A difference from their last effort yet undeniably a-ha. This time, the Norse purveyors of quality pop have opted for a variety of producers, ranging from Stephen Hague to Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley. The album begins with a lush ballad – which is typical a-ha, pastoral with support orchestration – almost like a modern day Moody Blues. "You Wanted More" also follows this trait, only darker with spiky electronics. "Afternoon High" sketches out '70s pastel glory similar to what Tears for Fears were getting at with parts of the Seeds of Love album.

Recording from David Gilmour's concert in London, Hammersmith, Odeon 1984. A mesmerising live performance featuring songs from Pink Floyd and his solo albums, "David Gilmour" and "About Face".

The Doobie Brothers had two distinct phases during their 1970s peak, evolving from boogie rockers with a penchant for mellow good vibes into a smooth blue-eyed soul outfit. Subsequent reunions and decades as a successful live attraction blurred the divide between the rambling "Black Water" and funky "What a Fool Believes," the band's two number one hits on Billboard. The Doobies racked up numerous other hits in both incarnations, songs that wound up as classic rock perennials.

A double-disc set that draws from all of the phases of Joe Walsh's career, with the notable exception of The Eagles, Look What I Did! features almost every worthwhile song the guitarist ever recorded, even though it does contain pure dreck like "I.L.B.T.s," which is also known as "I Like Big Tits".

The core of Charlie's sound is derived from veterans of such bands as Argent, Axe, and lead singer/songwriter Terry Thomas, so right away one who is familiar with the groups can derive what the group would sound like without even listening. But what's surprising about Fantasy Girls is the level of gloss that's thrown over a layer of raw rock grit. The guitars are compressed and the arrangements are quite similar to their contemporaries, specifically that of Boston (especially on "Miss Deluxe"), but the quality on this ten-song session is erratic at best and shows a group just starting to get its footing and identity together. To Charlie's credit, they take bits and pieces of their contemporaries and take only what really works, but when listened to as a whole, Fantasy Girls can be inconsistent but wonderful for those looking for no-frills rock & roll.

When the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields began to popularize Vivaldi's music in the 1970s, it was on the cutting edge with its light, warm chamber orchestra sound, burnished to technical perfection yet sounding completely different from its symphonic cousins. Now, a recording like this one, with star violinist Joshua Bell, sounds conservative in comparison with young bucks like Fabio Biondi on the historical-performance side or even the young Dutch firebrand Janine Jansen. This big-budget (by classical standards) release is the kind of thing you don't see so often now, with a big poster showing Bell carefully decked out in a partially undone tie, as well as individual full-color cards reproducing, in Italian and English, the descriptive seasonal sonnets that provide the program for the four concertos. It could have collapsed under its own weight, but Bell pulls it off. Conducting the Academy strings himself, he forges tight, not-overly-sweet recordings of Vivaldi's four familiar concertos, with a nice contrast between orchestra and solo that showcases his easy, compelling agility and his Heifetz-like sharpness and brilliance.

At The Five Spot Vol. 1 (1961). After having left the ensemble of Charles Mingus and upon working with John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy formed a short-lived but potent quintet with trumpeter Booker Little, who would pass away three months after this recording. Despite all of the obstacles and subsequent tragedy, this quintet became legendary over the years - justifiably so - and developed into a role model for all progressive jazz combos to come. The combined power of Dolphy and Little - exploring overt but in retrospect not excessive dissonance and atonality - made them a target for critics but admired among the burgeoning progressive post-bop scene. With the always stunning shadings of pianist Mal Waldron, the classical-cum-daring bass playing of Richard Davis, and the colorful drumming of alchemistic Ed Blackwell, there was no stopping this group…

Walk the Dog and Light the Light is the ninth studio album by Bronx-born singer, songwriter, and pianist Laura Nyro. It was released in the late summer of 1993, more than nine years after its predecessor, Mother's Spiritual. It followed Nyro's 1989 live album Laura: Live at the Bottom Line, and the atmosphere here is similarly laidback and easygoing. It was the last album of new original material that Nyro released during her lifetime, although she began recording another album in 1994, which was released in 2001 as Angel in the Dark. Walk the Dog and Light the Light received positive critical notices, and Nyro supported the album with a string of intimate dates with a harmony vocal group. Walk the Dog and Light the Light grew out of Nyro's 1988 tour, which resulted in her live album Laura: Live at the Bottom Line.