With 29 #1s, 11 BILLION streams, 52 million singles & 13 million albums sold, country superstar Blake Shelton, who embarked on his "Friends & Heroes" Tour in early 2025, is releasing his new album, For Recreational Use Only, on May 9. Featuring his lead single "Texas," the Grand Ole Opry member & CMA Entertainer of the Year winner delivers an album that runs the gamut of the human experience, exemplified by "Let Him In Anyway," the powerful preview track that anchored the album announce in March.

This 1991 tribute album reveals the broad range of Cohen's talent as composer in its dazzling variety of voices and styles. Following the prayer Who By Fire by House of Love, Ian McCulloch soars through Hey That's No Way To Say Goodbye, adding his own melancholy twist to the song's sublime sadness; The Pixies storm through I Can't Forget at their characteristic fast pace, whilst That Petrol Emotion poignantly render Stories Of The Street and James perform a meandering but moving So Long Marianne. Stephen Duffy of The Lilac Time gently caresses Bird On A Wire, followed by the Ugandan singer Geoffrey Oryema whose Suzanne, embellished by flute and a trio of guitars, fades out on a click-filled chorus. Quite brutal is David McComb's exploration of the sleazy Don't Go Home With Your Hard-on which shakes, rattles and rolls along with the best of the psychotic beats, while Dead Famous People, produced by Serge Gainsbourg, make a surprising success of a bubblegum singalong rendition of True Love Leaves No Traces. The star of the show is John Cale as he paints a truly great soundscape with only voice and piano in Hallelujah, a classic which would have remained buried in Cohen's own rather monotone version.

Song of Innocence is the debut album of American composer and producer David Axelrod. It was released in October 1968 by Capitol Records. Axelrod sought to capitalize on the experimental climate of popular music at the time and composed the album as a suite-like tone poem based on Songs of Innocence, a 1789 illustrated collection of poems by William Blake. It was recorded at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles with an orchestra and a variety of studio musicians, including keyboardist and conductor Don Randi, guitarist Al Casey, bassist Carol Kaye, and drummer Earl Palmer. Song of Innocence is an instrumental jazz fusion record that incorporates elements of classical, rock, funk, pop, and theatre music. It is arranged for bass, drums, and string instruments, written in the rock idiom with tempos centered on rock-based patterns by Palmer. Axelrod used contrast in his orchestral compositions and interspersed the album's euphoric psychedelic R&B form with dramatic, harrowing arrangements to reflect the supernatural themes found in Blake's poems. The music's reverent, psychedelic overtones evoke their themes of innocence and spirituality.

Rare 1970 album produced by Johnny Otis featuring the stinging guitar of his son Shuggie – with two previously unissued bonus tracks Bluesman Slim Green made very few records in a career that started in 1948 and ended with this LP in 1970. Born Norman G. Green in Bryant, Texas in 1920, he grew up in Oklahoma and played guitar in Las Vegas before settling in Los Angeles in the late 1940s. He made his first records in 1948 for local labels. Listening to them suggests a player full of country influences, updating them for a modern urban audience. He reappeared a decade later in a group called the Cats From Fresno, who made two singles for Johnny Otis’ Dig label, a contact he renewed in the late 60s. Johnny Otis, a pioneer of post-war R&B, had scored hits as a producer and recording artist as well as being a renowned talent-spotter. Having dropped out of sight for much of the 1960s, he returned to the studio in the latter part of the decade and released a series of records for the Kent label, distinguished by the guitar playing of his teenage son Shuggie.

After signing to Capitol, the band recorded 1981's Completion Backwards Principle, an album based on an actual sales training instruction manual; both "Talk to You Later" and "Don't Want to Wait Anymore" earned significant radio play, and the LP became the Tubes' first Top 40 hit. Thanks to its provocative video, the single "She's a Beauty" reached the Top Ten, and pushed the 1983 LP Outside/Inside into the Top 20 Albums chart. After 1985's Love Bomb stiffed, however, the Tubes disbanded, and Welnick later joined the Grateful Dead (long suffering from depression, he committed suicide in June 2006). In 1993, the Tubes reunited; consisting of Waybill, Steen, Anderson, Prince, and new keyboardist Gary Cambra, they toured the U.S. and Europe before releasing a new LP, Genius of America, in 1996. Spooner also issued his own solo record, Mall to Mars. In 2000, the Tubes embarked on another extensive tour, issuing the live greatest-hits album Tubes World Tour to commemorate the event. The band appeared at London's Shepherd's Bush Empire in December 2004, and the show was documented on the CD Wild in London, released the following year. Bassist Rick Anderson died on December 16, 2022, at the age of 75.

Counting Crows' first full-length album in more than a decade feels like a bit of a cheat—nearly half of the songs were released on the 2021 EP Butter Miracle: Suite One. But "Spaceman in Tulsa" proves the band still has the chutzpah and pop chops that made them inescapable in the '90s. Just glam enough, and boasting an insidiously catchy chorus, it's cocksure with revved-up guitar and piano and frontman Adam Duritz's most rock 'n' roll growl. In many ways, it feels like a book-end to "Mr. Jones," the band's debut single that shot Counting Crows into the culture (and made them, right away, a love-or-hate band for most). In that 1992 song, Duritz came on like a big dreamer—a guy who wanted to be a "lion" and Bob Dylan: "We all wanna be big stars/ But we don't know why and we don't know how.

Sacred Steel is a trademark in the metal scene: all Metal with attitude, never everybody’s darling - and damn proud of it! For more than 25 years, they have offered the metalhead a deadly trend-free alternative to bloated trigger drums, cheesy keyboards and boring cliché sounds that are hyped year after year as "the next big thing in metal". "Ritual Supremacy" marks their 10th album, a refreshing true metal masterpiece full of hymns and headbangers.

"Songs For Evolution" the only album recorded by the group Anglo-Saxon Brown, considered a much sought-after collectable LP among rare groove music buyers and DJs alike. An expanded edition with one bonus track (the lone 1976 single, "Straighten It Out" released by Atlantic), "Songs For Evolution" was produced & mostly written by the Philadelphia team of Joseph Jefferson & Charles Simmons, who had penned a number of classic ‘70s hits for the Spinners including "Games People Play," "Mighty Love" and "Love Don’t Love Nobody") and recorded at famed Sigma Sound studios in Philly with string arrangements by Jack Faith, featuring the Don Renaldo Strings along with guitarist Bobby Eli. An accomplished ten member band based in Richmond, Virginia.

The Tubes were arch satirists of popular culture whose outrageous performance art concepts – which swung wildly from softcore pornography to suit-and-tie conservatism – frequently eclipsed their elusive musical identity. The beginnings of the group originated in Phoenix, Arizona, in the late '60s, where guitarist Bill Spooner, keyboardist Vince Welnick, and bassist Rick Anderson formed as the Beans (alternately billing themselves as the Radar Men from Uranus). After moving to San Francisco in 1972, the Beans recruited guitarist Roger Steen and drummer Prairie Prince (from Red, White & Blues), and later became the Tubes with the addition of Michael Cotten on keyboards and former roadie Fee Waybill on lead vocals.

Following four successful recordings released on the Ricercar, Alpha and Arcana labels, Rome-based Andrea De Carlo and his Ensemble Mare Nostrum continue their exploration of the Roman repertoire and inaugurate here a new series of recordings, with its own distinctive artwork, devoted to the vast and multifaceted musical heritage of the Eternal City.

The Swedish Ensemble Villancico under its conductor Peter Pontvik guide us through the world of Latin American baroque music. This music is a merging of cultures and traditions - Indian, Spanish, and African. The Ensemble Villancico is currently regarded worldwide as one of the most important interpreters of early music from Latin America, uniting Nordic voices and the spirit of Latin American baroque music.

Listeners used to the Hanover Band will need no prompting to buy this excellent series of performances, excellently recorded. They avoid some of the more quirky and, to some, off-putting aspects of period performance. There are no ugly bulges of tone and wirey shafts of under-nourished violin tone. The wind and brass play bang in tune and the instruments are fully under the control of these top players.

Absolute glorious collection of Mellow Soul, Jazz & Funk tunes. Well put together compilation CD from Sony music Japan, features George Duke, Mtume, Webster Lewis, Pattie Labelle, & Alphonso Johnson. Essential collection for any soul music fan.

After 2010's relatively somber One Life Stand, Hot Chip's members resurfaced in side projects including the About Group, the 2 Bears, and New Build, all of which took different approaches to electro-pop but shared an almost tangible joy in music-making. It sure feels like some of that happiness rubbed off on In Our Heads, one of Hot Chip's most confident, joyous, and danceable albums yet; if the band's previous album was about how seriously they take the relationships in their lives, then this album explores how much fun they have in them.

From the provocative opening track, "She Loves To Be In Love" (which the listener immediatley associates with the cover girl of the album), to the hilarious "Watching T.V." (wittily namechecking many a 1970's t.v. show) this album neatly encapsulates the oh so slightly off kilter and musically mannered sensibilities of this engaging band. Charlie mainstay, Terry Thomas, has a somewhat nasal vocal delivery which is instantly recognizable and brings an idiosyncratic edge to the laid back 70's vibe of the downbeat "L.A. Dreamer" and the impossibly catchy "Life So Cruel." Terry Thomas has a sharp sense of humor and fun and it works well on stuff like the already mentioned "Watching T.V." Equally though, he brings a somewhat obscure sense of class, for lack of a better word, to the proceedings on stylish excursions like "No More Heartache" and "No Strangers In Paradise"…