The double-disc compilation The Essential Julio Iglesias contains 37 of the crooner’s biggest hits of the '80s and beyond, slightly favoring his Spanish-language smashes but also containing several English-language crossovers, including duets with All-4-One, Sting, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, and Frank Sinatra. The only major item missing is the Willie Nelson duet “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before” (the song is present in a solo Spanish version), but everything else here is solid.

There are few rivals to match the dizzying ambition of Hyperon’s Romantic Piano Concerto series—in fact, few rivals in classical recording’s entire history. The ambition—to unearth, record and present the great romantic piano concertos of yesteryear—was vast, almost gothic in scale. The series runs to 235 works, 185 of them classified as piano concertos. For dedication, contributions to scholarship and enterprise it breaks all bounds.

Chicago-born, Singer/Songwriter/Musician and Record Producer who’s music has earned an Academy Award and 8 Grammy Awards as well as, multiple Dove, Stellar & ASCAP Awards.

Plasmatics were a groundbreaking American punk rock and heavy metal band known for chaotic live shows and provocative performances.

Legendary lost masterpiece of late '60s acid folk/baroque psychedelia, the unreleased 1969 album by Chimera - featuring future Fleetwood Mac guitarist Bob Weston - was partly produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason who, like Rick Wright, makes a cameo appearance. First released a few years ago in vinyl-only format, this first-ever CD issue adds an extra eight pre-album demos to provide the definitive Chimera anthology. 12-page booklet with lots of photos and the full story behind the band's astonishing adventures in Swinging London.

Despite being a rather inconsistent act, the Eagles were one of the most successful rock bands of the '70s. Made up of five fine musicians (each with unquestionably superb vocal talent), the band blended impressive but often simple music with melodious vocal harmonies. This 1994 release attempts to collect the best tracks from the Eagles' catalog. While it does succeed in compiling many of the finer songs, the need for certain tracks is questionable. On the whole, however, The Very Best Of retains the Eagles magic that typified their finer moments. For those unfamiliar with the Eagles' music, this release will open eyes as to why the band is so revered. The album goes from strength to strength and only takes a small drop in quality in various places. Being slightly overlong at 71 minutes, this is as complete a best-of as one will find, but includes a few unnecessary tracks.

A posthumous collection produced by Rita Marley, based on work left behind by Bob upon his death. Some of his best post-Wailers work is here, with songs like "Buffalo Soldier," "Chant Down Babylon," and "Blackman Redemption." Given that he wasn't alive to do the production that he usually helped in, this album seems remarkably true to the general vision of Bob Marley's albums. Other somewhat lesser-known tracks also help to fill in all of the cracks with some remarkable material. Case in point: "Jump Nyabinghi," a nice danceable groove with perhaps less of the usual politics mixed in, but with just as much musicality. Overall, any Bob Marley fan ought to own this album. For the uninitiated, Legend is always the starting point, but, after that, this may not be such a bad choice for additions to the collection.

While its unpretentious cover photo and small text don't proclaim it as an important recording, Noriko Ogawa's 2012 SACD of Mozart piano sonatas is the kind of sleeper album that quietly asserts its value and convinces purely through the beauty of the music. The three piano sonatas presented here also have that kind of unassuming quality. Mozart composed them as teaching pieces, suitable for players of modest skills, yet they have become extremely popular and rank among his best loved works. Ogawa plays them with a light touch that suits their simplicity, and her interpretations of K. 330, K. 331 (famous for its Rondo alla Turca), and K. 332 are transparent and almost naïve, but for the subtlety of attack, balanced phrasing, and shaded dynamics that reveal her artistry. BIS provides nearly ideal sound quality for Ogawa, offering clean reproduction and reasonably close microphone placement that make listening effortless.

In 1998, Columbia reissued a bunch of CDs by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, often adding one or two previously unissued selections to the sets. Buried Treasures: Recorded Live in Mexico City, however, is something different, for none of the music had been out before. Recorded live in 1967 during a tour of Mexico that also resulted in the album Bravo! Brubeck!, the set features the classic Brubeck Quartet (with altoist Paul Desmond, bassist Eugene Wright and drummer Joe Morello) performing seven selections they had previously recorded, which was probably why this particular music stayed in the vaults for decades. The quality is certainly quite high, with Brubeck and Desmond really digging into such songs as "Koto Song" (coming up with some inspired ideas over its vamp), "You Go to My Head," a lengthy "St. Louis Blues," and a fairly concise version of "Take Five," one of the few versions by Brubeck of the hit song that does not have a drum solo. Suffice to say, Dave Brubeck fans only need to be notified of two things: they do not already own this music, and the Quartet is heard throughout in prime form. Recommended.

Altoist/arranger Benny Carter's classic Further Definitions is a revisiting, instrumentation-wise, to the famous 1937 session that Carter and tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins made in France with two top European saxophonists (Andre Ekyan and Alix Combelle) and guitarist Django Reinhardt. The all-star group (which also includes Hawkins, altoist Phil Woods, Charlie Rouse on second tenor, pianist Dick Katz, guitarist John Collins, bassist Jimmy Garrison, and drummer Jo Jones) performs a particularly inspired repertoire. Carter's charts, which allow Hawkins to stretch out on "Body and Soul," give everyone a chance to shine. "Honeysuckle Rose" and "Crazy Rhythm" hold their own with the 1937 versions, and "Blue Star" and "Doozy" prove to be two of Carter's finest originals. Although Benny Carter was not actively playing much at the time (this was his only small-group recording during 1963-1975), he is heard in typically prime form. Very highly recommended.

Easily one of the most important heavy metal albums ever released, Stained Class marks the peak of Judas Priest's influence, setting the sonic template for the New Wave of British Heavy Metal more than any other single recording. This is the point where Priest put it all together, embracing their identity as the heaviest band on the planet and taking the genre to new heights of power, speed, musicality, and malevolence. Not until Painkiller would the band again be this single-minded in its focus on pure heavy metal. Their blues-rock roots have been virtually obliterated; largely gone, too, are the softer textures and gothic ballads of albums past. The lone exception is the morbid masterpiece "Beyond the Realms of Death," on which the band finally finds a way to integrate the depressive balladry of songs like "Epitaph" and "Last Rose of Summer" into their metal side…

Vintage concert recording from the original Blues Brothers, Junior Wells & Buddy Guy! Recorded live at Biddy Mulligan's in Chicago, IL the city where both Wells and Guy became local heroes before becoming national legends! Ripping, soulful performances of "Dust My Broom," "You've Got To Love Her With A Feeling," and "Crosscut Saw" plus an unreleased live bonus track from 1970!

Ali Farka Touré is well known as one of the most influential and talented guitarists that Africa has ever produced. His legacy and impact are hard to overstate: Ali’s sound merged his much-loved traditional Malian musical styles with distinct elements of the blues, resulting in the creation of a groundbreaking new genre, now well known as the ‘desert blues’, earning him 3 Grammy awards and widespread reverence. 'Voyageur' is the first release of previously unheard music since 2006’s 'Savane', and features a collection of recordings captured at various points in Ali’s illustrious career. The album, which features fellow Malian superstar Oumou Sangaré on 3 tracks, reaffirms Ali’s status as a globally revered legend of African music.