U.K. is the self-titled debut album by the progressive rock supergroup U.K., released in May 1978 through E.G. Records and Polydor Records. It features John Wetton, Eddie Jobson, Bill Bruford, and Allan Holdsworth. "In the Dead of Night" and "Mental Medication" were both edited for single release. The album was well received by FM album rock radio and by the public during the summer of 1978. In 2015 Rolling Stone magazine ranked it as the 30th best progressive rock album of all time.
Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton was Eric Clapton's first fully realized album as a blues guitarist – more than that, it was a seminal blues album of the 1960s, perhaps the best British blues album ever cut, and the best LP ever recorded by John Mayall's Bluesbreakers. Standing midway between Clapton's stint with the Yardbirds and the formation of Cream, this album featured the new guitar hero on a series of stripped-down blues standards, Mayall pieces, and one Mayall/Clapton composition, all of which had him stretching out in the idiom for the first time in the studio. This album was the culmination of a very successful year of playing with John Mayall, a fully realized blues creation, featuring sounds very close to the group's stage performances, and with no compromises.
Made in Heaven is the fifteenth and final studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 6 November 1995 by Parlophone Records in the United Kingdom and by Hollywood Records in the United States. It was the band's first release after the death of lead singer Freddie Mercury in 1991. Following Mercury's death, guitarist Brian May, drummer Roger Taylor, and bass guitarist John Deacon worked with vocal and piano parts that Mercury recorded before his death, adding new instrumentation to the recordings. Both stages of recording, before and after Mercury's death, were completed at the band's studio in Montreux, Switzerland. The album debuted at number 1 in the UK where it went 5× platinum. The album became the band's best-selling studio album, selling over 19 million copies around the world.
Yes' debut album is surprisingly strong, given the inexperience of all those involved at the time. In an era when psychedelic meanderings were the order of the day, Yes delivered a surprisingly focused and exciting record that covered lots of bases (perhaps too many) in presenting their sound. The album opens boldly, with the fervor of a metal band of the era playing full tilt on "Beyond and Before," but it is with the second number, a cover of the Byrds' "I See You," that they show some of their real range. The song is highlighted by an extraordinary jazz workout from lead guitarist Peter Banks and drummer Bill Bruford that runs circles around the original by Roger McGuinn and company.
Lest the momentum of Moroccan Roll and its relative chart success go to waste, Brand X released a stopgap solution with Livestock, featuring three recent live tracks and two stockpiled studio tracks that actually predate the Moroccan Roll sessions by two months. As might be expected, it's not their most enduring work, although the inclusion of three new originals and the clean recording obtained from the Hammersmith Odeon and Marquee Club performances produce respectable results. Two of the three live tracks feature drummer Kenwood Dennard, who lends his superlative skins to the smooth fusion of "Nightmare Patrol" and a frenzied reading of the popular "Malaga Virgen." (Genesis had finished their tour that same year, so you can't begrudge Phil Collins the holiday)…