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The Life & Crimes of Alice Cooper
: :This tribute has most of the right ingredients: fancy packaging, excellent liner notes by Sex Pistol John Lydon), and 84 tracks licensed from 21 albums spanning 1965 to 1998. The opening disc begins with four rare Yardbirds-influenced garage-band singles from the Spiders and the Nazz--the bands that geeky Vince Furnier and his pals Michael Bruce, Glen Buxton, and Dennis Dunaway formed in Phoenix, Arizona. The band's subsequent L.A. years are chronicled via nine tracks from their first three albums. Suddenly, in the tracks from Killer such as 'Under My Wheels' and 'Dead Babies,' ...
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Produced by George Martin
: :Despite a long and varied career, George Martin is most celebrated for his era-defining work with the Beatles. The six-CD Produced by George Martin commemorates his 50 years behind the boards with discs that are in chronological order and loosely themed, including the early years, comedy recordings, '60s hits, and orchestral works. Those expecting an imaginative selection of Beatles tunes will be severely disappointed. A mere quartet of blindingly obvious tracks ('I Want to Hold Your Hand,' 'Yesterday')--all pre-1966--represents the Mop Top legacy. Surely, the inclusion of 'Tomorrow Never Knows' or 'A Day ...
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Billboard Top 10 Karaoke, Vol. 3
: :Despite a long and varied career, George Martin is most celebrated for his era-defining work with the Beatles. The six-CD Produced by George Martin commemorates his 50 years behind the boards with discs that are in chronological order and loosely themed, including the early years, comedy recordings, '60s hits, and orchestral works. Those expecting an imaginative selection of Beatles tunes will be severely disappointed. A mere quartet of blindingly obvious tracks ('I Want to Hold Your Hand,' 'Yesterday')--all pre-1966--represents the Mop Top legacy. Surely, the inclusion of 'Tomorrow Never Knows' or 'A Day ...
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The Doors Box Set
: :\N :Unlike many a box-set retrospective, this 1997 four-CD collection is clearly tailored for Doors aficionados rather than those curious but not overly familiar with the legendary '60s band's career and oeuvre. The first three discs are filled with previously unreleased live tracks and other rarities, such as the band's early demos, which found them slowly building a foundation stemming from each member's clear strengths and influences: Manzarek's classical background, Densmore's jazz, Krieger's rock, and Morrison's blues. Disc 4 features 'band favorites' rather than hits, per se, and thus continues the insider ...
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Hotcakes & Outtakes: 30 Years of Little Feat
: :These 83 songs go a long way toward demonstrating how Little Feat evolved their hard-to-define but infectious swamp-rock, blues, and boogie sound. The final disc in the four-disc Hotcakes & Outtakes, dubbed 'Studio Outtakes,' offers up the very first demo tapes made by Lowell George, the mastermind of the group. Backed by keyboardist Billy Payne, drummer Richie Hayward, and bassist Roy Estrada (the first player to leave the band), George's down-and-dirty slide guitar and plaintive voice blend grit, intelligence, and humor. Combining an off-center Southern California rock sensibility (George and Estrada had both ...
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Harry Chapin: Story Of A Life
: :The 1970s produced a peculiar school of singer-songwriters whose narrative-driven lyrics set them apart from their self-reflective peers. Think of David Ackles and Randy Newman on the fringes, and far nearer the mainstream, the 'Captain Jack'-era Billy Joel and earnest-to-the-core Harry Chapin. Chapin first made a splash in 1972 with 'Taxi,' a claustrophobic little melodrama set in a cab. He made the top 20 two years later with the familial 'Cat's in the Cradle.' Though he'd never climb so high again, songs such as 'W*O*L*D' and 'Dance Band on the Titanic,' and albums ...
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Play Me: The Complete Uni Studio Recordings...Plus!
: :The seven studio albums Neil Diamond recorded for Uni Records between 1968 and 1972 are all collected on the three-disc collection Play Me: The Complete Uni Studio Recordings. And it's quite a revelation to listen to them front to back in succession like this, as these records highlight the most dramatic artistic evolution in Diamond's career. Diamond was no neophyte when he signed with Uni in '68; he'd already penned million-sellers like 'I'm a Believer' and 'Cherry Cherry.' But he was still coming into his own as a solo artist, and albums like ...
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I Grandi Successi
:Album Details:The Most Complete Compilation of their Greatest Hits. Triple CD Box Set at Very Special Price.
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Have A Nice Decade: The '70s Pop Culture Box
from: Rhino / Wea
: :When this material originally resurfaced in an earlier Rhino-celebrates-the-'70s program, many rock scribes contorted themselves into revisionist pretzels: this isn't so bad, they argued--none too convincingly. There'll be none of that here: much of the music on this colossal box set is godawful. The world doesn't miss the likes of Sammy ('Chevy Van') Johns and Sammy ('Candy Man') Davis. Or at least it doesn't miss the records they cut during the decade of disaster flicks and Jonathan Livingston Seagull. That said, this elaborate box is something to behold. The lovingly compiled 92-page booklet ...
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A Natural Woman: The Ode Collection 1968-1976
: essential recording:It's astonishing how quickly Carole King slipped into relative obscurity. Tapestry has sold in excess of 22 million copies and was the biggest selling album of all time until Frampton Comes Alive surpassed it in 1977, yet while the latter remains at the very least an archetypal cultural kitsch, Tapestry has become a troublesome trivial question: 'What's the bestselling album by a woman?' Part of the problem is that the singer-songwriter era she (and James Taylor and Carly Simon) came to represent hasn't aroused a whole lot of critical favor. Still, ...
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