Bob Dylan has always been incredibly prolific, only releasing a fraction of what he records. Such a policy has made him a prime target for bootleggers over the years, finally prompting this sanctioned 1991 triple-disc dive into the Dylan vaults. It consists of rare tracks, unreleased outtakes, early versions of classics ("Times They Are a-Changin'", "Like a Rolling Stone", "I Shall Be Released"), and alternate versions that sometimes cut the originals ("Idiot Wind"). A measure of Dylan's depth is his list of discarded songs ("She's Your Lover Now", "Blind Willie McTell", "Series of Dreams") that would be the crown jewels of most catalogues. These 58 tracks serve as a shadow history of one of our most important artists. -Ben Edmonds.

The Pet Shop Boys' first album reveals a grittier, hungrier sound than most of their subsequent work. There's an urgent kind of narrative running through Please, from the escapist theme of the opening "Two Divided By Zero" through the seedy "West End Girls" to the tender "Tonight Is Forever" and the cautionary "Violence"; later on, "I Want A Lover" and "Later Tonight" get down and dirty before "Why Don't We Live Together" brings things, pleading, to a close. There's an appealingly edgy neediness to most of the tracks, verging at times on desperation, which is gradually whittled down through second and third albums Actually and Introspective and is largely missing from later albums. Its four singles-seminal geek-rap "West End Girls", the you-can't-escape-lurve "Love Comes Quickly" and anti-Thatcherite anthems "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots Of Money)" and "Suburbia"-still sound pretty fresh today. The album's other six and a bit tracks, while clearly of their time, still sound good 15 years on. Add to all this an 11-track bonus disc of B-sides and remixes and this reissue is an essential purchase for anyone wanting to expand their PSB collection, or to hear, fascinated, just how far the band's sound has evolved over the years. -Rikki Price.

The greatest live recording in rock & roll history was-officially, at least-buried in the vaults of Columbia Records for more than a quarter of a century. But no more: Live 1966: The "Royal Albert Hall" Concert has surfaced on two discs mixed and mastered from three-track source tapes that put the myriad pirated recordings to shame. More important, Live 1966 documents a momentous artistic showdown between a wilful, inflamed and utterly fearless performer and his headstrong core following. The Dylan of the mid 1960s had made the leap from socially conscious voice of his generation to surrealistic electric poet, a transformation that was met with contempt by a vocal element of his audience. The most telling moment of the recording centres on the stand-off: A folk zealot in the audience shouts, "Judas!" earning cheers from the contentious crowd. Dylan responds by snarling, "I don't believe you. You're a liar," then turns to his group, the Hawks (soon to become the Band), and, as the intro to "Like a Rolling Stone" takes shape, commands, "Play loud!" A crucial moment and, time has demonstrated, the correct call. -Steven Stolder.

Originally released under the name Biscuit Boy aka Crackerman, Fat Chance is the debut solo album from Paul Heaton, the singer and songwriter for the Beautiful South. As such, Heaton knows a thing or two about writing a clever pop tune, and Fat Chance is packed with them. Heaton claims this side project is a "sound thing rather than a lyric thing", but lyrics are still his strong point, and here they pack as much bite as his work with the Beautiful South. And though this is technically a solo project, he's not going completely alone, with help coming from Martin Slattery and Scott Shields (from Joe Strummer's backing band the Mescaleros), two of his Beautiful South colleagues David Rotheray and Damon Butcher and regular Beautiful South producer Jon Kelly. The result is a sound that's altogether brighter, jauntier and looser than that of the Beautiful South, but with lyrics that touch upon the familiar themes of the loves, lives and dramas of the over-30 set. So on "Mitch", he backs the story of a bachelor facing the prospect of dying alone with a thoroughly modern and catchy arrangement, including scratching and somehow makes it work (i. e. , he doesn't sound like a sad, middle-aged man "doing it for the kids"). "If", meanwhile, is a danceable, sing-along attack on hypocritical do-gooders. Fat Chance is pop of the highest order, the perfect companion piece to the best work of the Beautiful South. [+]

A 1975 live album that found Clapton at-if you'll pardon the expression-a crossroads, E. C. Was Here marks the line of demarcation between the guitar hero of the past and more song-oriented player he'd become for the second half of the 1970s. Clapton breaks out on a couple of old Blind Faith numbers-"Presence of the Lord" and "Can't Find My Way Home"-that reflect his soulful, spiritual side, while "Further On Up the Road" rocks out and Charles Brown's "Drifting Blues", restored to its full eleven-and-a-half-minute length on the newly remastered version, presents another instrumental showcase. There are only six tunes here, but EC leaves his indelible mark on each of them. -Daniel Durchholz.

The second and undoubtedly breakthrough album for psychedelic soul rocker Lenny Kravitz is an eclectic mix of styles, all tinged with his inimitable sound. On the slinky, rocking "Always On The Run" he teams up with school chum Slash (the former Guns 'N' Roses guitarist) and the result is an explosion of hard-edged guitar funk. Removed from the image of posturing sex symbol are the warming love songs which spread a soulful bliss across the whole album. The Curtis Mayfield-inspired "It Ain't Over 'Till It's Over" and "All I Ever Wanted" are two gentler tunes with an array of soothing strings and whispered romance. With his life as a songwriter and lyricist often shadowed by his immense presence as a performer, Mama Said dispels any uncertainty as to where his true talent lies. -David Trueman.

Can't Slow Down is probably Lionel Richie's best solo album, full of songs that would become hits-"All Night Long (All Night)", "Running With the Night," "Penny Lover" and "Hello. " Like all of Richie's best music, the vocals are spare and the choruses inviting, with each track falling somewhere between straight-up pop and smoochy R&B. -Courtney Kemp.

There is a difference between being an inspired musician and an informed musician. Sting is the latter. As always, he surrounds himself with ultra-talented artists: this time around Stevie Wonder, Branford Marsalis, James Taylor, guitarist Dominic Miller and the prince of rai Cheb Mami fill the roster. Brand New Day exhibits about as many musical styles as there are tracks, all encased in dense, meticulous production. The album begins promisingly. "A Thousand Years" pulses atop a lush, two-note foundation. "A Desert Rose" folds trilling Algerian pop into trip-hop. Melodic, late-night jazz ballads dominate the middle portion of the collection. But Sting's preoccupation with odd-numbered time signatures prevents the songs from grooving, while the choruses are yawns. "Fill Her Up", a country tune, represents Sting at his most self-indulgent. [+]

This, Billy Joel's breakthrough album, came years after he first made his mark with the novelty-ish "Piano Man". In the meantime, the New York-based songwriter released two lacklustre and stylistically confused platters that blunted interesting songs with a sound that was neither Elton mellow nor Elton attitude. Produced by Phil Ramone, The Stranger took those who had written Joel off as a one-hit wonder by surprise and it remains a solid introduction to Joel's restless muse at a crucial point in his career. It invited a few comparisons to Bruce Springsteen, with its prominent sax breaks, hard-edged rebel-rockers ("Only The Good Die Young") and slice-of-life dramatics ("Scenes From An Italian Restaurant"), recounting life in a lower middle-class setting; but Joel's chameleonic, formalist approach to pop wasn't to be so easily pigeonholed. -Don Harrison.

Nothing can match the greatness of Howard Jones's haircut, which displayed a peculiar early-1980s combination of mop-top and spikes that was so simply wrong it could hardly have been mistaken for anything else. His first (and best) album, Human's Lib, doesn't have the monolithic sterility of his biggest hits ("Things Can Only Get Better"-the woah-woah-woah song-and "No One Is to Blame", which featured Phil Collins). It's also got some of Jones's catchiest numbers, including the charmingly simple "New Song" and "What is Love". It's all of an era, of course, but let it herein be noted that Jones was singing "I don't want to be hip and cool / I don't want to play by the rules" (from "New Song") well before Nirvana and Beck turned such sentiments into a "revolution". -Keven McAlester.