Whitesnake: The Definitive Collection

"Whitesnake are a British rock band, founded in 1978 by David Coverdale after his departure from his previous band, Deep Purple. Their early material has been compared by critics to Deep Purple, but they slowly began moving for a more commercially accessible hard rock style. By the turn of the decade, the band's commercial fortunes changed and they released a string of UK top 10 albums, Ready an' Willing (1980), Come an' Get It (1981), Saints & Sinners (1982) and Slide It In (1984), the latter of which was their first to chart in the US and eventually went 2x platinum. The band's 1987 self-titled album was their most commercially successful worldwide, and contained two major US hits, 'Here I Go Again' and 'Is This Love,' reaching number one and two on the Hot 100. In 1988, Whitesnake was nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Group. Slip of the Tongue (1989), was also a success, reaching the top 10 in the US and UK, and receiving a 2x platinum US certification. The band split up shortly after this release, but had a reunion in 1994, and released a one-off studio album, Restless Heart (1997). Whitesnake officially reformed in 2002 and have been touring together since, releasing two studio albums, Good to Be Bad (2008) and Forevermore (2011)" (Wikipedia).

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The 3 Tenors 1998

"Their first concert in Rome produced the biggest-selling classical CD of all time. Their second concert in Los Angeles was immortalized as the most-watched worldwide musical event in television history, as well as another hugely successful CD. And now the magic number is truly '3' as the world's most celebrated trio reunite for their third World Cup celebration concert" (CD notes).

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Florence + the Machine: Lungs

"Florence and the Machine (stylised as Florence + the Machine) are an English indie rock band, consisting of lead singer Florence Welch, Isabella "Machine" Summers, and a collaboration of other artists who provide backing music. The band's music received praise across the music media, especially from the BBC, before they gained mainstream success. Specifically, the BBC played a large part in their rise to prominence by promoting Florence and the Machine as part of BBC Introducing. The band's debut album, Lungs, was released on 6 July 2009, and held the number-two position for its first five weeks on the UK Albums Chart. On 17 January 2010, the album reached the top position, after being on the chart for twenty-eight consecutive weeks. As of October 2010, the album had been in the top forty in the United Kingdom for sixty-five consecutive weeks, making it one of the best-selling albums of 2009 and 2010. The group's second studio album, Ceremonials, released in October 2011, debuted at number one in the UK and number six in the US. Florence and the Machine's sound has been described as a combination of various genres, including rock and soul" (Wikipedia).

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Major Lazer: Free the Universe

"As the head of Mad Decent, an independent record label that recently notched a Billboard No. 1 in the form of Baauer's 'Harlem Shake,' Diplo has found himself on the edge of the biggest music festival in the world: the internet. ... At the moment, however, it's Major Lazer that has his focus. The dancehall-inflected trio finally released its second album, 'Free the Universe,' after six months of delays last week, and the record seems dearest to Diplo's heart. Based heavily in Caribbean culture (Jillionaire is from Trinidad; Walshy Fire is Jamaican ...), Major Lazer offers a dance party that's a bit more specific than its fist-pumping counterparts. 'Dance music is so interchangeable,' Diplo bristled. 'There's not a lot of face to it. It's a bunch of Dutch DJs with the same haircut. ...' All three of Major Lazer's members agreed that their main competitor was Skrillex with Bassnectar and Macklemore also providing very different but important inspirations for the group -- a curious set of influences given their Caribbean roots. Still, Diplo insists Major Lazer is creating, not aping, Jamaican culture. 'The amount of people who come to see us and the radio play we get in Jamaica,' he said before trailing off" (Kia Makarechi, "Diplo on Major Lazer, Why EDM Is Horrible and How Mad Decent Created a Culture," Huffington Post, 4/24/13).

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The Rolling Stones: Some Girls

"Thorgerson’s death is a reminder of a larger transition in popular music: the fact that the visual accompaniment has changed drastically. During the nineteen-fifties and early nineteen-sixties, the dominant language for LP cover art was portraiture. The vast majority of Frank Sinatra albums, for example, show Sinatra’s face, sometimes photographed, sometimes illustrated, with an eye toward the mood of the music. Some labels began to change the language of the LP cover, most notably Blue Note, which, under the direction of Reid Miles, used close-up, atmospheric photography (often by label co-founder Francis Wolff) and stark, bold graphic design. Things changed again in the late sixties, when Peter Blake created the high-concept cover for the Beatles’ 'Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,' and even legitimate Pop artists like Andy Warhol supplied covers or concepts for bands like the Velvet Underground and the Rolling Stones. Thorgerson and other top designers of the seventies (Peter Corriston, for example, who was perhaps the most innovative of all, with his die-cut work for Led Zeppelin’s 'Physical Graffiti' and the Stones’ 'Some Girls') built on the backs of these innovations" (Ben Greenman, "Storm Thorgerson and the End of Album Art," New Yorker, 4/25/13).

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The Magic of Italy

"Mere mention of Italy conjures up visions of sunny landscapes, artistic splendor, and feelings of great warmth and exuberance. Taking this into consideration, it is not surprising that the music inspired by Italy should be such a joy. This volume of In Classical Mood offers you twelve such pieces, from Berlioz's sparkling concert work Roman Carnival and the excitement of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony, to Vivaldi's enchanting Mandolin Concerto and Tchaikovsky's dynamic Capriccio Italien. These beautiful pieces will transport you to Italy" (accompanying booklet).

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Bach: Sacred Songs & Arias from Schemellis Gesangbuch

"Georg Christian Schemelli, born in Herzberg around 1680, in 1736 -- at a time when he was working as a choirmaster-organist in Zeitz -- published a 'Musical Song Book' with Breitkopf & Härtel in Leipzig, which today is generally known under the name 'Schemellis Gesangbuch/Song book.' According to the customs of that time, this song book mainly contained song texts, and only 69 of the 954 songs altogether were written down with melodies. To these 69 melodies the publisher at the same time added compositions etched on copper, i.e. figured basses. According to the foreword of this song book '... by S. Hochedl. Herrn Johann Sebastian Bach, Hochfürst. Sächss. Capellmeister/ princely chapel-master of Saxony and Director Chor. Musici in Leipzig the melodies in this song book are partly newly composed, partly improved by him in the thorough bass, and immediately imprinted at the beginning of each song.' ... For the largest part of the melodies today it is certain that they were not composed by Bach, also a large part of the thorough bass pieces Bach had taken from other publications, then, however, 'improved' them as it is said in the foreword" (CD notes).

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George Harrison: All Things Must Pass

"A highpoint of Stone Free, edited by Brit-pop expert Ron Ross, is Andrew [Oldham]'s depiction of a meeting with Phil Spector and Seymour Stein in 2008, the year before Spector began serving a 19 years to life sentence for the 2003 murder of Lana Clarkson. Spector, of course, is the genius behind some of pop music's greatest singles, including the Ronettes' 'Be My Baby,' the Crystals' 'Then He Kissed Me,' and 'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'' by the Righteous Brothers. He also produced or co-produced such monumental albums as George Harrison's All Things Must Pass. ... Stein is a colorful record biz icon who ... had first hustled Andrew circa 1964 in New York's Brill Building, that citadel of songplugging where the Runyonesque inhabitants included bookies disguised as elevator operators. Forty-four years later, Andrew recalls, Phil summoned Andrew to accompany Stein for a meeting at Spector's mansion in Alhambra, California. The subject: the potential recording career of Phil's new 28-year-old wife, former Playboy model Rachelle Spector. In Andrew's telling -- and he's the first to admit that he's offering only 'the truth of my recall' -- Stein politely passes on the deal, and everyone walks away with dignity and shared affection intact" (Michael Sigman, "Andrew Oldham: Stone Free at Last," Huffington Post, 3/19/13).

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Fun.: Some Nights

"The 55th Annual Grammy Awards took place Sunday and fun. won two major awards. The band, made up of Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost, and Jack Antonoff, tied Kanye West, Mumford & Sons, The Black Keys' Dan Auerbach, Jay-Z, and Frank Ocean for the most nominations this year, with six each. Their first year up for Grammy awards, fun. was nominated for Best New Artist, Record of the Year, Song of the Year, and Best Pop Duo/Group Performance for 'We Are Young,' and Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Album for 'Some Nights.' They ended the night winning Best New Artist and Song of the Year. The band took the stage early in the night to perform 'Carry On.' The performance featured a rainstorm in the middle of the song. 'Some Nights' is fun.'s second studio album. While the band's first album, 2009's 'Aim and Ignite,' received generally positive reviews, it was not nearly as commercially successful as 'Some Nights.' The three singles off of 'Some Nights,' the title track, 'Carry On,' and 'We Are Young,' helped to bring fun. into the mainstream, leading the band to an appearance on 'SNL' and a whirlwind summer tour" (Madeline Boardman, "Fun. & Grammys," Huffington Post, 2/1/13).

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Bonobo: The North Borders

"If you've ever paid attention to the sounds between the stories on All Things Considered, the music of Bonobo may sound familiar. Bonobo is the recording name for British composer and DJ Simon Green, a star of the electronic-music world. Green's new album, The North Borders, began when he was playing his thumb piano alone in his attic studio — a process culminating in the creation of a track called 'Cirrus.' 'The way I make music is often to kind of treat instrumentation like I would a sample,' Green says. 'The main thing that I did [with "Cirrus"] was just to take the decaying tails of two notes of that thumb piano and then put them against this kick drum and make it into some kind of cohesive whole. I'm just trying to sort of push the ideas of what can create melody, what can create rhythm, and how drum sounds don't necessarily need to come from drums, but can come from a different place.' When traveling, Green often visits record stores in search of samples. The basis of the song 'Transits' is a recording of a vibraphone and harp that he'd found in Boulder, Colo. 'I put it into the sampler and I played around with the tuning and did some processing to it,' Green says. 'Again, it's about sort of re-contextualizing the sound and bringing it into a very different place from where it started'" (NPR Staff, "Bonobo," All Things Considered, 4/5/13).

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Garden State: Motion Picture Soundtrack

"Compilation producer Zach Braff was awarded a Grammy Award for Best Compilation Soundtrack for a Motion Picture for his work on the album. ... The music that accompanied the film was hand-picked by Zach Braff. Commenting on the selections, Braff said that 'Essentially, I made a mix CD with all of the music that I felt was scoring my life at the time I was writing the screenplay.' The film’s budget limitations meant that obtaining all the songs Braff wanted for the film proved difficult, but Braff felt that the soundtrack was so integral to the script, he sent a copy of it with every request he sent out. The music in the film features a number of indie-rock artists, notably The Shins. In an early scene, Sam passes Andrew a headset which is playing the song 'New Slang' by The Shins as she says 'You gotta hear this one song — it’ll change your life; I swear.' A second Shins song, 'Caring Is Creepy,' is also featured on the soundtrack. The presence of Simon & Garfunkel's 'The Only Living Boy in New York' on the soundtrack has been cited by some as evidence of a connection to The Graduate. Commenting on the soundtrack’s importance to the film, Sponic Zine wrote, 'Braff did a masterful job of choosing songs that exemplified the emotional subtleties in the film'" (Wikipedia).

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Booker T. & the MG's: That's the Way It Should Be

"Booker T. & the M.G.'s is an instrumental R&B/funk band that was influential in shaping the sound of Southern soul and Memphis soul. Original members of the group were Booker T. Jones (organ, piano), Steve Cropper (guitar), Lewie Steinberg (bass), and Al Jackson, Jr. (drums). In the 1960s, as members of the house band of Stax Records, they played on hundreds of recordings by artists such as Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding, Bill Withers, Sam & Dave, Carla and Rufus Thomas and Johnnie Taylor. They also released instrumental records under their own name, such as the 1962 hit single 'Green Onions.' As originators of the unique Stax sound, the group was one of the most prolific, respected, and imitated of their era. ... In 1965, Steinberg was replaced by Donald 'Duck' Dunn, who played with the group until his death in 2012. Al Jackson, Jr. was murdered in 1975, after which the trio of Dunn, Cropper and Jones reunited on numerous occasions using various drummers, including Willie Hall, Anton Fig, Steve Jordan and Steve Potts. ... Having two white members (Cropper and Dunn), Booker T. & the M.G.'s was one of the first racially integrated rock groups, at a time when soul music, and the Memphis music scene in particular, were generally considered the preserve of black culture" (Wikipedia).

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Destiny's Child: The Writing's on the Wall

"'She invited us to her 35th birthday! We were so excited!' trills Beyoncé (pronounced Bay-onsay) Knowles, founder member and lead singer of Destiny's Child. She's reminiscing about the first time they met Whitney Houston, in 1998. 'We scrambled up all our money, got us some outfits. We were the only group that came dressed as a group. Everybody was sayin': "Y'all are like the Supremes."' When Knowles and Kelly Rowland (second singer) shook Houston's hand, they both burst into tears. These are the things that R'n'B dreams are made of. But there was to be more. Destiny's Child took off, and this year, in their youthful exuberance, the trio asked Houston to appear with them at the US MTV Awards. 'We were gonna say: "We've found the fourth member,"' Knowles says gleefully. Then pauses. 'But it didn't work out. Never mind. She's an inspiration to us all.' It's not surprising that R&B's queen diva declined the offer of playing fourth fiddle to the biggest teen girl group in America (she's got a lot on her mind these days). But it's that combination of naivety and Southern sass that has seen the Texan girls clock up 6m sales of their second album, The Writing's on the Wall" (Lucy O'Brien, "Destiny's Child," Guardian, 4/24/13, originally published in Q Magazine, 2001)

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Fantasia: Back to Me

"Fantasia Monique Barrino (born June 30, 1984), commonly known simply by the mononym Fantasia, is an American R&B singer and actress. She rose to fame as the winner of the third season of the reality television series American Idol in 2004. Following her victory, she released her debut single, 'I Believe,' which debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Subsequently, she released her debut album, Free Yourself, which went on to be certified Platinum by the RIAA and garnered Barrino three Grammy nominations in 2006. In 2006, she released her second album, Fantasia, which featured the single 'When I See U' which topped the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart for eight weeks. The album was certified Gold by the RIAA and received three Grammy nominations in 2008. She then played the part of Celie in the Broadway musical The Color Purple, for which she won a 2007 Theatre World Award. Her third studio album, Back to Me, was released worldwide on August 24, 2010 and features the single 'Bittersweet,' which peaked in the top ten on the R&B chart. The single won her a Grammy for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance" (Wikipedia).

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