Legend is a hefty title to carry, especially if you're still kicking. The standards are high, the expectations immense. Dolly Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Tammy Wynette are, nevertheless, legends of country music with decades of albums and awards to prove it. And they are very much still kicking on Honky Tonk Angels – just in case anyone needs a little reminder. You can even hear how much fun they had singing together, setting aside any historic competition and letting their love of country music shine through, each gracefully moving between lead and harmony vocals. As for the song selection, it covers a wide swath of country history from tunes made famous by early pioneers like Ferlin Husky, the Davis Sisters, and Hank Locklin to their own more contemporary compositions. If that weren't enough credibility, Kitty Wells lends her amazing voice to the opening anthem "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels." Pure goodness. In another twist, Patsy Cline sings on "Lovesick Blues" with Parton, Lynn, and Wynette backing her. The closing track sums up the humorous reverence that permeates much of country music. "I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven" was a hit for Tex Ritter in 1961 and is a surprising choice that seems a bit out of place, but somehow works well enough. For fans of traditional country or great singers, this is a fun listen because it nicely captures three of the best voices around.

Surfing used to be a man's world, especially in music – while the Beach Boys and the Surfaris were catching a wave, landlubbers like Annette Funicello and Donna Loren were back on shore playing Beach Blanket Bingo. The Honeys, then, were something rare: a girl group who specialized in surfing songs like "Shoot the Curl" and "Pray for Surf," which The Honeys themselves composed. When Marilyn Rovell married Brian Wilson, having a familial connection to the Beach Boys certainly didn't hurt. Wilson contributed a handful of songs to the group and helped coordinate some of their sessions early on, and was often on the periphery thereafter. The early Capitol recordings are some of The Honeys' best efforts, and have been anthologized twice.

A 48-song, double-CD set of rarities and album tracks, including eight previously unreleased cuts and plenty of songs that had rarely or never been on album before. Sure, this is primarily for Springfield fans, and not the first (or second) anthology recommended to casual listeners. But quite a bit of this is on par, or nearly on par, with her best work. What's more, the bulk of it dates from her '60s prime, although there are about a dozen mediocre numbers from the late '70s/early '80s on which her voice still cuts it, but the material and production don't. Big Dusty Springfield fans will already have some or all of the songs taken from albums, but about half of this is very hard or impossible to find elsewhere, and much of it is very good. Highlights include the title track (one of her best girl group-style numbers); a 1965 Italian-language single in the "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" ballad style; soulful mid-'60s B-sides like "I'm Gonna Leave You" and "I'll Love You for a While"; and the strange 1968 outtake "Don't Speak of Love," based on a classical piece by Wagner.

This two discs dedicated to the great Paris Symphonies that Haydn composed for Count D'Ogny in the mid-1780s. These were designed for a large and talented ensemble, and the atmospheric, clear and balanced sound achieved by the recording engineers allows for plenty of impact whenever it is required.

We are all but a piece of history. Here now, gone in a whiff. What matters is what we do with the decades in the sun bestowed upon us. ZEROMANCER know very well what to do. For more than 20 years, the Norwegian electro rock stalwarts acted as the architects of human nature, as chroniclers of our woes and hopes, our loves and broken hearts.

In this latest installment of recordings focusing on the choral traditions of different countrys choral music traditions launched last year by the Vokalensemble Stuttgart des SWR, we now arrive in sunny Italy, a country said to have no native choral tradition. Giuseppe Verdi of course used choirs in his operas, but apart from that there are only a few choral works that have sustained any place in the repertoire, some of the finest of which are presented here. With the beginning of the 20th century, however, one encounters composers that are less well known, but whom have certainly composed some very exciting music for choir, including Pizzetti, Giacinto Scelsi, Luigi Nono and Goffredo Petrassi.

Gegründet und ansässig in Hamburg, ist earMUSIC eine Art Wächter des Rock-Tempels. Seit 2000 beherbergt das deutsche Label so unterschiedliche internationale Stars wie Alice Cooper, Joe Jackson, Deep Purple, Foreigner und New Model Army. Sie alle sind auf Discover earMusic zu finden, einer Platte, die die Diversität des Labels perfekt präsentiert. Ob Hardrock mit Thunder's Rip It Up, Indie-Rock mit Joe Jackson's Fool, Blues-Rock mit Robben Ford's Willing to Wait oder Flamenco-Jazz-Fusion mit Al Di Meola, der Here Comes the Sun von den Beatles neu interpretiert - auf dieser exklusiv für Qobuz erstellten Zusammenstellung fehlt es wirklich an nichts.

Fervente partisane d’une création ouverte et tournée vers le public, la compagnie Miroirs Étendus tire le long de cet album surprenant un fil sensible. De Wagner à la musique contemporaine en passant par Debussy, le jeune compositeur Othman Louati nimbe d’une douceur singulière un programme passionnant.

For both classical musicians and classical musicians, it’s pretty hard to think of an upside to the past period of Covid-themed havoc. However if there is one positive thing that this terrible period will have bequeathed to us for posterity, it’s the number of superb recordings that would never have happened without all those sudden gaps in previously packed performance diaries, and with this harmonious pairing of Haydn and Stravinsky we have yet another.

This recording charts a path through the sonatas for violin and basso continuo composed by eight composers born in Italy, the epicentre of the genre’s experimentation at the time. Most of these composers were also violin virtuosos, true explorers and connoisseurs of their instrument, and several enjoyed an international career that led them to publish beyond the Alps. One of the recording’s key unifying elements is the exploration of the D minor key, with the only exception of two sonatas in the neighboring D major and A major keys, three particularly idiomatic tonalities that favor the instrument’s natural resonance.

After a critically acclaimed first album, the Ouranos Ensemble returns to the recording studio with pianist Guillaume Vincent. This mischievous album brings together masterpieces by Strauss, Poulenc and Françaix, and reveals the virtuosity of wind instruments through a thousand musical antics. A seductive program, carried with mastery by one of the most distinguished ensembles of recent years!

Following the model of Josef Suk and Julius Katchen, whose recording they regard as the benchmark, Amaury Coeytaux and Geoffroy Couteau offer a version of these masterpieces notable for its plenitude of sonority, at once intense and reserved in its expression. To complement the three sonatas, the two artists have added the appealing Scherzo from the ‘F-A- E’ Sonata jointly composed by Schumann, Brahms and Dietrich for their friend, the eminent violinist Joseph Joachim. This youthful piece already contains the seeds of Brahms’ fierce yet lyrical poetry.

Digipak CD and Blu-Ray plus 8 inch Doro and Warlock Figure. Here's something big coming up! In celebration of 35 years of her classic album "Triumph And Agony" Doro Pesch Of Warlock will release "Triumph And Agony Live" in various formats including CD, vinyl, cassette, Blu-ray…

A lavish deluxe 20 disc boxed set comprising 17 CDs and 3 Blu Ray discs covering Van der Graaf Generator’s entire recorded work for Charisma Records. Between the years 1970 – 1978 the band released 8 albums (two under the name Van der Graaf) for the legendary Charisma label. Each record was ground breaking and the influence of the band’s unique music would be felt in the ensuing decades by artists of many different musical genres. This boxed set features all of their Charisma albums newly re-mastered from the first generation master tapes and much more.

Many in the field of high speed German steel have come and gone since its heyday in the 1980s, but veteran speed/power metal fence-sitters Rage have endured long past most of the competition, and have been among the most prolific progenitors of the art form to boot…