Elvis Presley's performing career, punctuated by its extra-musical achievement as the first global satellite broadcast devoted to a single entertainer. Both the broadcast and its companion album captured the King in his most grandiose persona, fuelled by Hollywood scale and Vegas glitz, as a caped pop superhero. He may have looked trim, but posthumous accounts (especially Peter Guralnick's Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley, the second volume in his definitive biography) confirm what a second look suggests-on this evening, Elvis was alternately overwhelmed and distracted, bravura renditions of signature songs (most triumphantly, the "American Trilogy" medley originated by Mickey Newbury) offset by less-focused readings. Fans may still savour a generous and diverse song list, but viewed beside Presley's earlier, more consistent performances (including a rehearsal the previous night, since released as The Alternate Aloha Concert), this legendary concert anticipates Presley's imminent decline. In this remastered version, three songs have been deleted due to music clearance issues, while four songs taped after the actual show have been inserted. A fifth bonus track, "No More," makes its first appearance on video. -Sam Sutherland.

Technique is New Order's most fully realised dance album. Although other New Order albums have been mighty danceable, this recording contains a masterful use of the acid-house trends storming the club scene in 1989, when this album was released. New Order embraced the technology that was available at the time but never substituted brilliant song structures with prefabricated formats that sequencers, samplers, and other high-tech noisemakers can easily provide. They intelligently used these devices to incorporate elements of a broader genre beyond the "New Order sound," proving that even while experimenting with musical trends and other fleeting diversions, this accomplished group is capable of pulling off a genre-defining album without ever losing sight of their own identity. -Beth Bessmer.

The 1980s was a particularly shifting, uncertain decade for Bob Dylan's creative voice but he capped it off with his first album of all-original material in several years and his best since Infidels. A lot of the credit for Oh Mercy's distinctive appeal has been given to producer-musician Daniel Lanois (who backs Dylan on all but one cut), and there's no denying the effect of his magnetic, fog-thick sound sculpturing here. Overlays of lap steel, dobro and mercy keys along with a slithering subterranean bass evoke a complete sonic climate, and the synergy between Lanois and Dylan would have a huge payoff with 1997's devastating Time Out of Mind. But however tightly produced, Oh Mercy also displays Dylan at the peak of his song-writing craft, fracturing words and phrases for the things-fall-apart jeremiads of "Political World" and "Everything Is Broken" and stringing images together for the noirish ballad "Man in the Long Black Coat". There's the usual dichotomy between Dylan's slashing accusatory mode ("What Was It You Wanted") and the self-effacement of "What Good Am I?" Aside from the miscalculated, sappy "Where Teardrops Fall" (the disc's sore thumb), this album has the classic staying power of Dylan's finest efforts. -Thomas May.

The Very Best Of The Bee Gees collects the brightest spots from one of pop's longest and most singular careers. When The Bee Gees released "New York Mining Disaster 1941", their first single, the easy melodicism and flawless three-part harmony-sung in broad North-of-England accents-sounded so like The Beatles that a rumour went around that it actually was the Fab Four in disguise. A back-handed compliment, but a telling one: from the start, The Bee Gees had real quality, and a feel for commercial pop that at least stood comparison with the greats. Ten years on, their transformation from earnest, tuneful geeks to hirsute, laid-back disco kings (around the time their manager happened to be producing a low-budget pop movie called Saturday Night Fever) didn't just resurrect their career, it made them the biggest group in the world. It's those songs that remain The Bee Gees' crowning glory: instantly appealing, produced and performed with the kind of precision that would shame NASA. -Taylor Parkes.

If punk drove virtuosity from rock, Van Halen, with the flashy expertise of their debut LP, and as the stage-stealing support on Black Sabbath's Never Say Die tour, singlehandedly revived it. Main focus was guitarist Edward Van Halen, with his grinning good looks and startlingly fast fingerwork. The chiming, swooping instrumental "Eruption", which he'd often perform spinning on his back, sent a new generation haring down to the guitar shops. This was hard rock as no-holds-barred entertainment. Drummer Alex Van Halen would play with his kit literally in flames. Strutting, super-athletic vocalist David Lee Roth produced sexy, seedy, streetwise lyrics since matched only by Axl Rose from Guns 'n' Roses, but also possessed a pop sensibility that made hits out of "Runnin' With The Devil" and their cover of "You Really Got Me". Glamorous, humorous, heavy but heavily melodic, Van Halen was the high-water mark for 1980's US rock. -Dominic Wills At least half of the songs on Van Halen's eponymous 1978 debut are still considered classics, and the Eddie Van Halen instrumental "Eruption" revolutionised the guitar community by introducing a technique called finger-tapping into the heavy metal lexicon. A magnificent debut for sure, but maybe the band should have held onto a few of their blockbuster tunes to bolster the lean years that started after 1984, and continue to the present day. Regardless, Van Halen amply demonstrate their drive, showmanship, and musicianship throughout, blowing the needle off the scale on such tracks as "You Really Got Me", "Jamie's Cryin'", "Runnin' with the Devil", and "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love". [+]

Björk's main asset as a musician is her fearlessness. Since the end of The Sugarcubes and the pop-dance of Debut, she has released progressively more experimental records. But after well over a decade of going further and further out, Volta steps back. Make no mistake; this is Björk, and so it's still fabulously weird. Like 2004's mesmerizing Medúlla and the 2005 soundtrack for Drawing Restraint 9, the songs are blissfully peculiar, with narratives about love, offspring, aliens. you name it. Yet melodically and philosophically, Volta recycles more than it innovates; the driving pulse of "Declare Independence," for instance, reminds us of Homogenic's "Pluto," and the lead single "Earth Intruders" sounds like Post's "Army of Me" on steroids. And just as Medúlla oriented itself around a certain instrument-the human voice-this one concentrates on horns. [+]

This CD contains only 10 tracks, but they're all solid hits. Best Of even includes "The War Song," the least successful of Culture Club's Top 40 hits but one of their better songs. "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me," "Time (Clock of the Heart)," "I'll Tumble 4 Ya," "Church of the Poison Mind," "Karma Chameleon," "Miss Me Blind"-they're all here, so put some braids in that hair, grab a hat and your reddest lipstick, and sashay to the cool and breezy vibrato of Boy George and his crew. -Beth Bessmer.

Alice In Chains were initially tagged with the "grunge" moniker, when in fact their haunting, ponderous sound was far closer to the progressive rock of Queensryche. Their second album Dirt was a moody, portentous affair, filled with occasionally inspired riffing from guitar-player Jerry Cantrell and hair-tossed wailing from singer Layne Staley. Perhaps the band got lumped in with Generation X because of their lyrics-depression, death and drugs. Certainly, titles like "Down In A Hole, "Junkhead" and "Hate To Feel" didn't leave much room for doubt as to what Cantrell's particular passion was for. The quartet did have a slightly lighter, almost poppy side to them, though, as "God Smack" and Hate To Feel" indicated. In the main, however, Dirt was classic angst rock, of the style their peers Pearl Jam had made so popular. -Everett True.

In the wake of Britpop's messy demise, Trainspotting carved out its own place in the psyche of youth-culture, providing the must-have poster, the must-have soundtrack and the wasted, gaunt allure of heroin chic. The skeletal look falls in and out of fashion and the posters are long faded, but it's the soundtrack that still resonates with the defiance of youthful rebellion. No simple mid-1990s period piece, Trainspotting pitches the cold-turkey pangs of Lou Reed's "Perfect Day" and the casual decadance of Iggy Pop's "Nightclubbing" against more contemporary hymns to inertia; Blur's "Sing" stands its ground, as does the behemoth rumble of Underworld's ubiquitous hedonist's anthemn "Born Slippy". Only a few tracks grate; Sleeper's cover of Blondie's "Atomic" is utterly pointless, and Elastica's "2:1" is unspectacular Britpop fare. Still, that's drugs for you, kids-you've got to take the good times with the bad. -Louis Pattison.