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Moving In Stereo: The Best Of The Cars (Album of the Day)
Monday, June 20, 2016
Emerging from Boston in the late 1970s, The Cars quickly became one of America's leading exponents of New Wave, with such Top Ten hits as "Shake It Up," "You Might Think," "Drive" and "Tonight She Comes." All of those and 14 more tracks can be heard on MOVING IN STEREO: THE BEST OF THE CARS, which was compiled by the band members and arrived in stores last month. Along with familiar favorites, the set incorporates a few bonuses, including a rare single of "I'm Not The One," a live version of "Everything You Say," and a new mix of "Sad Song," from the group's 2011 album, MOVE LIKE THIS. Brilliantly remastered (under Ric Ocasek's supervision), MOVING IN STEREO is a terrific road map of The Cars' musical journey.
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Come Upstairs (Album of the Day)
Thursday, June 16, 2016
Carly Simon was one of the defining artists of the singer-songwriter era, but hardly one to let her past hits define her; for tenth album COME UPSTAIRS, the performer headed to New York's Power Station Studios … and added a bit of power to her sound. Released on this day in 1980, the Warner Bros. set features energetic arrangements that fit right in with the power pop and New Wave then filling the airwaves, but the synthesizers and electric guitars never get in the way of Carly's insightful lyrics. If the romantic entanglements here are as complicated as ever (“James” acknowledges her troubled marriage to James Taylor), Simon can also kick up her heels on the title track, and turn out songs that will have everybody singing (“Jesse” reached #11 and spent months on the singles chart). While COME UPSTAIRS was a stylistic departure for Carly Simon, it was also a successful one and very much ripe for rediscovery.
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X&Y (Album of the Day)
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
The multi-platinum success of A RUSH OF BLOOD TO THE HEAD upped the ante for Coldplay, and the British quartet spent more than a year in the studio recording their follow-up, X&Y. Actually they recorded and rerecorded it; initial sessions with longtime producer Ken Nelson fell by the wayside as the band workshopped dozens of new songs, pulling in Danton Supple (who mixed their preceding album) to add final polish to the 13 tracks here. With such originals as “Speed Of Sound,” “Fix You” and “The Hardest Part,” Coldplay show they can still deliver sweeping anthems, while the dense production and some nifty experimental touches (like the repurposing of a Kraftwerk riff in “Talk”) show the band is unwilling to rest on its laurels. X&Y sat atop both the U.S. and U.K. charts on this day in 2005, and if success has become commonplace for Chris Martin and company, this remains an album of uncommon quality.
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In A Gadda Da Vida (Album of the Day)
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
It's said if you remember the '60s, you weren't there. And if you weren't there, the notion of listeners being mesmerized by a 17-minute song may seem strange – but strange was the name of the game when IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA was released on this day in 1968. Iron Butterfly's second album featured five fine originals on its first side ranging from Summer-of-Love pop to proto-metal … and the ultimate acid rock.trip on the flip side, powered by Doug Ingle's organ riff and ominous vocals (and one of the all-time great drum solos from Ron Bushy). The gloriously excessive IN-A-GADDA-DA-VIDA is an album that defines “psychedelic” from first note to last, and was one of the era's biggest hits; the San Diego quartet's magnum opus went on to sell more than 4 million copies, earning the first-ever R.I.A.A. platinum sales certification.
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Clyde McPhatter & The Drifters (Album of the Day)
Monday, June 13, 2016
While The Drifters are perhaps best remembered for the string of Brill Building-penned pop hits they cut in the early 1960s, the group owes their place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame just as much to the seminal sides they recorded with Clyde McPhatter in the preceding decade. The band was actually built around the talented singer, waxing such R&B s classics as “Money Honey,” “Such A Night” and “White Christmas” - all of which can be heard on CLYDE MCPHATTER & THE DRIFTERS. The 1956 Atlantic album, as was the custom of the day, was actually a compilation of singles, and as such plays like a greatest hits set, moving from strength to strength. A highly influential vocalist (who was also inducted into the Hall of Fame as a solo act), McPhatter passed away on this day in 1972, and CLYDE MCPHATTER & THE DRIFTERS is a tribute both to him and to the glories of the early rock era.
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Beaches: Original Soundtrack Recording (Album of the Day)
Friday, June 10, 2016
Bette Midler has combined careers as a singer and an actress for decades, never more successfully than in Beaches. A three-hanky tearjerker, the film features Midler as vocalist C.C. Bloom and Barbara Hershey as her lifelong friend Hillary. It's a set-up that allows Bette plenty of opportunities to break into song, and as the film follows her character's circuitous rise from obscure club performer to headliner, the Beaches soundtrack includes jazz (“I've Still Got My Health”), experimental ("Oh Industry"), country ("I Know You By Heart") and rock ("I Think It's Going to Rain Today") material. But by far the most famous track on the album is "Wind Beneath My Wings," a song that had been recorded by several performers before Midler cut the definitive version here. "Wind Beneath My Wings" topped the U.S. singles chart on this day in 1989 and went on to win Grammys for Record and Song of the Year, driving the Beaches soundtrack to triple-platinum status (it remains Bette Midler's all-time top seller).
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Detour (Album of the Day)
Thursday, June 9, 2016
Cyndi Lauper's celebrated musical journey takes an unexpected southern turn on DETOUR - the new Sire album finds the singer-songwriter putting her signature spin on a dozen country classics. It's not the stretch you might think; as she puts it: "When I was a really young kid, country music was pop music, so this is what we grew up listening to. These songs are part of some of my earliest memories." The material (made famous by such greats as Wanda Jackson, Patsy Cline and George Jones) fits Lauper like a glove, underlining both her fine voice and her sense of fun. Recorded in Nashville alongside a band comprised of the city's top session players, DETOUR also features guest appearances from county music stars Vince Gill, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss and Willie Nelson.
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Shadow Dancing (Album of the Day)
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
If Andy Gibb was too young to join his siblings in the Bee Gees, that didn't stop him from topping the charts - on this day in 1978, he scored his third No.1 U.S. hit with his third single, “Shadow Dancing” – an unprecedented feat. That song became the title track of the singer-songwriter's second album, which like its predecessor, benefits from the helping hands of his older brothers. Given that pedigree, it's no surprise that SHADOW DANCING is first class pop-rock with a disco beat, and both "An Everlasting Love" and "(Our Love) Don't Throw It All Away" were Top 10 hits, pushing the album to platinum sales status. But Andy wasn't merely riding the Bee Gees' wave of popularity; he wrote 6 of the 10 songs himself, and his lead vocal work here is superb. While Gibb's career was brief (he would release just one more album before his death at age 30) SHADOW DANCING displays a talent that still shines brightly.
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Stars [Expanded] (Album of the Day)
Wednesday, June 8, 2016
Cut in Venice, Italy with producer Stewart Levine, STARS shows Simply Red moving confidently into the 1990s with one of its best-ever albums. Britain's top blue-eyed soul band connects with ten strong originals including “Something Got Me Started,” “Your Mirror” and the title track – all singles in the band's native England, driving the collection to multi-platinum status (it remains one of the best-selling albums of all time in the U.K.). The Expanded Edition of STARS features nine bonus tracks including live recordings and some surprisingly effective Robert Johnson covers. In honor of Simply Red frontman Mick Hucknall's birthday, we'll give this outstanding album another spin today.
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Manifest Destiny (US Release) (Album of the Day)
Tuesday, June 7, 2016
After The Dictators went girl crazy, they went to Elektra Records to release their second studio set, MANIFEST DESTINY. Cut in a more mainstream arena rock direction, this almost sounds like a different band – but a damn good one to be sure. Blue Oyster Cult producers Sandy Pearlman and Murray Krugman steer the sextet through eight punchy Andy Shernoff originals (and an ace cover of The Stooges “Search And Destroy”) including “Science Has Gone Too Far” and “Disease” (whose spoken intro by frontman "Handsome" Dick Manitoba is nothing less than genius). Bassist Mark “The Animal” Mendoza went on to join Twisted Sister, and this album features similarly intense New York hard rock leavened with a sly sense of humor. The Dictators' most commercially successful release, MANIFEST DESTINY shows one of the late-1970s most underrated bands firing on all cylinders.
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