Rick Springfield released the big, bold Songs for the End of the World in 2012, just before he received a boost in credibility from Dave Grohl. The Foo Fighters leader featured Springfield in Sound City, his 2013 feature-length love letter to classic rock, and while its accompanying soundtrack wasn't a smash, it did help shift the conventional wisdom on Rick Springfield. Now, he was celebrated for his power pop and arena rock, two things that helped him land a plum role in Jonathan Demme's 2015 film Ricki and the Flash, where he played a puppy dog foil to Meryl Streep's aging lead. Springfield knocked his role out of the park, allowing himself to be vulnerable and funny, two qualities he sometimes avoids on record. Happily, Rocket Science – the 2016 album that is his first since the great Rick renaissance of the 2010s – finds the rocker acting looser than he's been in years, letting his gift for the frivolous sit alongside his yen to explore his spiritual side.

At their best, cover albums have a strange way of galvanizing an artist by returning to the songs that inspired them; the artists can find the reason why they made music in the first place, perhaps finding a new reason to make music. Robert Plant's Dreamland – his first solo album in nearly ten years and one of the best records he's ever done, either as a solo artist or as a member of Led Zeppelin – fulfills that simple definition of a covers album and goes beyond it, finding Plant sounding reinvigorated and as restless as a new artist. Part of the reason why this album works so well is that he has a new band – not a group of supporting musicians, but a real band whose members can challenge him because they tap into the same eerie, post-folk mysticism that fueled Led Zeppelin III, among other haunting moments in the Zep catalog.

One of the multitude of European power metal bands flying relatively low to the ground, Finland’s Arion (pronounced like Orion or carrion?) have seen coverage just once previously at AngryMetalGuy.com. The late, great Huck n’ Roll1 opined that their third record was competent but generic, seeking hits rather than their own sound. 2025 has arrived, and with it comes a successor release entitled The Light that Burns the Sky. Pitched as a “highly anticipated symphonic masterpiece,” and with a growing well of experience underpinning the band, I set appropriate expectations as I hit play.

This CD is obviously "Out in Hollywood" Vol.2 but there is much more here. 26 tracks, over 70 minutes, and this time the treat of eavesdropping on Elvis and the band working out the songs. But above all the real is the BRILLIANT audio quality.
For me the highlights are the rediscovered tapes of Viva Las Vegas plus the delicious Kid Galahad songs but there's so much more … and it's perfect for an Australian Summer afternoon. The first 3 tracks are in Binaural Stereo and as soon as D.J's drum kicks the beat in on 'Loving You' you can immediately notice the great sound. However it is the second track 'Jailhouse Rock' Tk5 that is the first highlight. As soon as Elvis says "We've gotta get this thing goin' " before the explosive start, you know that Ernst is going to let us hear a little more than just the songs. A dynamite sound, with less echo, this version is outstanding. "Just a little too fast" they say at the end, but it's sensational just the same! The Master was next.

Mylène Farmer is a Canadian-born French pop superstar who rose to fame in the 1980s and topped the charts time and time again for decades thereafter. Known for giving precious few interviews, she is a deeply mysterious figure with a cult following of fans around the world. A strongly visual artist, Farmer has made videos and live performances an integral part of her musical statement and its inclination toward taboo subject matters such as sex and death.

Ride guitarist and songwriter Andy Bell’s third solo album pinball wanderer is an otherworldly collection of intergalactic wizardry that mixes psychedelic melodies, Can-via-The Stone Roses grooves and Arthur Russell-style experimental textures. With guest appearances from Dot Allison and Neu! legend Michael Rother on a cover of The Passions’ peerless post-punk classic ‘I’m In Love With A German Film Star’, it is perfect for both deep-listening headphones moments and cutting across the coolest, most understated dancefloors. The loose-limbed rhythm tracks were the starting point and were laid down with the help of Andy’s old Oasis bandmate Gem Archer. The rest followed after an intense all-night session last summer, with the completed album being delivered the following morning. It’s Andy’s finest work to date; a quintessential nighttime record where you can slip through the gaps in the notes and revel in the moment.

A whole sociological study could probably be based around Saigon Rock & Soul, a double-album compilation of killer Vietnamese pop/rock tracks from the late ‘60s to mid-‘70s, but that will be left to more academically minded types in order to focus on the music at hand. The tunes included here were surely the product of Western music's influence, as American soldiers brought the sounds of U.S. rock, pop, and soul along with them over the course of the Vietnam War. By the late ‘60s, a whole subgenre of than nac ("modern music") had emerged, as hordes of young Vietnamese musicians absorbed and emulated the music that arrived from overseas. Besides local clubs, many of the artists featured here performed – and often recorded – at U.S. army bases, where the soldiers made up a major portion of their fan base.

Four-time Grammy-winning band The Doobie Brothers (with Michael McDonald) have teamed up with some of country music’s biggest stars for ‘Southbound’, an album of all-new recordings of the band’s classic hits. The studio lineup harkens back to the Doobie Brothers’ earliest days. Fellow singer-songwriter-guitarist-lead-vocalists Patrick Simmons and Tom Johnston continue to front the group, while multi-instrumentalist John McFee’s history with the Brothers dates back to 1978, after his stint with Southern Pacific. Michael McDonald returns to The Doobie Brothers for this project, which invites fans to once again “Listen to the Music” in a whole new way. Country stars Blake Shelton, Casey James, Charlie Worsham, Johnnyswim’s Amanda Sudano Ramirez, and Tyler Farr were among the first roster of artists choosing their favorite Doobie songs to record with the band, with selected tracks featuring special instrumental contributions from Hunter Hayes and Vince Gill. Other collaborators include Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Band, Sara Evans, Chris Young, Jerrod Niemann, and Love and Theft. In choosing the album title, The Doobie Brothers’ Tom Johnston remarked, “Southbound seemed like the perfect name of this collaboration project with all these dynamic country artists. The band has a lot of roots, both musically and lyrically, from the South such as blues, country, R&B, and folk. To us it was a natural fit that it be called Southbound.”

Mingus is the tenth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, and a collaboration with composer and jazz musician Charles Mingus. Recorded in the months before his death, it would be Mingus's final musical project; the album is wholly dedicated to him. Mingus was released on June 13, 1979. The album is quite experimental, featuring minimalist jazz, over plucked, buzzing acoustic guitars, and even wolves howling through "The Wolf That Lives In Lindsey". All of the lyrics are by Mitchell, while the music for four of the songs was composed by Mingus, three being new tunes, a fourth being his tribute to saxophonist Lester Young from his 1959 classic Mingus Ah Um, "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat", for which Mitchell wrote a set of lyrics. As with the release preceding, Don Juan's Reckless Daughter, Mitchell hired personnel from jazz fusion group Weather Report, notably bassist Jaco Pastorius to play on the sessions. Mingus would also mark the first reunion of saxophonist Wayne Shorter and pianist Herbie Hancock in the studio since recording together on Shorter's seminal Native Dancer album, featuring Milton Nascimento, released in September 1974.

This is a gem of a CD. It's a well-chosen, well-performed and well-presented anthology of mid-Baroque German sacred cantatas. Bass Peter Kooij and the seven-person L'Armonia Sonora are directed by gambist Mieneke Van der Velden. They have a close and warm affinity not only with one another, but also for the music; it's music as varied as it's beautiful. Its rich, sustained sonorities will stay with you long after you have finished the uplifting experience of listening to the CD. Released on the enterprising Ramée label De profundis clamavi comprises seven sumptuous examples of the music written in the north German Länder in the period after the Thirty Years War. It's music which not so much 'reflects' that profound conflict, as is 'affected' by it – weighed down with detached regret and unselfconscious resignation.

Herbert von Karajan recorded between 1966 and 1968 with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and a cast of stars this reference version of 'The Creation' by Joseph Haydn.
After a legendary concert given in 1965 in Salzburg, Herbert von Karajan entered the studio a few months later to record Haydn's masterpiece with the same lead singers, Fritz Wunderlich and Gundula Janowitz. Almost completed in 1966, the recording was abruptly interrupted by the accidental and tragic death of Fritz Wunderlich at the age of 35, on September 17, 1966. The sessions then resume with a young tenor, Werner Krenn, who replaces Wunderlich on the songs. recitatives in particular.

Within this new album the Armonia delle Sfere ensemble is delivering to us the complete Produzioni Armoniche by Antonia Bembo, a collection of fourty one motets dedicated in 1701 to Louis XIV, the Roi Soleil, to whose court she landed after a series of vicissitudes occurred in Venice, her hometown, including the failure of a marriage and important family disputes, for which she was deprived of his paternal inheritance.

The violin was one of Bach’s favourite instruments and inspired his most lyrical outpourings. We know he was greatly influenced by the Italian masters whose work he discovered during his Weimar years – by the power of Frescobaldi, the melodic flexibility of Corelli, the sunny grace of Vivaldi – but he developed his own wonderful artistry in writing music of polyphonic density for the violin and “playing” with its sound palette. His deep understanding of the instrument clearly enabled him to exploit its full potential and to write as well as perform music of the utmost virtuosity.

Yma Sumac counts as one of the greatest divas the world has ever heard. By birth an Inca Princess – a direct descendant of Atahualpa, the last Inca Emperor – but better known as a queen of the exotica movement, this Peruvian singer who conquered the world had an incredible voice spanning four octaves. This 4CD set compiled by Olivier Julien contains every studio recording that Yma Sumac made from 1943 to 1959, and covers the Golden Age of a singer whose career reached the summits of international popular music. Patrick FRÉMEAUX.

The complete recorded works of the legendary Jane Birkin – the English actress who teamed up with Serge Gainsbourg at the end of the 60s, and set a whole new tone that would forever revolutionize the world of French music! Birkin's maybe best known for her collaborations with Serge – who wrote a fair bit of her songs during the 70s – but she continued to be one of the key figures in French music for decades after Gainsbourg passed away – and has an amazing legacy of albums that's presented here in a beautiful book-styled set! The package features 15 full albums, plus 41 bonus tracks – a massive 292 titles in all, with a big booklet of notes and photos inside the cover. The set features the full albums Jane Birkin Serge Gainsbourg, Di Doo Dah, Lolita Go Home, Ex Fan Des Sixties, Baby Lone In Babylon, Lost Song, Amours Des Feintes, Versions Jane, A La Legere, Arabesque, Rendez Vous, Fictions, Enfants D'Hiver, Birkin Gainsbourg Le Symphonique, and Oh Pardon Tu Dormais – plus a bonus CD of Duos & Rarities, and a DVD of television material from France.