This 1975 album was the first solo outing for David Byron, the lead singer for Uriah Heep. It isn't a big surprise that a good portion of the album sounds a lot like the group that gave him his day job: sturdy organ-driven hard-rockers like "Silver White Man" and "Hit Me With a White One" would not be out of place on a typical Uriah Heep album from this period. The fact that every then-current member of Uriah Heep makes at least one appearance on this record further aids this déjà vu feeling.

In the spring of 1966, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears represented a genuinely new sound, as fresh to listeners as the songs on Meet the Beatles had seemed two years earlier. Released just as "California Dreaming" was ascending the charts by leaps and bounds, it was the product of months of rehearsal in the Virgin Islands and John Phillips' discovery of what one could do to build a polished recorded sound in the studio – it embraced folk-rock, pop/rock, pop, and soul, and also reflected the kind of care that acts like the Beatles were putting into their records at the time. "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'" are familiar enough to anyone who's ever listened to the radio, and "Go Where You Wanna Go" isn't far behind, in this version or the very similar rendition by the Fifth Dimension.

Silva Screen Records present earlier composers who were masters of music on Hitchcock films, and later films with Bernard Herrmann on the second CD. The "CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA" is Miklos Rozsa's haunting theme which lasts over nine minutes is something from heaven. "STRANGERS ON THE TRAIN" the Dimitri Tiomkin contribution is also an outstanding track which can move the unmoveable with the heart-racing pounding sounds that the two composers generate. Both composers Rozsa and Tiomkin have a list of accomplishments a mile long, but to hear their music on a Hitchcock film is pure geneious in film making and scoring.

This compilation is a perfect work/study/contemplation CD, when you want to reduce the hum and din of modern life. It's wonderfully played, and has 23 tracks for a total of 72:45 minutes of melodic, serene music. The famous Adagio in G minor, so often heard in films, etc., is here given a lovely rendition. Played a little faster than most other versions, with the individual instruments (especially the harpsichord) being heard clearly. It's not as lush and smooth as some recordings, but crisper, and to my ears, absolutely delightful. It's hard to pick favorites among the other selections…each piece is a baroque beauty that flows well from one track to the next. I'm sure this CD will please most people who like 18th century music.

The bounciness of the Pale Fountains went penalized in the days of Echo and the Bunnymen and the Smiths. “Optimism—yuck.” Michael Head’s stylistic hopscotch and wide-eyed sunnyness might have translated better in the late ’90s, had he stuck with that program for his later band, Shack. If the band had set their sights on one or two areas of their record collections for inspiration instead of darn near everything, Pacific Street might not have been so out of place when it was released.

This album was originally released in 1969 as "First Winter". When Johnny Winter emerged on the national scene in 1969, the hope, particularly in the record business, was that he would become a superstar on the scale of Jimi Hendrix, another blues-based rock guitarist and singer who preceded him by a few years. That never quite happened, but Winter did survive the high expectations of his early admirers to become a mature, respected blues musician with a strong sense of tradition. In 1988, he was inducted into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame and in 2003, he was ranked 63rd in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".

The audio companion to David Toop's excellent book advances the case he made, that Les Baxter, Aphex Twin, The Beach Boys, Herbie Hancock, King Tubby and My Bloody Valentine are all related by their effect on sound pioneering. A double-disc set, Ocean of Sound impresses not only with its incredible diversity of musical styles, but with how easily these artists work next to each other. The second disc includes consecutive contributions by Paul Schütze, the Velvet Undergound, Holger Czukay of Can, The Beach Boys, African Headcharge and Sun Ra. Besides illustrating Toop's point beautifully, the album is an excellent addition to the collection of any wide-ranging ambient fan.

Island's single-disc Sandy Denny compilation does its best to offer a compact overview of the iconic singer's work. Focusing on the four records completed before her death in 1978, the 17-track Listen Listen winds comfortably through career highlights like "The North Star Grassman and the Raven," "Blackwaterside," and the gorgeous title track. Fans will contest the omission of tracks like "Carnival" and "It Suits Me Well," but for such a slim collection – considering Denny's invaluable work with Fairport Convention, Fotheringay, and the Strawbs – Listen Listen is a fine introduction to the artist's later days.

The Mamas & the Papas' second album was made while the group was still riding high from the chart success of their first album, If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears, and the two singles, "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'," that made them icons of the young pop generation. At the same time, their personal lives were so messy that Michelle Phillips got bounced out of their ranks for a few months. Only the good vibes made it on the record, though, as the same creative team sought to recapture the beautiful harmonies and jangling, sometimes moody folk-rock that made their debut sound so good.

The 2013 mini-box Original Album Classics rounds up the early-2000s expansions of Texas Flood, Couldn't Stand the Weather, and Soul to Soul at an affordable price point. It's arguable that SRV's best work came a bit later (In Step often seems like his best), but all three of these showcase the guitarist at his best and this package is a good bargain.