"Nexus" is Argent's most progressive album. The pop indulgences of "Hold your head up" and "God gave rock and roll to you" are largely gone, to be replaced by much more structured and serious compositions. From the synthesiser driven three part instrumental opener "The coming of Kohoutek" through the dramatic "Music from the spheres" to the slightly more traditional Argent on side 2 of the LP, there's a coherence throughout. Almost inevitably, the album was not as successful as "In deep" or indeed "All together now". There were no obvious singles, the band relying on the fan base they had acquired through their previous singles, to stay with them. It appears the lack of success for the album was a factor in Russ Ballard's subsequent departure, which in turn led to Argent (the band) rapidly becoming a spent force. "Nexus" however gave a wonderful illustration of how things could have been.

Whatcha Gonna Do? is an album by British blues rock musician Peter Green, who was the founder of Fleetwood Mac and a member from 1967–70. Released in 1981, this was his fourth solo album, the third in his 'middle period' of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and his last for PVK Records. All the tracks on the album were written by Green's brother Mike.

Protest as she may – and she does, claiming in the liner notes that #1's is "not a greatest hits album! It's too soon, I haven't been recording long enough for that!" – it's hard to view #1's, Mariah Carey's first compilation, as anything other than a greatest-hits album. Carey was fortunate enough to have nearly every single she released top the pop charts. Between 1990's "Vision of Love" and 1998's "My All," all but four commercially released singles ("Anytime You Need a Friend," "Can't Let Go," "Make It Happen," "Without You") hit number one, with only a handful of radio-only singles ("Butterfly," "Breakdown") making the airwaves, not the charts.

Amidst their pop/rock, blues, and folk-rock, Manfred Mann peppered their early recordings with jazzy instrumentals that faintly suggested a jazz-rock direction. Soul of Mann, never issued in the U.S., is a compilation of most of these early instrumental efforts, which originally appeared on various singles, EPs, and LPs between 1963 and 1966 (though one song, "L.S.D.," and is actually a blues-rocker with a Paul Jones vocal). Instrumentals were not the band's forte, but this collection is more interesting than you might think. No one would put Manfred Mann on the level of a jazz artist like Oscar Peterson, but these cuts are executed with a surprising amount of style and wit.

Pianist and singer Patricia Barber's second album (and major-label debut) is a consistently interesting, but not always completely rewarding, array of original instrumentals, vocal standards, and surprise cover versions. The arrangement of "Summertime" that opens the program is eerie almost to the point of creepiness, and all the more effective for it: after a long instrumental prelude, Barber sings the lyrics over the most minimal bass-and-piano unison pedal point, her voice goosed with reverb and wailing softly like a ghost. "Subway Station #5," the original composition that follows, is nervous, jumpy, barely tonal, and moves niftily from a contrapuntal and polyrhythmic introduction into a straight swing section…

Eddy Clearwater has had a tough time shaking his "Chuck Berry imitator" label, and he includes Berry-tinged numbers at the halfway point and end of this nice, if thoroughly derivative, urban blues set recorded in 1989 for Black and Blue with the familiar country boogie shuffle and tinkling licks. Clearwater could not do a set without the signature "Lay My Guitar Down," and this rendition is surging and enjoyable although inferior to the definitive one. Otherwise, it is a pile-driving and urgently performed date; Clearwater and Will Crosby swap slashing lines, crackling phrases, and answering fills. Clearwater's session contains several robust, entertaining passages, even if there is absolutely nothing you have not heard before.