Sir Cliff Richard is an English singer, musician, actor, and philanthropist who holds both British and Barbadian citizenship. He has sold more than 250 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He has total sales of over 21.5 million singles in the United Kingdom and is the third-top-selling artist in UK Singles Chart history, behind the Beatles and Elvis Presley. Richard was originally marketed as a rebellious rock and roll singer in the style of Presley and Little Richard. With his backing group, the Shadows, he dominated the British popular music scene in the pre-Beatles period of the late 1950s to early 1960s. His 1958 hit single "Move It" is often described as Britain's first authentic rock and roll song; John Lennon once said that "before Cliff and the Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music".

Rockin' is a budget-priced collection covering Dave Edmunds' Columbia recordings. Which means, of course, that his biggest hits and best-known songs are present as live tracks, not the original hit single versions, and that the remaining cuts are culled from uneven records which were often hampered by Jeff Lynne's heavy production. Therefore, Rockin' doesn't capture Edmunds at his best, but it does offer a fair overview of a decidedly uneven portion of his career.

Elvis Presley's movie soundtracks have long been notorious for being among his worst material – who can forget the legendary vinyl bootleg of '60s movie soundtrack highlights called Elvis' Greatest Shit? – but among the dreck, there were some wonderful songs, ideal for a single-disc compilation along the lines of Movies, which is one of six thematic Elvis compilations released in 2006. Unfortunately, Movies falls short of being a perfect comp of these highlights, since it misses such big songs as "Can't Help Falling in Love," "Return to Sender," and "A Little Less Conversation" (plus such enjoyable throwaways as "Bossa Nova Baby") are missing.

Sir Richard Starkey, better known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. He occasionally sang lead vocals with the group, usually for one song on each album, including "Yellow Submarine", "With a Little Help from My Friends" and their cover of "Act Naturally". He also wrote and sang the Beatles' songs "Don't Pass Me By" and "Octopus's Garden", and is credited as a co-writer of others. After the band's break-up in 1970, he released several successful singles including the US top-ten hit "It Don't Come Easy", and number ones "Photograph" and "You're Sixteen".

The Early Tapes of The Beatles is the first digital repackaging of The Beatles' First, the 1964 German compilation album of Tony Sheridan and The Beatles recordings. The songs were recorded in Hamburg between 1961 and 1963. Most of the tracks feature vocals by Sheridan. Only tracks 1-5, 7, 10, and 11 actually feature the Beatles, with John Lennon singing lead on "Ain't She Sweet" and featuring "Cry for a Shadow", an instrumental written and performed by the British group alone. The other songs are performed by Sheridan and other musicians, identified as "The Beat Brothers". This CD, which was released in 1984, includes two additional tracks and an extended version of "Ya Ya" and was reissued in 2004 with a different design on Universal Music's Spectrum label. The song "Take Out Some Insurance on Me, Baby" was originally mistitled "If You Love Me, Baby" on all versions until 1970 when in the US, it's proper title was used.

The 1992 Holland collection Definitive Collection isn't really definitive, of course – it's the kind of title common to budget-line discs or European and Asian-only compilations – but it is a good sampler of ELO's hits all the same, containing 19 songs, including many, many hits: "Showdown," "Can't Get It out of My Head," "Evil Woman," "Strange Magic," "Livin' Thing," "Turn to Stone," "Don't Bring Me Down," and "Rock N' Roll Is King."

Blasters founders Dave Alvin and Phil Alvin have had a famously combative relationship over the years, but as Dave once said, "We argue sometimes, but we never argue about Big Bill Broonzy." So it's fitting that their love of Big Bill brings them together in the recording studio for their first album together since the Blasters' Hard Line in 1985. Common Ground: Dave Alvin & Phil Alvin Play & Sing the Songs of Big Bill Broonzy features the Alvin Brothers performing a dozen songs from the Broonzy songbook, and while listening to this is a potent reminder of how good Broonzy's songs still sound in the 21st century, it also demonstrates the complementary talents of Dave and Phil Alvin.