Cyndi Lauper began her career as a playful rebel, and matured into one of the best respected artists in American music. Lauper rose to fame in 1983 with the release of She's So Unusual, an album that provided an ideal showcase for her strong but girlish voice and her thrift-shop-genius personality. The album made her an overnight star and a darling of MTV, spawning two major hit singles ("Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and "Time After Time") and briefly making her a symbol of hip female empowerment on a par with Madonna.

Private Investigations: The Best of Dire Straits & Mark Knopfler is the third compilation album by Dire Straits, released in 2005 by Mercury and Vertigo internationally, and Warner Bros. in the United States. Named after their 1982 hit single, the album consists of material by Dire Straits, with songs selected from the group's six studio albums (excluding the 1979 album Communiqué) from 1978 up through the group's dissolution in 1995. It also features work from the solo career of the group's singer, songwriter, and guitarist Mark Knopfler, including some of his soundtrack material. The only previously unreleased track on the album is "All the Roadrunning", a duet with country music singer Emmylou Harris.

Rhino's 2001 collection, The Best of Bread, is the definitive single-disc collection of Bread's hits, spanning 20 tracks and all of the group's hits, including lesser-known hits that didn't reach the heights of "Make It with You," "Everything I Own," "If," or "Baby I'm a Want You." Though this isn't as comprehensive as Rhino's double-disc set – which means it doesn't contain the David Gates solo cuts that the first one does – it still provides most casual listeners with all the Bread they'd need, in a highly listenable fashion, too.

Simply The Best is a 2001 compilation album by British blues band Fleetwood Mac, which also was released in 1996 as The Best Of Fleetwood Mac.

Known for his mariachi-inspired easy listening sound, trumpeter Herb Alpert is one of the most successful instrumental performers in pop history. He is also one of the entertainment industry's canniest businessmen, having co-founded A&M Records – a label that ranks among the most prosperous artist-owned companies ever established – with partner Jerry Moss. Collection includes: The Lonely Bull (1962); South Of The Border (1964); Whipped Cream & Other Delights (1965); !!Going Places!! (1965); What Now My Love (1966); S.R.O (1966); The Beat Of The Brass (1968); Rise (1979); Fandango (1982); Bullish (1984); Keep Your Eye On Me (1987); Classics, Volume 1 (1987); Steppin' Out (Featuring Lani Hall) (2013); In The Mood (2014); Come Fly With Me (2015).

Electric Light Orchestra's more modest follow-up to Eldorado is a very solid album, if not as bold or unified. It was also their first recorded at Musicland in Munich, which became Jeff Lynne's preferred venue for cutting records. At the time, he was also generating songs at a breakneck pace and had perfected the majestic, quasi-Beatles-type style (sort of high-wattage Magical Mystery Tour) introduced two albums earlier. The sound is stripped down a bit on Face the Music, Louis Clark's orchestral contributions generally more subdued than on Eldorado, even when they compete with the band, as on "Strange Magic."

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).

Texas Troubadour is a four-disc box set that packages the late songwriter Townes Van Zandt's first seven studio albums for the Poppy and Tomato labels: For the Sake of the Song (1968); Our Mother the Mountain (1969); Townes Van Zandt (1970); Delta Momma Blues (1971); High, Low and In Between (1972); The Late Great Townes Van Zandt (1972), and Flyin' Shoes (1978). In addition, there are four studio outtakes from 1972-73 and a decent portion of Live at the Old Quarter, Houston issued in 1973. Charly reproduces the original cover art in miniature, two covers to each CD. Sound is the same as on the original CD issues, so fans who already own these albums will not be served by purchasing them again in this format. Musically, the work is superb, and since many of Van Zandt's recordings are out of print, this is a fine argument for getting them altogether. Another plus is Adam Komorowski's extensive biographical essay included in the 36-page color booklet that's loaded with photos.

The Thompson Twins – who were neither a duo nor related, but simply named after the Tin Tin cartoon – were one of the more popular synth pop groups of the early MTV era, scoring a handful of hits before fading away into lite-funk obscurity. While many of their contemporaries indulged in stylish variations on Roxy Music or robotic electronic funk, the Thompson Twins were more pop-oriented, even when they strayed into dance-pop. Despite their success – "Hold Me Now," "Lay Your Hands on Me," "King for a Day" all reached the U.S. Top Ten – the group was unable to successfully expand their synth pop sound and, consequently, their audience had virtually disappeared by the late '80s.

Canned Heat 1967-1976: The Boogie House Tapes is a double-disc set, assembled by drummer Adolfo de la Parra, the only remaining member of the original '60s band, and Canned Heat collector Walter de Paduwa; it's a compilation of some previously "lost" studio and live performances of the indefatigable boogie band. While hardcore fans will rejoice hearing the great Alan Wilson, who appears on roughly half of these tracks, in his prime, it's still a very mixed bag. Guitarists Harvey Mandel and Henry Vestine are featured prominently, as is vocalist Bob "the Bear" Hite who, along with drummer de la Parra, is the only constant band member across these two CDs.