"The Band's first album, Music from Big Pink, seemed to come out of nowhere, with its ramshackle musical blend and songs of rural tragedy. The Band, the group's second album, was a more deliberate and even more accomplished effort, partially because the players had become a more cohesive unit, and partially because guitarist Robbie Robertson had taken over the songwriting, writing or co-writing all 12 songs. Though a Canadian, Robertson focused on a series of American archetypes from the union worker in "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)" and the retired sailor in "Rockin' Chair" to, most famously, the Confederate Civil War observer Virgil Cane in "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down." The album effectively mixed the kind of mournful songs that had dominated Music from Big Pink, here including "Whispering Pines" and "When You Awake" (both co-written by Richard Manuel), with rollicking uptempo numbers like "Rag Mama Rag" and "Up on Cripple Creek" (both sung by Levon Helm and released as singles, with "Up on Cripple Creek" making the Top 40). As had been true of the first album, it was The Band's sound that stood out the most, from Helm's (and occasionally Manuel's) propulsive drumming to Robertson's distinctive guitar fills and the endlessly inventive keyboard textures of Garth Hudson, all topped by the rough, expressive singing of Manuel, Helm, and Rick Danko that mixed leads with harmonies. The arrangements were simultaneously loose and assured, giving the songs a timeless appeal, while the lyrics continued to paint portraits of 19th century rural life (especially Southern life, as references to Tennessee and Virginia made clear), its sometimes less savory aspects treated with warmth and humor." - All Music.

STAFF COMMENTS

Andy says: Just as good as the first, maybe without the same impact. Includes the world-classic "The Night They Drove Old Whiskey Down".

TRACK LISTING

1. Across The Great Divide
2. Rag Mama Rag
3. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
4. When You Awake
5. Up On Cripple Creek
6. Whispering Pines
7. Jemima Surrender
8. Rockin' Chair
9. Look Out Cleveland
10. Jawbone
11. The Unfaithful Servant
12. King Harvest (Has Surely Come)

Lynyrd Skynyrd is best known for popularizing the southern hard-rock genre during the 1970s. The band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tunes "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Free Bird".

Following on from the vinyl box set released in January; the six albums are now available individually with exact reproductions of original artwork to retain authenticity pressed on 180 gram heavyweight audiophile vinyl with download card included.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Ain't The One
2. Tuesday's Gone
3. Gimme Three Steps
4. Simple Man
5. Things Goin' On
6. Mississippi Kid
7. Poison Whiskey
8. Free Bird
9. Mr. Banker
10. Down South Jukin'
11. Tuesday's Gone
12. Gimme Three Steps
13. Free Bird

Although initially successful in the United Kingdom and Australia, Blondie was regarded as an underground band in the United States until the release of Parallel Lines in 1978. Over the next three years, the band achieved several hit singles including "Call Me", "Atomic" and "Heart of Glass" and became noted for its eclectic mix of musical styles incorporating elements of disco, pop, rap, and reggae, while retaining a basic style as a new wave band. 

Following on from the vinyl boxed set released in December; this album is now available individually on 180g heavyweight vinyl and includes download voucher.

STAFF COMMENTS

David says: As a very young man I had 'Blondie - Queen Of The Disco' scribbled on my pencil case. At least I did, until someone much older informed me that they didn't actually play Blondie in discos and that I should rub it off or he'd kick my head in...

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A 10” taster from the forthcoming Super Deluxe Edition of their debut long player. 

According to Tim Booth, Laid and Wah Wah are “the culmination of playing four or five hours a day four or five days a week in Manchester and the new band adapting to that. It is about the transition of becoming more of a band but with Brian at the helm.” Booth remembers jamming “hundreds of songs that never saw the light of day” and guitarist Larry Gott suggests it might have been “as many as 340 tracks.”

The simultaneous, coupled reissues are particularly notable, however, due to the fact that producer Brian Eno and the band had originally favoured releasing the records as a double package. Recorded concurrently in 1993 during a frenetic six week period at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Complex, the albums were always intended as companion pieces – Laid being referred to as the “song” album whilst Wah Wah was known as the “experimental” or “jamming” album – but the record company’s decision to release them months apart put paid to this conception: Laid, released in the UK in October 1993, reached the No.3 spot in the UK and became the band’s biggest album to date in the US, selling 600,000 copies and breaking the band in the USA in the process but the subsequent follow-up Wah Wah effectively sunk the band over there and – according to Booth – “put paid to us breaking America at all!”. More pertinently perhaps, by the time Wah Wah came out, U2 (and Eno) had released Zooropa and “everyone thought we were copying off them instead of the other way round!”

The Velvet Underground’s classic self-titled third album, originally released in March 1969, by MGM, was a departure from the band’s first two albums in more ways than one. Gone was co-founding member John Cale, and in his place was a 21-year-old with Long Island roots named Doug Yule, who stepped right in. The record was also a stylistic leap, as Lou Reed described to Rolling Stone editor David Fricke, “I thought we had to demonstrate the other side of us. Fricke calls it “a stunning turnaround… 10 tracks of mostly warm, explicit sympathy and optimism, expressed with melodic clarity, set in gleaming double-guitar jangle and near-whispered balladry. Or as the late rock critic Lester Bangs put it, “How do you define a group like this, who moved from ‘Heroin’ to ‘Jesus’ in two short years?”

How indeed do you describe an album which includes such classics as “Candy Says,” Reed’s ode to Warhol superstar Candy Darling; the aching love song “Pale Blue Eyes,” allegedly inspired by a girlfriend at Syracuse University who got away, with lead vocals by Yule; the inspiring “Beginning to See The Light”; the spoken-word narrative and musique concrete of “The Murder Mystery,” and the beautiful Maureen Tucker-sung “After Hours”?

Celebrating the 45th anniversary and following on from the Super Deluxe CD release in 2014, we will be reissuing The Velvet Underground on 180g vinyl.

"If anything, CCR's third album Green River represents the full flower of their classic sound initially essayed on its predecessor, Bayou Country. One of the differences between the two albums is that Green River is tighter, with none of the five-minute-plus jams that filled out both their debut and Bayou Country, but the true key to its success is a peak in John Fogerty's creativity. Although CCR had at least one cover on each album, they relied on Fogerty to crank out new material every month. He was writing so frequently that the craft became second-nature and he laid his emotions and fears bare, perhaps unintentionally. Perhaps that's why Green River has fear, anger, dread, and weariness creeping on the edges of gleeful music. This was a band that played rock & roll so joyously that they masked the, well, "sinister" undercurrents in Fogerty's songs. "Bad Moon Rising" has the famous line "Hope you've got your things together/Hope you're quite prepared to die," but that was only the most obvious indication of Fogerty's gloom. Consider all the other dark touches: the "Sinister purpose knocking at your door"; the chaos of "Commotion"; the threat of death in "Tombstone Shadow"; you only return to the idyllic "Green River" once you get lost and realize the "world is smolderin'." Even the ballads have a strong melancholy undercurrent, highlighted by "Lodi," where Fogerty imagines himself stuck playing in dead-end towns for the rest of his life. Not the typical thoughts of a newly famous rock & roller, but certainly an indication of Fogerty's inner tumult. For all its darkness, Green River is ultimately welcoming music, since the band rocks hard and bright and the melancholy feels comforting, not alienating." - All Music.

Reissue of previously deleted classic Folk album - Back to Black.

To say that Nirvana's third and ultimately final studio album In Utero was 1993's most polarizing record would be the understatement of a decade. The unadorned sonic rawness of Steve Albini's recording laid bare every primal nuance of the most confrontational yet vulnerable material Kurt Cobain, Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl would ever record. And with its 1991 predecessor Nevermind having sold some 30 million copies, singlehandedly returning honest rock ’n’ roll to the top of the pop charts, In Utero was essentially the first record Nirvana would make with any expectations from the public. 

So from the opening quasi-shamble melodics of "Serve The Servants" through the bittersweet closing strains of "All Apologies," In Utero was the sound of the most incredible yet conflicted rock ‘n’ roll band of the era at the peak of its powers coming to terms with a generational spokes-band mantle they'd never seen coming—and ultimately surmounting these struggles to make the record they needed to make. 

As Rolling Stone's David Fricke said in his review at the time, "In Utero is a lot of things—brilliant, corrosive, enraged and thoughtful, most of them all at once. But more than anything, it's a triumph of the will." 

TRACK LISTING

1. Serve The Servants
2. Scentless Apprentice
3. Heart-Shaped Box
4. Rape Me
5. Frances Farmer Will Have Her Revenge On Seattle
6. Dumb
7. Very Ape
8. Milk It
9. Pennyroyal Tea
10. Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
11. Tourette's
12. All Apologies

'Mama's Gun' is the second studio album by neo soul singer Erykah Badu, released in 2000. Recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, the album incorporates funk, soul and jazz styles. Covering themes of insecurity, social issues and personal relationships, Badu delivered a highly intimate and personal album that reached Platinum two months after its release. 'Mama's Gun' features substantial contributions from several members of the Soulquarians outfit, of which Badu was a member. It also features guests such as soul singer Betty Wright and trumpeter Roy Hargrove.

The album contains the single "Bag Lady" which, with its colorful, artsy music video, shot to #1 on the R&B charts, and also into the Top 10 on the billboard charts. "Bag Lady" was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Female R&B Vocal Performance and for Best R&B Song. Also the song "Didn't Cha Know?" was nominated for Best R&B Song.

Rolling Stone magazine applauded her for taking "chances the way Stevie Wonder or Nina Simone did in their prime" and went on to say "she has taken her art to the next level." Entertainment Weekly called the album a "'70s soul homage featuring live musicians and a smooth-funk sound that wouldn't be out of place on a CTI record."

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Penitentiary Philosophy
2. Didn't Cha Know
3. My Life
4. ... & On

SIDE B
1. Cleva
2. Hey Sugah
3. Booty
4. Kiss Me On My Neck (Hesi)
5. A.D. 2000

SIDE C
1. Orange Moon
2. In Love With You
3. Bag Lady

SIDE D
1. Time's A Wastin
2. Green Eyes

Universal Music are proud to make available the Dire Straits studio album selection as limited edition individual LPs, beatifully presented and repressed on 180 gram heavwight vinyl.

"Adding a new rhythm guitarist, Dire Straits expands its sounds and ambitions on the sprawling Love Over Gold. In a sense, the album is their prog rock effort, containing only five songs, including the 14-minute opener "Telegraph Road." - AllMusic.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: Featuring one of the most unusual radio hits ever- "Private Investigations" seemed to vanish completely during it's ultra quiet bits (in those medium-wave radio days!) this record also has Knopfler's most epic song in his canon: "Telegraph Road" rolled between massively melodic guitar passages and doomy/ beautiful verses to wondrous effect.

Universal Music are proud to make available the Dire Straits studio album selection as limited edition individual LPs, beatifully presented and repressed on 180 gram heavwight vinyl.

"Without second guitarist David Knopfler, Dire Straits began to move away from its roots rock origins into a jazzier variation of country-rock and singer/songwriter folk-rock. Naturally, this means that Mark Knopfler's ambitions as a songwriter are growing, as the storytelling pretensions of Making Movies indicate. Fortunately, his skills are increasing, as the lovely "Romeo and Juliet," "Tunnel of Love," and "Skateaway" indicate. And Making Movies is helped by a new wave-tinged pop production, which actually helps Knopfler's jazzy inclinations take hold. The record runs out of steam toward the end, closing with the borderline offensive "Les Boys," but the remainder of Making Movies ranks among the band's finest work." - AllMusic.

STAFF COMMENTS

Martin says: More Springsteen than Dylan, but with a way with melody that was all Knopfler's own. The first side is seamless and features the still brilliant "Romeo and Juliet".

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Includes the rare Monitor Mix of Death Disco and the Extended Dorrell Mix of Warrior.

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Gary Numan Cover.

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"50 years ago, Britain’s pre-eminent blonde bombshell cut one single for Fontana that has become highly sought after by 60s beat and mod collectors and more recently by acolytes of Morrissey. Many of the latter first came across So Little Time on Morrissey’s Under The Influence compilation (2003) and were genuinely surprised that sex symbol DD had recorded what was almost universally regarded as the highlight of the piece. Both sides were co-written by Les Reed and Barry Mason, the team behind such 60s whoppers as Delilah (Tom Jones) and The Last Waltz (Engelbert Humperdinck)."

Arguably the best of the American Recordings series.
Once again Cash worked with Tom Petty on a couple of tracks including the Neil Diamond-penned "Solitary Man".
The album also includes stunning covers of Bonnie Prince Billy, Nick Cave and U2.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: The Rick Rubin produced American Recordings totally rejuvenated Cash's career, and they're all great. This one just edges it for me with amazing covers of Bonnie Prince Billy, Nick Cave and (suprisingly) U2.

TRACK LISTING

I Won't Back Down
Solitary Man
That Lucky Old Sun (Just Rolls Around Heaven All Day)
One
Nobody
I See A Darkness
The Mercy Seat
Would You Lay With Me (In A Field Of Stone)
Field Of Diamonds
My Time
Country Trash
Mary Of The Wild Moor
I'm Leavin' Now
Wayfaring Stranger

Featuring a truly eclectic mixture of music, the Pulp Fiction soundtrack album eschews a more conventional score for rock 'n' roll, bubblegum pop, surf sounds and soul, all interspersed with snippets of dialogue from the movie, an approach Tarantino had utilised on his previous movie OST, Reservoir Dogs. The choice of material goes some way to reveal Quentin Tarantino’s obsession with pop culture, and according Rolling Stone, “it's fitting that his films deploy pop music expertly”. Reaching 21 on the US chart, the soundtrack managed to resurrect many long forgotten gems, from Dick Dale’s opening salvo of ‘Misirlou’ through to ‘Surf Rider’ by The Lively Ones. It also launched Urge Overkill into the mainstream with their faithful cover of Neil Diamond’s ‘Girl, You’ll Be A Woman Soon’, which peaked at 59 in the pop chart.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
Misirlou - Dick Dale & His Del (2:29)
Royale With Cheese (1:43)
Jungle Boogie - Kool & The Gang (3:06)
Let's Stay Together - Al Green (3:13)
Bustin' Surfboards - The Tornadoes (2:26)
Lonesome Town - Ricky Nelson (2:13)
Son Of A Preacher Man - Dusty Springfield (2:26)
Bullwinkle Part 2 - The Centurians (2:30)

Side 2
You Never Can Tell - Chuck Berry (3:12)
Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon - Urge Overkill (3:10)
If Love Is A Red Dress - Maria Mckee (4:57)
Comanche - The Revels (2:12)
Flowers On The Wall - Statler Brothers (2:23)
Personality Goes A Long Way (1:00)
Surf Rider - The Lively Ones (3:18)
Ezekiel 25 17(0:52)

The Sex Pistols front man John Lydon was joined by several big named musicians including Steve Vai, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Tony Williams and Ginger Baker to record Public Image Ltd fifth studio album which was released in February 1986. “Album” or “Cassette” or even “Compact Disc”, the album had many names depending on what format you bought it included the hit single “Rise” also known as “Single”.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. F.F.F. - 2011 Remaster
2.Rise - 2011 Remaster
3. Fishing - 2011 Remaster
4. Round - 2011 Remaster

Side 2
1. Bags - 2011 Remaster
2. Home - 2011Remaster
3. Ease

The double Grammy winning album “Breakfast In America” was released by Supertramp in March 1979 and featured the hit singles: "The Logical Song" , "Goodbye Stranger" , "Breakfast in America", and "Take the Long Way Home".

TRACK LISTING

Gone Hollywood
The Logical Song
Goodbye Stranger
Breakfast In America
Oh Darling
Take The Long Way Home
Lord Is It Mine
Just Another Nervous Wreck
Casual Conversations
Child Of Vision

The follow up to "Five Leaves Left" saw a departure from that albums' pastoralism to a more urban milieu, albeit a idealised romantic one depicted in "At The Chime Of A City Clock". Accordingly the music has a slightly more urgent feel with a greater use of drums and electric guitar. One thing it does share with its' predecessor is a stunning collection of songs, written, played and sung to perfection. A classic of its', or any other, genre.

TRACK LISTING

Introduction 1:33
Hazey Jane II 3:41
At The Chime Of A City Clock 4:42
One Of These Things First 4:46
Hazey Jane I 4:24
Bryter Layter 3:16
Fly 2:56
Poor Boy 6:30
Northern Sky 3:42
Sunday 3:39

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Random Coloured + Numbered

MTV Unplugged in New York was recorded live at Sony Music Studios in New York City on November 18, 1993. The show was directed by Beth McCarthy and first aired on the cable television network MTV on December 14, 1993. As opposed to traditional practice on the television series, Nirvana played a setlist composed of mainly lesser-known material and cover versions of songs by The Vaselines, David Bowie, Meat Puppets (during which they were joined by two members of the group onstage), and Leadbelly.

180g black vinyl.

TRACK LISTING

Side A
About A Girl
Come As You Are
Jesus Doesn’t Want Me For A Sunbeam
The Man Who Sold The World

Side B
Pennyroyal Tea
Dumb
Polly
On A Plain
Something In The Way

The title is a joking reference to the messianic anticipation that built up in the years between the Manchester, England rock band's 1989 debut - which Britain's New Musical Express magazine ranked as the greatest album of the 80s - and this 1995 follow-up. It's also a description of the Stone Roses' sound, a sort of second coming of 60s and 70s blues-rock, re-born with a funk beat. Back in '89 it sounded like a revolution, and it was: crossing Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan with club music, it helped set the template for all British alternative rock to follow, from Blur to the revamped U2.

"Second Coming" consolidates that sound with a see-sawing mix of hard-rock driving songs, with chunky electric guitar riffs and big beats, and acoustic anthems that immediately sound like they've been on the radio for a dozen years or more. The latter group includes "Ten Storey Love Song", a devotional ballad with a Dylan-esque melody, and "Your Star Will Shine", a psychedelic folk ditty that would have fit on an early Bee Gees album. "Good Times" is one of the big-beat numbers, and although it starts out sounding like a very blue Eric Burdon, it builds into a classic shouted-out blues-rock chorus, the kind on which FM radio thrived in the 1970s. "Tears" follows a Zeppelin-esque arc from acoustic to electric folk. Which, no doubt, is the exact route a lot of hard-rock devotees think any second coming should follow.

"A fascinating collection of mostly instrumental live and studio material recorded by the original Mothers of Invention, complete with horn section, from 1967-1969, Weasels Ripped My Flesh segues unpredictably between arty experimentation and traditional song structures. Highlights of the former category include the classical avant-garde elements of "Didja Get Any Onya," which blends odd rhythmic accents and time signatures with dissonance and wordless vocal noises; these pop up again in "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask" and "Toads of the Short Forest." The latter and "The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue" also show Frank Zappa's willingness to embrace the avant-garde jazz of the period. Yet, interspersed are straightforward tunes like a cover of Little Richard's "Directly From My Heart to You," with great violin from Don "Sugarcane" Harris; the stinging Zappa-sung rocker "My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama," and "Oh No," a familiar Broadway-esque Zappa melody (it turned up on Lumpy Gravy) fitted with lyrics and sung by Ray Collins. Thus, Weasels can make for difficult, incoherent listening, especially at first. But there is a certain logic behind the band's accomplished genre-bending and Zappa's gleefully abrupt veering between musical extremes; without pretension, Zappa blurs the normally sharp line between intellectual concept music and the visceral immediacy of rock and R&B. Zappa's anything-goes approach and the distance between his extremes are what make Weasels Ripped My Flesh ultimately invigorating; they also even make the closing title track -- a minute and a half of squalling feedback, followed by applause -- perfectly logical in the album's context." - All Music.

Although Nine Inch Nails mastermind Trent Reznor became the poster boy for industrial rock in the early 1990s, his '89 debut, "Pretty Hate Machine", actually has a stronger foothold in '80s synth-pop. The guitar-heavy opener, "Head Like a Hole," is the most aggressive track on the album and proved to be the signature song for Reznor's initial breakthrough, but much of the disc sounds like Depeche Mode in a particularly bad mood. All of the tracks on "Pretty Hate Machine" are based on synthesizer lines and programmed beats, with other elements - such as the distinctive bass on "Sanctified" and sampled explosions on "That's What I Get" - filling out the sound. Despite Reznor's morose lyrics, a number of  "Pretty Hate Machine"s finest moments are energetic dance tunes, particularly "Down in It" and the surging "Sin". Oddly enough, Reznor's fiercer - and seemingly less accessible - subsequent work (the "Broken" EP and "The Downward Spiral") led directly to his mainstream success, but "Pretty Hate Machine" reveals where the Nine Inch Nails aesthetic started out.

"Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)", Brian Eno's sophomore solo outing, is a grab bag of freaky, science-fiction-dipped confections. Filled with a battery of innovative, unsettling effects, the album is darker and more complex than "Here Come The Warm Jets". The artist shows an increasing willingness to experiment with texture, as on "The Great Pretender," whose whirling, oozing keyboard line and synthesized vocals approximate delirium tremens or a hatching hive of maggots, or on "Put A Straw Under Baby," which features the Portsmouth Sinfonia, whose members have no knowledge of their instruments.

Yet Eno's grasp of melody and songcraft is everywhere: on the bouncing, absurdist / philosophical "Burning Airlines (Give You So Much More)," and on straight-out rockers, like the deliciously intense "Third Uncle" (which is propelled by the churning guitar of Roxy Music's Phil Manzenera, and is, arguably, the album's highlight). Concurrent with David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane"-era alien aesthetic, Eno's tunes are even more otherwordly and warped than his glam cohort, making use of the full palette of bizarro synthesizer effects and creepy-cheeky postures. The songs, however, are as inventive and appealing as their treatments, and make for Eno's most solid - and experimental - pop album. "Taking Tiger Mountain" holds up magnificently, even years on in the artist's brilliant career.

Acclaimed 1975 album that represents a major turning point in Eno's career, entering the studio with nothing prepared and using 'Oblique Strategies' instructional cards for inspiration. It was here that Eno first began to experiment with abstract soundscapes, to employ a greater spatial element and the ethereal synthesizer effects that presaged an entire movement of ambient music. While most of the tracks are instrumental, the numbers that feature Eno's peculiar, affectless voice and free-associative lyrics seem to blend into the fabric of the album. Superior guest musicians include John Cale, Robert Fripp and Phil Collins. From the brain-bending riff of "Sky-Saw", through the elemental creeping of "Sombre Reptiles", from Robert Fripp's looping solos in "St. Elmo's Fire" to the dark swirl of "Spirits Drifting", "Another Green World" creates a superb series of sonic atmospheres that are rhythmic, expansive, strange and beautiful.