Tracks The Essential Journey (2CD)
- Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'
- Chain Reaction
- Mother Father
- Escape
- Mother Father
- Faithfully
- Message Of Love
- Escape
- Somethin' To Hide
- Message Of Love
- Open Arms
- Girl Can't Help It
- Good Morning Girl
- Any Way You Want It
- I'll Be Alright Without You
- Who's Crying Now
- When You Love A Woman
- Patiently
- Be Good To Yourself
- Line Of Fire
- Line Of Fire
- Only The Young
- Don't Stop Believin'
- Anytime
- Ask The Lonely
- Good Morning Girl
- Just The Same Way
- Stone In Love
- Chain Reaction
- Still They Ride
- After The Fall
- Lights
- Seperate Ways
- Send Her My Love
- Somethin' To Hide
- Anytime
- Stone In Love
- Party's Over (Hopelessly In Love)
- Party's Over (Hopelessly In Love)
- Patiently
- Baby I'm A Leavin' You
- Baby I'm A Leavin' You
- Eyes Of Woman
- Wheel In The Sky
- Still They Ride
- Be Good To Yourself
- Just The Same Way
- Eyes Of Woman
Release date: 2002-01-21
RRP: £13.99
Price: £4.16
Review The Essential Journey (2CD) / Journey:
Tracks Lionheart
- Symphony In Blue
- Hammer Horror
- Kashka From Baghdad
- Full House
- Oh England My Lionheart
- Coffee Homeground
- Wow
- When You Wish Upon A Star/In Search Of Peter Pan
- In The Warm Room
- Don't Push Your Foot On The Heartbrake
Release date: 1994-09-12
RRP: £8.99
Price: £4.00
Review Lionheart / Kate Bush:
Tracks Hotter Than July
- Lately
- Do Like You
- I Ain't Gonna Stand For It
- Master Blaster (Jammin')
- All I Do
- Happy Birthday
- As If You Read My Mind
- Did I Hear You Say You Love Me
- Rocket Love
- Cash In Your Face
Release date: 2000-05-08
Run time: 46 min.
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.46
Review Hotter Than July / Stevie Wonder:By the time Hotter Than July was released, in 1980, Stevie Wonder's most fertile period was already over. The smash run that began 1972 (Music of My Mind and Talking Book) and ran through Innervisions (1973), Fulfullingness' First Finale (1974) and 1976's Songs in the Key of Life was winding down. There was still enough magic left in Wonder for one last hurrah, however-and while July isn't its forerunner's equal in the heights it scales or consistency, it's still bears the marks of Wonder's best work: there's the regretful "I Ain't Gonna Stand For It", the reggae-crossover "Master Blaster (Jammin')", an oft-imitated classic (see Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives", for one); and the enormously successful paean to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , "Happy Birthday". -Randy Silver.
Tracks John Wesley Harding
- Dear Landlord
- The Ballad Of Frankie Lee And Judas Priest
- I Pity The Poor Immigrant Albu
- Down Along The Cove
- The Wicked Messenger
- John Wesley Harding
- I'll Be Your Baby Tonight
- Drifter's Escape
- All Along The Watchtower
- I Am A Lonesome Hobo
- I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine
- As I Went Out One Morning
Release date: 2004-03-29
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.99
Review John Wesley Harding / Bob Dylan:Bob Dylan's remarkable first album after his debilitating 1966 motorcycle accident isn't as urgent as the ambitious folk and rock songs he wrote earlier in the decade. Even considering the rocking "All Along the Watchtower" (covered famously by Jimi Hendrix), the album's overall feeling is soft and laid-back, all gently strummed guitars, perfectly timed harmonicas, and some of Dylan's best pure singing to date. The 1968 release sounds as if the songwriter and his three sidemen set up a few tape recorders in a bedroom and began playing as soon as they woke up in the morning. They open with the title track (a folk fable), move into the piano-driven "Dear Landlord", and close with the sweet love song "I'll Be Your Baby Tonight". -Steve Knopper.
Tracks Songs for Polarbears
- Velocity Girl
- Days Without Paracetamol
- Fifteen Minutes Old
- Starfighter Pilot
- Make Up
- Absolute Gravity
- Get Balsamic Vinegar...quick You Fool
- Downhill From Here
- Mahogany
- Favourite Friend
- 100 Hundred Things You Should Have Done In Bed
- NYC
- Last Shot Ringing In My Ears
- Little Hide
Release date: 2000-09-01
RRP: £11.99
Price: £6.06
Review Songs for Polarbears / Snow Patrol:It's a disservice to Snow Patrol to compare them to their more successful labelmates, but to say that Songs For Polar Bears sounds like Belle and Sebastian gone grunge should go some way to defining the skewed brilliance of this Northern Irish trio. Snow Patrol do some wonderful things to the conventions of fuzzy new-wave guitar-pop; pare it down into a melancholic hymn on "The Last Shot Ringing In My Ears", hyper-tense it into the caffeine buzz of "Starfighter Pilot", or let it dissipate altogether on the ethereal "Velocity Girl2. Songs For Polar Bears works because it's the polar opposite to club-footed cock rock; an album that sounds warmly empathetic, while others are all too eager to shoot their dull load of guitar machismo. That it's a little overlong is a shame-an earlier EP, "One Hundred Things You Should Have Done In Bed" was concise perfection-but Songs For Polar Bears feels like a tender bandage, while the rest of the world's rockers dully figure that if it hurts, it works. -Louis Pattison.
Tracks Full Moon Fever
- The Apartment Song
- Depending On You
- Alright For Now
- A Face In The Crowd
- Feel A Whole Lot Better
- A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own
- Yer So Bad
- Free Fallin'
- Zombie Zoo
- I Won't Back Down
- Love Is A Long Road
- Runnin' Down A Dream
Release date: 1999-03-20
Run time: 39 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.13
Review Full Moon Fever / Tom Petty:
Tracks Jarvis
- From A To I
- Dont Let Him Waste Your Time
- I Will Kill Again
- Babys Coming Back To Me
- Tonite
- Loss Adjuster (excerpt Pt.1)
- Quantum Theory
- Loss Adjuster (excerpt Pt.2)
- Fat Children
- Disney Time
- Big Julie
- Black Magic
- Heavy Weather
Release date: 2006-11-13
RRP: £14.99
Price: £4.74
Review Jarvis / Jarvis Cocker:A lot of pop stars find it difficult to grow old gracefully, but not so Jarvis Cocker. His solo debut, Jarvis, find the former Pulp lyricist and frontman picking up more or where he left off with his former band, and the result is an album that befits a man in his thirties. In fairness, Cocker was always and astute and mature songwriter, with a keen gift for observation, so the transition to "serious" artist was never in any doubt. But still, it's a huge relief that Jarvis is so very, very good. He sings of love and loss, with perspective, knowledge, experience and, best of all, consummate ability. So "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" is a pointed anti-marriage anthem, while "Fat Children" is a gloves-off attack on yob culture. Cocker is a great writer, and possesses the ability to make the listener laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time (check out the hidden track at the end for the finest example of this fact). Best of all, the quality of the lyrics is often matched by the strength of the tunes: "Black Magic" samples "Crimson & Clover" to fine effect, and "Heavy Weather" is downright anthemic. This is a superb album, one that should still be listened to for generations to come. -Ted Kord.
Tracks Jarvis
- Heavy Weather
- Big Julie
- Quantum Theory
- Babys Coming Back To Me
- Black Magic
- Loss Adjuster (excerpt Pt.2)
- Loss Adjuster (excerpt Pt.1)
- Disney Time
- Dont Let Him Waste Your Time
- From A To I
- Tonite
- Fat Children
- I Will Kill Again
Release date: 2006-11-13
RRP: £14.99
Price: £4.74
Review Jarvis / Jarvis Cocker:A lot of pop stars find it difficult to grow old gracefully, but not so Jarvis Cocker. His solo debut, Jarvis, find the former Pulp lyricist and frontman picking up more or where he left off with his former band, and the result is an album that befits a man in his thirties. In fairness, Cocker was always and astute and mature songwriter, with a keen gift for observation, so the transition to "serious" artist was never in any doubt. But still, it's a huge relief that Jarvis is so very, very good. He sings of love and loss, with perspective, knowledge, experience and, best of all, consummate ability. So "Don't Let Him Waste Your Time" is a pointed anti-marriage anthem, while "Fat Children" is a gloves-off attack on yob culture. Cocker is a great writer, and possesses the ability to make the listener laugh and cry, sometimes at the same time (check out the hidden track at the end for the finest example of this fact). Best of all, the quality of the lyrics is often matched by the strength of the tunes: "Black Magic" samples "Crimson & Clover" to fine effect, and "Heavy Weather" is downright anthemic. This is a superb album, one that should still be listened to for generations to come. -Ted Kord.
Tracks Golden Heart
- Rudiger
- Don't You Get It
- Done With Bonaparte
- Nobody's Got The Gun
- Are We In Trouble Now
- A Night In Summer Long Ago
- Darling Pretty
- Vic And Ray
- Je Suis Desole
- Cannibals
- No Can Do
- Imelda
- Golden Heart
- I'm The Fool
Release date: 2001-03-19
Run time: 70 min.
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.80
Review Golden Heart / Mark Knopfler:As the chief singer, songwriter and guitarist for Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler earned a reputation for crafting easily accessible albums with impeccable production values. Golden Heart proves Knopfler worthy of his reputation. Three of the tunes, recorded in Dublin, feature uillean pipes, violin, bouzouki, accordian and Paul Brady on whistle. Intensely atmospheric, these instruments support lyrics from a lost age. Another wonderful song, "Je Suis Desole", is straight out of New Orleans, with Michel Doucet on fiddle and Sonny Landreth on steel guitar. However, Knopfler is not on a world-music binge; the bulk of Golden Heart, with its straightforward love songs and happy-to-be-alive shuffles, was recorded with studio musicians in London and Nashville. Of course, it doesn't really matter where or with whom Golden Heart was recorded, because Knopfler's warm and mellow electric guitar and voice saturate every track. -James Swift.
Tracks Golden Heart
- Nobody's Got The Gun
- I'm The Fool
- Rudiger
- Vic And Ray
- Don't You Get It
- Are We In Trouble Now
- Golden Heart
- Darling Pretty
- No Can Do
- Je Suis Desole
- A Night In Summer Long Ago
- Imelda
- Done With Bonaparte
- Cannibals
Release date: 2001-03-19
Run time: 70 min.
RRP: £8.99
Price: £3.80
Review Golden Heart / Mark Knopfler:As the chief singer, songwriter and guitarist for Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler earned a reputation for crafting easily accessible albums with impeccable production values. Golden Heart proves Knopfler worthy of his reputation. Three of the tunes, recorded in Dublin, feature uillean pipes, violin, bouzouki, accordian and Paul Brady on whistle. Intensely atmospheric, these instruments support lyrics from a lost age. Another wonderful song, "Je Suis Desole", is straight out of New Orleans, with Michel Doucet on fiddle and Sonny Landreth on steel guitar. However, Knopfler is not on a world-music binge; the bulk of Golden Heart, with its straightforward love songs and happy-to-be-alive shuffles, was recorded with studio musicians in London and Nashville. Of course, it doesn't really matter where or with whom Golden Heart was recorded, because Knopfler's warm and mellow electric guitar and voice saturate every track. -James Swift.
Tracks At War With the Mystics
- Free Radicals (A Hallucination Of The Christmas Skeleton Pleading With A Suicide Bomber)
- The Wizard Turns On...The Giant Silver Flashlight And Puts On His Werewolf Moccasins
- Haven't Got A Clue
- Vein Of Stars
- Pompeii am Götterdämmerung
- Goin' On
- The W.A.N.D. (The Will Always Negates Defeat)
- It Overtakes Me / The Stars Are So Big...I Am So Small...Do I Stand A Chance?
- The Sound Of Failure / It's Dark...Is It Always This Dark??
- My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life As Blazing Shield Of Defiance And Optimism As Celestial Spear Of Action)
- Mr. Ambulance Driver
- The YeahYeahYeah Song...(With All Your Power)
Release date: 2006-04-03
RRP: £10.99
Price: £2.75
Review At War With the Mystics / Flaming Lips:Following on from their sprawling and excellent Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the Flaming Lips seem to have lightened up the mood with their new long-player At War With The Mystics. Despite the overtly political `anti-Bush' stance that runs through the album's lyrics, it's the music - upbeat, accessible - that will attract and startle Lip's fans most. Opening track, "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" is a fine example of the bands newly palatable schtick. It's an undeniably inventive song in terms of arrangements and mood but it lacks the band's signature excess, and opens the floodgates for a stream of similarly superficial songs that favour feelgood atmospherics over anything truly transcendental. It's not that the songs are bad; most of them are very, very good. But the Prince-like funk soundtrack that backs "Free Radicals", for example, is a far cry from prior material like "Chrome Plated Suicide" etc. , which made their reputation as a band to be reckoned with. Some may love this new pop-lite direction, but just as many may well find it disappointing. -Paul Sullivan.
Tracks Full Moon Fever
- Runnin' Down A Dream
- Depending On You
- Love Is A Long Road
- A Mind With A Heart Of Its Own
- Yer So Bad
- The Apartment Song
- A Face In The Crowd
- I Won't Back Down
- Free Fallin'
- Feel A Whole Lot Better
- Alright For Now
- Zombie Zoo
Release date: 1999-03-20
Run time: 39 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.13
Review Full Moon Fever / Tom Petty:
Tracks Sweet Baby James
- Country Roads
- Anywhere Like Heaven
- Lo And Behold
- Sweet Baby James
- Oh Susannah
- Steam Roller
- Blossom
- Fire and rain
- Sunny Skies
- Suite for 20 G
- Oh baby don't you lose your lip on me
Release date: 1984-04-27
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.74
Review Sweet Baby James / James Taylor:The album that launched a thousand heavy-hearted singer/songwriters on their not-so-merry way, Sweet Baby James was arguably the first shot in what became the soft revolution of the early 1970s. A refugee of the Beatles' Apple label, Taylor struck commercial gold with Sweet Baby James by augmenting his acoustic guitar and soothing vocals with laid-back accompaniment (with included equally influential singer/songwriter insurrectionist Carole King on piano) and penning a slew of songs that drew upon folk, soul, and rock influences. "Fire and Rain" stands as the quintessential early Taylor tune: musically mellow and lyrically restive, it put Taylor in the charts and set the tone for a popular school of 1970s sound. -Steven Stolder.
Tracks The Collection: Songs of Leonard Cohen/Various Positions/I'm Your Man/the Future/Ten New Songs
- Ten New Songs (2001)
- Songs Of Leonard Cohen (no bonus tracks) (1968)
- The Future (1992)
- Various Positions (1984)
- I'm Your Man (1988)
Release date: 2008-06-30
RRP: £32.99
Price: £17.10
Review The Collection: Songs of Leonard Cohen/Various Positions/I'm Your Man/the Future/Ten New Songs / Leonard Cohen:
Tracks The Collection: Songs of Leonard Cohen/Various Positions/I'm Your Man/the Future/Ten New Songs
- Ten New Songs (2001)
- Various Positions (1984)
- The Future (1992)
- Songs Of Leonard Cohen (no bonus tracks) (1968)
- I'm Your Man (1988)
Release date: 2008-06-30
RRP: £32.99
Price: £17.10
Review The Collection: Songs of Leonard Cohen/Various Positions/I'm Your Man/the Future/Ten New Songs / Leonard Cohen:
Tracks At War With the Mystics
- Free Radicals (A Hallucination Of The Christmas Skeleton Pleading With A Suicide Bomber)
- My Cosmic Autumn Rebellion (The Inner Life As Blazing Shield Of Defiance And Optimism As Celestial Spear Of Action)
- The YeahYeahYeah Song...(With All Your Power)
- Goin' On
- Haven't Got A Clue
- It Overtakes Me / The Stars Are So Big...I Am So Small...Do I Stand A Chance?
- The Wizard Turns On...The Giant Silver Flashlight And Puts On His Werewolf Moccasins
- Vein Of Stars
- Pompeii am Götterdämmerung
- The W.A.N.D. (The Will Always Negates Defeat)
- Mr. Ambulance Driver
- The Sound Of Failure / It's Dark...Is It Always This Dark??
Release date: 2006-04-03
RRP: £10.99
Price: £2.75
Review At War With the Mystics / Flaming Lips:Following on from their sprawling and excellent Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, the Flaming Lips seem to have lightened up the mood with their new long-player At War With The Mystics. Despite the overtly political `anti-Bush' stance that runs through the album's lyrics, it's the music - upbeat, accessible - that will attract and startle Lip's fans most. Opening track, "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" is a fine example of the bands newly palatable schtick. It's an undeniably inventive song in terms of arrangements and mood but it lacks the band's signature excess, and opens the floodgates for a stream of similarly superficial songs that favour feelgood atmospherics over anything truly transcendental. It's not that the songs are bad; most of them are very, very good. But the Prince-like funk soundtrack that backs "Free Radicals", for example, is a far cry from prior material like "Chrome Plated Suicide" etc. , which made their reputation as a band to be reckoned with. Some may love this new pop-lite direction, but just as many may well find it disappointing. -Paul Sullivan.
Tracks Quiet Life: Remastered
- Halloween
- Quiet Life (7-inch version)
- All Tomorrow's Parties (12-inch version)
- In Vogue
- Fall In Love With Me
- All Tomorrow's Parties (7-inch version)
- Quiet Life (Bonus Video on CD-ROM)
- Alien
- Despair
- Quiet Life
- Foreign Place
- All Tomorrow's Parties
- The Other Side Of Life
Release date: 2006-09-11
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.59
Review Quiet Life: Remastered / Japan:
Tracks Quiet Life: Remastered
- Foreign Place
- All Tomorrow's Parties (7-inch version)
- Quiet Life (Bonus Video on CD-ROM)
- All Tomorrow's Parties
- The Other Side Of Life
- Fall In Love With Me
- Alien
- Despair
- Quiet Life (7-inch version)
- In Vogue
- Halloween
- All Tomorrow's Parties (12-inch version)
- Quiet Life
Release date: 2006-09-11
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.59
Review Quiet Life: Remastered / Japan:
Tracks Songs for Polarbears
- Days Without Paracetamol
- NYC
- Make Up
- Fifteen Minutes Old
- Velocity Girl
- Get Balsamic Vinegar...quick You Fool
- Favourite Friend
- 100 Hundred Things You Should Have Done In Bed
- Last Shot Ringing In My Ears
- Starfighter Pilot
- Little Hide
- Mahogany
- Absolute Gravity
- Downhill From Here
Release date: 2000-09-01
RRP: £11.99
Price: £6.06
Review Songs for Polarbears / Snow Patrol:It's a disservice to Snow Patrol to compare them to their more successful labelmates, but to say that Songs For Polar Bears sounds like Belle and Sebastian gone grunge should go some way to defining the skewed brilliance of this Northern Irish trio. Snow Patrol do some wonderful things to the conventions of fuzzy new-wave guitar-pop; pare it down into a melancholic hymn on "The Last Shot Ringing In My Ears", hyper-tense it into the caffeine buzz of "Starfighter Pilot", or let it dissipate altogether on the ethereal "Velocity Girl2. Songs For Polar Bears works because it's the polar opposite to club-footed cock rock; an album that sounds warmly empathetic, while others are all too eager to shoot their dull load of guitar machismo. That it's a little overlong is a shame-an earlier EP, "One Hundred Things You Should Have Done In Bed" was concise perfection-but Songs For Polar Bears feels like a tender bandage, while the rest of the world's rockers dully figure that if it hurts, it works. -Louis Pattison.
Tracks Illinoise
- They Are Night Zombies!! They Are Neighbors!! They Have Come Back From the Dead!! Ahhhh!
- Prairie Fire That Wanders About
- The Black Hawk War, or, How To Demolish An Entire Civilization and Still Feel Good About Yourself in the Morning, or, We Apologize for the Inconvenience But You're Going To Have To Leave Now, or, "I have fought the Big Knives and will continue to fight them till they are off our lands!"
- Casimir Pulaski Day
- The Seer's Tower
- The Predatory Wasp of The Palisades Is Out To Get Us
- Riffs and Variations on a single note for Jelly Roll, Earl Hines, Louis Armstrong, Baby Dodds, and the King of Swing, to name a few
- One last "Whoo-hoo!" for the Pullman
- The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts
- Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step-Mother!
- Chicago
- To The Workers of The Rock River Valley Region, I have an idea concerning your predicament, and it involves an inner tube, bath mats, and 21 able-bodied men
- John Wayne Gacy, Jr.
- Out of Egypt, into the Great Laugh of Mankind, and I shake the dirt from my sandals as I run
- In This Temple As in The Hearts of Man For Whom He Saved The Earth
- The Tallest Man, the Broadest Shoulders / Part I: The Great Frontier / Part II: Come to Me Only With Playthings Now
- A short reprise for Mary Todd, who went insane, but for very good reasons
- A conjunction of drones simulating the way in which Sufjan Stevens has an existential crisis in the Great Godfrey Maze
- Concerning the UFO sighting near Highland, Illinois
- Let's hear that string part again, because I dont think they heard it all the way out in Bushnell
- Come On! Feel the Illinoise! / Part I: The World's Columbian Exposition / Part II: Carl Sandburg Visits Me In A Dream
- Jacksonville
Release date: 2005-07-04
RRP: £13.99
Price: £6.87
Review Illinoise / Sufjan Stevens:You certainly can't fault the man's ambition. (Come On Feel the) Illinoise is Sufjan Stevens' second offering in his attempt to record an album for all 50 American states (the first was Greetings from Michigan). And rather than make life any easier for himself, Illinoise is itself a 20-track concept album, tackling a range of relevant topics from serial killers ("John Wayne Gacy, Jr. ") to poets ("Come On Feel the Illinoise, Part II: Cars Sandburg Visits Me in a Dream") to Superman ("The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts"). Taken as a whole, the album sounds like a stage musical history of Illinois, sung with enthusiasm, and full of flourish and energy and a cast of characters that include the Blackhawk tribe, Abraham Lincoln, Al Capone, steelworkers and small-town heroes. Perhaps most surprisingly, considering its depths of knowledge and research, most of the album was recorded by Stevens in Queens, New York. But to its credit, Illinoise is always accessible, and never academic-if he can tackle such diverse topics within the course of just one album, then Stevens is just the musician to attempt the remaining 48 states. -Robert Burrow.
| Browse Adult Contemporary:
Models & Brands:
The Essential Journey (2CD), Lionheart, Hotter Than July, John Wesley Harding, Songs for Polarbears, Full Moon Fever, Jarvis, Jarvis, Golden Heart, Golden Heart, At War With the Mystics, Full Moon Fever, Sweet Baby James, The Collection: Songs of Leonard Cohen/Various Positions/I'm Your Man/the Future/Ten New Songs, The Collection: Songs of Leonard Cohen/Various Positions/I'm Your Man/the Future/Ten New Songs, At War With the Mystics, Quiet Life: Remastered, Quiet Life: Remastered, Songs for Polarbears, Illinoise |
