, plus new written commentary from Rundgren, Wilcox, Sultan and Powell.

Completists will be happy to own many of the rarities on this four-disc set, including Stevens's first demo session, an unreleased 1970 duet with Elton John, a cover of Fats Domino's "Blue Monday," and several choice live cuts from the late '70s. And it's nice to have an overview of the artist's entire career–from late '60s pop-star wannabe to '70s folk-rock superstar–in one place. But the difference between early Cat Stevens (despite composing hits for others) and post-Tea for the Tillerman Stevens is substantial. The two follow-up LPs were part of a trilogy of brilliance–both musically and lyrically–and any Stevens collection must start there. Nevertheless, surprises and some gems are to be found throughout all four discs–even his most recent recording (as Yusuf Islam) isn't bad. This box set also offers a choice opportunity to reassess a deserving career. (All royalties go to New York City relief victims and orphans and homeless families in underdeveloped countries.)

This album, with which the singer reached his commercial peak, reflects Chris Rea's love/hate relationship with the car. The title track is famously inspired by Rea's experiences of the M25, but this is not a simple tract on the evils of the automobile–in 1988, he bought himself a racing car. His vision of hell is the traffic jam that stops you from using all that expensive acceleration. In this sense Chris Rea–the epitome of maturity compared to most in his business–shows himself still very much a rock star. The Road To Hell, despite the melancholy piano riff of the song itself and its Leonard Cohen-ish lyrics, is an optimistic album with a warm, embracing sound. This album is graced with some of Rea's finest creations: the spacey "Daytona", the topicality of "You Must Be Evil" and the catchy "That's What They Always Say". "Texas" is another witty commentary on the need for speed, and like many of the tracks on this disc it has the mellow groove that Rea has made his own.

If you made it to 2007 with a fat wallet then you probably aren't a true Erasure fan. Since 2003 the group has been responsible for a slew of sideline releases – remix albums, acoustic albums, and big stack of limited-edition, souvenir live albums – with only the 2005 effort Nightbird offering something entirely new. On the Road to Nashville is another live album and the hook here is that the usually electronic, club-oriented act is backed by a live band, which makes for some interesting arrangements…

Chris Rea’s eighties and early nineties gear has been expanded and remastered for release this October. The albums – Shamrock Diaries (1985), On the Beach (1986), Dancing With Strangers (1987), The Road to Hell (1989) and Auberge (1991) span Rea’s commercial peak and are to be reissued as deluxe double CD sets. They will also be accessorised with period appropriate ‘additional recordings’ such as remixes, non-album and live tracks, all newly remastered.

Chris Rea was a rock star with the sort of gravel voice that was ideally suited to singing the blues, or was he a blues star who occasionally lent his talent to performing rock. The Road to Hell & Back was his 28th album in total including five different greatest-hits compilations, but was his first live album. Recorded at various venues during his 2006 tour from Warsaw to Moscow and Plymouth, Oxford and Brighton, all the tracks show a tight, together band, the Fireflies led by Chris Rea, not in the best of health but enjoying performing to appreciative, sometimes too polite audiences, who applaud in all the right places (at the end of each song).

Something that always seems to draw the ire of rock fans is when a veteran artist decides to suddenly change his sound to fit with current trends in hopes of winning over a new set of fans. This certainly isn't the case with Chris de Burgh's 2004 release, The Road to Freedom. Continuing with the same stately and pristine sounds that resulted in a flirtation with the U.S. Top 40 during the mid-'80s ("The Lady in Red," etc.), Freedom could have easily been released in 1984 rather than 2004.