Very Bet of Love Songs

This album is a terrific compilation of Donna Summer's greatest hits. The album has primarily the disco songs that made her a smash success such as "Love To Love You Baby," "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls," "Last Dance," and "Dim All The Lights." You also get her classic duet with Barbra Streisand, "No More Tears (Enough Is Enough);" and a group called Brooklyn Dreams helped Donna out on background vocals for "Heaven Knows." There are twenty (yes, twenty) songs on this single CD, so you don't get many 12" extended versions of the songs. To compensate for that loss, however, there is a second bonus CD included inside the jewel case with remixes of some great songs including "Hot Stuff," "I Feel Love," and "You're So Beautiful."

Frank Minion - The Soft Land of Make Believe (1959-1960) {Bethlehem Japan CDSOL-6054 rel 2013}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 282 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 98 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 42 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1959-60, 2013 Solid Records Japan / Bethlehem Records | CDSOL-6054
Jazz / Bop / Vocal Jazz / Vocalese

Features the latest remastering. Includes a Japanese description and lyrics. Frank Minion's one and only recording is a fascinating window into the world of a jazz performer. Quite cynical and sarcastic toward the jaundiced American view of the jazz life, Minion minces no words in stating his case, his reasons why, and his conclusions as to the home country of the music so thoroughly dismissing the music he loves. As this project was done back in the late '50s and early '60s, it reflects a syndrome that unfortunately still exists 50 years later. The CD reissue begins with a five-part suite based on the talking points and songs reflecting the vagaries and perceptions of a fictional big city neighborhood, which just as easily could be the reality of renaissance Harlem, references to Atlanta, or perhaps his native Baltimore.

Buffy Sainte-Marie has always been a good deal more versatile as a musician than most people realize, roaming through folk, blues, country, pop, and even pioneering electronica on her various albums, always using her Cree ancestry as an anchor, and very few singers have dealt with cultural polemics as intelligently as she has. Perhaps because of her restless drive to try new forms, Sainte-Marie's albums are often woefully (but endearingly) erratic and inconsistent, but each contains hidden gems, and while her eerie, vibrato-laden singing style can sound affected at times, her drive to constantly pull her agenda into new musical territories is inspiring. Running for the Drum is her first new album in 17 years, and while it probably won't change anyone's attitudes about her work, it wonderfully spotlights all of the musical themes, forms, and concerns she's pursued in the past four decades. The album opens with a pair of Native American rockers, "No No Keshagesh" and "Cho Cho Fire," that draw on Native American drum rhythms, and both are fiery and invigorating. She revisits one of her finest early songs, the beautiful and haunting "Little Wheel Spin and Spin."

As 2006 nears its end, no one can argue that the world of country music isn't, at this moment, the most adventurous in the mainstream pop music industry and that Nash Vegas is taking more chances on its acts as the rest of the biz relies more on narrowing things into smaller and smaller niches that can easily be hyped and digested. Sure, as always, artist's images and many recordings are calculated to score big as in any pop industry. The difference is in approach. The country-listening audience/demographic has widened considerably; therefore, there is a need – as well as an opportunity – for experimentation to see what sticks. This is the most exciting the music's been since Willie and Waylon hit the charts in the '70s, or perhaps to be a bit more fair, when Garth Brooks turned them upside down in the early '90s…