Ever since Californication re-united the band with John Frusciante and spawned a couple hundred major hit singles, Red Hot Chili Peppers have done something that would have caused people to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the idea some decades back, becoming one of the planet's biggest rock acts. By the Way might have been a somber, mellow product of age and Frusciante's sudden hold on songwriting but its sudden style-switch did nothing to the general trajectory and launched the band even further. Stadium Arcadium, in all its bloated, massive glory is in its essence an album made by a Huge Band. It doesn't necessarily reflect on the scale of the sound - there's plenty of slower, subtler moments - but in its sound it's loud and clear an album that could only be made by a band that knows its stuff and knows they have to perform their stuff to millions of fans in thousand-head venues. In essence, an honest arena band rock record…

The jury is still out, 20 years after Chuck Berry’s pianist Johnnie Johnson’s passing, concerning what he contributed to the writing of some of the rock and roller’s biggest hits. It has never been in question how immensely gifted Johnson was, nor the influence of his playing on Berry’s early work.

While passionately seeking the creative breakthrough that fueled the old school R&B vision behind his upcoming fourth Trippin ‘N’ Rhythm album Blue Magic, multi-talented keyboardist, composer and producer Nicholas Cole kept up his wildly prolific ways collaborating with fellow genre greats, hitting #1 on the Billboard Smooth Jazz Airplay chart with Marcus Anderson, and labelmate Ryan La Valette and the Top Ten with Anderson and Brian Culbertson.

Clouds were a highly influential Scottish prog-rock band formed in Edinburgh in the mid-1960s. Under their original name 1-2-3, the band gained attention in London's underground scene, especially at The Marquee Club in 1967. Their sound was ahead of its time–melding classical, jazz, and rock influences with no lead guitarist, and Billy Ritchie taking centre stage on keyboards. Ritchie's flamboyant, frontman-style organ work would later inspire keyboardists like Keith Emerson.

With its complexity and instrumental richness, its ability to develop anguishing themes and electric rises and its overgrowing tension, Shylock has often been compared to King Crimson. Actually, this instrumental combo also belongs to wild and intricate Progressive rock with tormenting atmospheres, but has its own personality. The latter is expressed through overwhelming lyricism and refined romanticism, a bit like Pulsar. With its schizoido-electronic dimension, Shylock can also make you think of Heldon. What's more, each musician is a real virtuoso, especially guitarist Frédéric L'epee and outstanding drummer André Fisichella. As "Gialorgues" (1975) can be considered as a very good debut album, "Ile de Fièvre" (1978) is widely known as an absolute masterpiece.

To say that Iron Maiden's The Book of Souls was ardently anticipated would be a vast understatement. Though it was (mostly) finished in 2014, vocalist Bruce Dickinson's cancer diagnosis and treatment delayed its release until he was medically cleared. While 2006's A Matter of Life and Death and 2010's The Final Frontier showcased longer songs, Book of Souls is epic by comparison. Their first double album, it's 92 minutes long, and three of its 11 tracks are over ten minutes. Steve Harris contributed one solo composition, and co-wrote six tracks with various bandmates. Dickinson - for the first time since Powerslave – wrote two solo tunes, the album's bookends, and collaborated on two more. The music is cleanly divided between the two discs. The first is tight; it offers a bit of everything that makes Iron Maiden…well, Iron Maiden. It is seemingly self-contained…

Originally released in 1995, Balance marked the final studio album from the classic Van Halen lineup of Sammy Hagar, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, and Michael Anthony. The Grammy-nominated, multi-platinum record debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 and spawned the Top 40 hit “Can’t Stop Lovin’ You,” along with fan favorites “Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)” and “Amsterdam.”

John Wetton had one of the most varied careers in progressive rock. He played in the majority of the big names in prog, in many cases in their classic lineups. His first major band experience came when he joined Family in 1971. He was featured on two of their albums: 1971's Fearless and Bandstand (released the following year). He performed various functions in the group, but his primary role was as bassist. Previous to this group he had recorded with Edwards Hand and Mogul Thrash. He left Family to join Robert Fripp and company in King Crimson, taking a place that had been previously filled by Greg Lake. This would not be the last time the two of them would replace one another. His tenure with that group was not exceptionally long, however, as Fripp disbanded Crimson in 1975.

Live On Tour was recorded at the Agora in Cleveland on December 18, 1978 and published as promo LP for radio broadcast in 1979. Recorded on the More Songs About Buildings and Food tour, the promo release was never officially released for the public. This is the first official release of the full show, fully remastered from the original analogue tapes and features one previously unreleased track.

As far as debut albums go, this eponymous release is a surprisingly accomplished effort from the Nottingham-born teenager Jake Bugg. Although he stares out from the album cover like a younger, long-lost cousin of the View or the Enemy, while those U.K. indie acts found their nourishment on a diet of the Jam, Oasis, and the Strokes, Bugg found time to explore pre-Beatles music from the likes of Buddy Holly and Richie Valens. These influences - combined with a folk sensibility and moments of delicate acoustic fingerpicking that betray a love for Bob Dylan and Donovan - make for an accessible, pop-focused record that doesn’t attempt to chase innovation. Much of the material here was co-written, produced, and mixed by Snow Patrol and Reindeer Section collaborator Iain Archer…

After Carnivàle, Jeff Beal has given HBO another Emmy-nominated score, this time for the tale of sex, politics, and togas known as Rome. There's a long history of fabulously grand scores in the sword-and-sandals genre (Miklós Rózsa's Ben-Hur, Alex North's Cleopatra) but according to Beal HBO wasn't interested in classic big orchestral compositions, so he worked on a smaller–yet still lush–scale that emphasizes the ethnic instruments that could be found in the farther reaches of the Roman Empire. A Middle Eastern influence, for instance, can clearly be heard on "Rome Main Title Theme," "The Forum" and "Janus Breaks," among many others. If there's one signature sound on the CD, it's the recurring use of the flute, which can suggest emotions ranging from romantic ("Octavian & Octavia's Themes") to melancholy (paired with strings on "Farewells, the Storm") to dread (combined with percussion on "Caesar's Seizure"). The album starts running out of steam about two thirds of the way through, however, making one pine for a bit of orchestral bang for one's buck. –Elisabeth Vincentelli

The definitive version of Funkadelic’s groundbreaking 1970 debut, remastered from original master tapes and restored to its full cosmic glory.

Noted for her continual reinvention and versatility in music production, songwriting, and visual presentation, Madonna has pushed the boundaries of artistic expression in mainstream music for nigh on forty years, while maintaining control over every aspect of her career.

Unlike almost any of their peers, Pink Floyd played to both sides of the aisle: they were rooted in the blues but their heart belonged to the future, a dichotomy that made them a quintessentially modern 20th century band. That blues influence, quickly sublimated and only surfacing on the occasional Gilmour guitar solo, was the foundation for the band's very name, as the group decided to splice the names of two old bluesmen – Pink Anderson and Floyd Council – as a tribute to the American music they loved so. These members of the early Floyd – guitarist/singer Syd Barrett, bassist Roger Waters, keyboardist Rick Wright, and drummer Nick Mason – were all architecture students at London Polytechnic, with the exception of Barrett, who was an art student and a friend of Waters since childhood. This version of the band started gigging regularly in 1965, with Barrett becoming the group's lead singer quite quickly. During this time, the group relied on blues and R&B covers, not unlike many of their British peers, but they wound up extending the time of their sets through extended instrumental jams, planting the seeds of space rock that would come to fruition not much later. During 1966, the group's increasingly adventurous sets became something of a sensation in the London underground, leading to a contract with EMI early in 1967.

Chet Baker's West Coast cool comes to the Big Apple on Chet Baker in New York. The project would be Baker's first - in a four album deal - with the Big Apple-based Riverside Records. The bicoastal artist incorporates his decidedly undernourished sound and laid-back phrasing into the styling of Al Haig (piano), Johnny Griffin (tenor sax), Paul Chambers (bass), and Philly Joe Jones (drums). The results are uniformly brilliant as Baker's cool-toned solos fly and bop with authority around the equally impressive supporting soloists. Conversely, the same cohesive unity continues on the introspective numbers that are more akin to Baker's California cool. Undoubtedly one of the charms of this collection is the distinct choice of material…