Yesterday's Jukebox

Nirvana: Bleach

[5.Nov.09] :. Starting with Nevermind, Kurt Cobain intentionally simplified his compositions in order to emphasize their pop components. Less song-focused than later Nirvana works, Bleach acts as an interesting showcase of the band’s musical chops.
 

Various Artists: Factory Records: Communications 1978-92

[24.Sep.09] :. Factory Records was as influential in design, sound production, and defining what a label could be as it was in music.
 

The Stone Roses: The Stone Roses: 20th Anniversary Collector’s Edition

[10.Sep.09] :. Imagine if you will: an album re-release that actually gets everything right, making an already-classic album sound even better than before, deepening our understanding as to what made it so iconic.
 

Miles Davis: Sketches of Spain (Legacy Edition)

[23.Jun.09] :. The secret to creating music that stands the test of time is to create timeless music: Sketches of Spain was, and remains, quite unlike anything else created in the jazz idiom.
 

Sinéad O’Connor: I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got

[12.May.09] :. Nearly perfect, and overflowing with determined beauty, one of the best recordings of the 1990s is given its due.
 

Beastie Boys: Check Your Head

[29.Apr.09] :. At first the Beastie Boys were brats, then they were bratty; with their third album Check Your Head they dropped an ebullient bomb that is both heartfelt and soulful.
 

Pearl Jam’s “Ten”, Eighteen Years Later

[3.Apr.09] :. Over the years, Sony Legacy has re-released countless albums, but rarely has it honored a record whose importance with regards to legacy has been debated since day one as Pearl Jam’s debut.
 

Alan Parsons Project Redux

[1.Apr.09] :. Now that the Alan Parsons Project catalogue has been reissued, it's time for a reappraisal. Will anyone bite?
 

Various Artists: Love Train: The Sound of Philadelphia

[24.Nov.08] :. You definitely know Motown. You probably know Stax. But it's time to get (re)acquainted with the other big player in the golden age of soul music -- Philly.
 

The Jesus and Mary Chain: The Power of Negative Thinking

[6.Nov.08] :. The forefathers of modern-day noise-rock release practically all of their odds-and-sods, which includes songs that are terrible, funny, exciting, bland, and utterly spectacular in equal measure.
 

The Moody Blues: Days of Future Passed

[24.Oct.08] :. The Moody Blues are a band that history should have swept aside, a group forever left in the margins of the Big Book of Rock History, but their sheer gall and audacity made them endure in ways that most people never thought possible.
 

To Hell and Back: Black Sabbath’s Dio Years

[28.Aug.08] :. Ronnie James Dio's original three-year sojourn with Black Sabbath was mercurial, but it completely transformed and re-energized the band.
 

Grateful Dead: Winterland 1973: The Complete Recordings

[20.Jun.08] :. Ultimately, what I am trying to say is this: The Dead can be appreciated -- indeed, probably must be appreciated -- as a kind of continuing, evolving, shifty performance of “The Grateful Dead”.
 

The Lemonheads: It’s A Shame About Ray: Collector’s Edition

[28.Mar.08] :. This 1992 classic, a commercial smash and artistic peak for the Lemonheads, wants another bit part in your life. A walk-on would be fine.
 

Various Artists: City of Dreams

[13.Mar.08] :. This collection spreads piano, blues, street beats, and slippery funk over four discs that are as joyous and imperfect as the Crescent City itself.
 

Frank Sinatra: A Voice in Time (1939-1952)

[30.Nov.07] :. Sinatra's reputation was a victim of the changing times, and I don't think it's possible to overstate the effect that this transition has had upon the perception of his music.
 

Various Artists: The Brit Box

[20.Nov.07] :. Tracing the evolution of UK alt-pop from just after new wave died, through the Britpop explosion, and ending right before Coldplay emerged, this four-disc box set is both an excellent survey and a very well sequenced mix.
 

Love Is the Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-1970

[9.Nov.07] :. For the first time, the musical and attitudinal highs and lows of the Bay Area scene are on full, accurate, and coherent display. Forty years was a long time to wait.
 

Badfinger: Wish You Were Here

[25.Oct.07] :. The Beatles' favorite pet project left a failing Apple to record a pair of albums with Warner Bros. that haven't been reissued until now. Thankfully, it was worth the wait.
 

Foo Fighters: The Colour and the Shape

[23.Aug.07] :. For anyone who experienced the heyday of Nirvana, it's still surreal that the lanky, string-haired drummer is the guy who'd be on magazine covers and writing #1 rock radio hits 15 years later.
 

God Save Self-Indulgence

[16.Aug.07] :. Resist adult life with the Kinks' backward-looking Village Green Preservation Society.
 

Genesis: 1976-1982

[10.Aug.07] :. Genesis is slightly different from typical prog rock. Yes, they had the 20-minute song "cycles" and the classical allusions all up in their lyrics, but they also had a few other things that their proggy peers did not: specifically, Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins.
 

Laurie Anderson: Big Science

[8.Aug.07] :. Remastered for the 25th anniversary of its original release, Laurie Anderson's debut remains a uniquely compelling and surprisingly timeless statement on life in the modern world.
 

Master P: Ghetto D

[19.Jul.07] :. You'd be hard pressed to make an argument for Ghetto D as one of the great rap albums of the '90s, or even, really, a very good album at all.
 

Pretenders: Learning to Crawl

[12.Jul.07] :. Their cathartic third proper album was really the last one under the Pretenders banner that could be considered something more than just a vehicle for frontwoman Hynde -- which is remarkable considering the ashes from which the album rose.
 

Charles Mingus: Tijuana Moods

[11.Jul.07] :. This newly remastered version of the Mingus classic still sounds crazy after all these years -- crazy good!
 

Blondie: Eat to the Beat

[29.Jun.07] :. Almost half a million YouTube views later, Blondie's Eat to the Beat video receives a long awaited release on DVD with (yet another) remastered CD.