By all means a phenomenal pop album that hit number nine on the black albums chart and crossed over to penetrate the pop charts at number 32, Nightclubbing saw Grace Jones working once again with Sly Dunbar, Robbie Shakespeare, and the remainder of the Compass Point team. Nightclubbing also continues Jones' tradition of picking excellent songs to reinterpret. This time out, the Police's "Demolition Man," Bill Withers' "Use Me," and Iggy Pop's "Nightclubbing" receive radical reinterpretations; "Nightclubbing" is glacial in both tempo and lack of warmth, while both "Use Me" and "Demolition Man" fit perfectly into Jones' lyrical scheme. Speaking of a lyrical scheme, "Pull Up to the Bumper" (number five black singles, number two club play) is so riddled with naughty double entendres – or is it just about parallel parking? – that it renders Musique's "In the Bush" as daring as Paul Anka's "Puppy Love." Drive it in between what, Grace? It's not just lyrics that make the song stick out; jingling spirals of rhythm guitar and a simplistic, squelching, mid-tempo rhythm make the song effective, even without considering Jones' presence.

Nick the Knife is one of master songwriter, producer and performer Nick Lowe's most underrated albums, and these demos and rarities give insight into his recording process at the time. The demo version of "Heart" shows its reggae-influenced guitar work that separates it from Rockpile's version, and the demo of "Raining Raining" exhibits Nick's vocal range that makes it sound like a long-lost soulful classic. Also included is the rarity "I Got a Job," a funny but rocking number that gets Nick laughing.

After a pair of solo efforts that veered from eccentric yet inspired (Monkey Grip) to eccentric and uninspired (Stone Alone), Bill Wyman (The Rolling Stones) perfected his blend of rock & roll and oddball humor into one solid album on 1982's Bill Wyman. Instead of utilizing the all-star group of backup musicians that dominated his previous solo outings, Bill Wyman found the veteran rocker handling much of the instrumentation himself, with only a rhythm section and a few guest stars pitching in. The result is a crisp, consistent sound that mixes the electronic edge of new wave with good, old-fashioned rock & roll production values…

This isn't a perfect roundup of ZZ Top's superstar years of the '80s, but it comes pretty close. It dips back into the '70s for "Pearl Necklace" and "La Grange," with a couple of selections from the post-peak '90s, but this does offer the MTV-era basics: "Gimme All Your Lovin'," "Sharp Dressed Man," "Rough Boy," "Tush," "My Head's in Mississippi," "Doubleback," "Cheap Sunglasses," "Sleeping Bag." What slows this record down are some new cuts and album tracks that don't deserve to be here, along with a remix, not the original version, of "Legs." Still, that may just be quibbling for some listeners, since the basics are all here, making this a good complement to the '70s-focused The Best of ZZ Top.

Encore: Live In Concert is a 1974 live album by Argent. It was a chance to hear Rod Argent do his current hit song "Hold Your Head Up", then take a throwback with The Zombies and "Time Of The Season". This is a 1999 remaster released by Collectables/Sony Music.

Margo Price returns and she can do no wrong in Rough Trade shops eyes. “Everybody wants to know / how I feel and what I think,” Margo Price sings in her emotive, bittersweet twang, halfway through her third full-length record. On That’s How Rumors Get Started, Price has committed her genre-bending rock-and-roll show to record for the first time, stretching out into sky-high soft-rock, burning psychedelic rock ballads, stomping road songs, and sprinkles of pop.

Matthew Robert "Matt" Fink, better known by the stage name Doctor Fink, is an American keyboardist, record producer, and songwriter. He is best known as a member of The Revolution, the backing band for pop musician Prince. Fink won a Grammy Award in 1985 for the album Purple Rain. The recording has sold over 18 million copies since its release.

TRICKSTER was founded in Birmingham, UK around 1976 by singer Phil Bates who previously played in Kwil and other local acts (He would release the terrific album 'Power' with the band Atlantic in the '90s). Trickster was signed by Jet Records, the same of ELO, so it isn't strange that after the debut album in 1978 Trickster toured Europe supporting them.

To open this oddball supergroup's debut, Paul Simonon hints at "Guns of Brixton," and when Tony Allen's flex rhythms come in, there's a shadow of Fela Kuti, too. Then Damon Albarn's slow grit of a voice enters–framed by Simon Tong's flecked guitar. And collectively, The Good, the Bad, & the Queen is quickly sui generis, adamantly different than anything you think you've heard. A band with this much power has at least two options: to cut loose raucously or to mute their overt power for a more covert, dub-inflected atmospheric potency. Smartly, Albarn and his crew opt for the half-light of elastic bass lines, the clouds between the parentheses of drums–the covert. It's not until "Kingdom of Doom," the erstwhile 'single' of the album, that motion expands beyond the languorous. And even then, Tony Allen largely sits out. You get the full flush of Simonon and Allen on "Three Changes" shuffling time even while holding the tempo to a dubbish gait. It's not Blur, the Clash, Fela, the Verve, or Gorillaz. It's more than just names on albums.

Kristoffer "Kris" Kristofferson is an American country music singer, songwriter, musician, and film actor. He is known for such hits as "Me and Bobby McGee", "For the Good Times", "Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down", and "Help Me Make It Through the Night". Kristofferson is the sole writer of most of his songs, and he has collaborated with various other figures of the Nashville scene such as Shel Silverstein. In 1985, Kristofferson joined fellow country artists Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cash in forming the country music supergroup "The Highwaymen". In 2004, Kristofferson was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Collection includes: Kristofferson (1970); Me & Bobby McGee (1971); The Silver Tongued Devil And I (1971); Border Lord (1972); Jesus Was A Capricorn (1972); Breakaway (1974) with Rita Coolidge; A Star Is Born (1976) with Barbra Streisand; Natural Act (1978) with Rita Coolidge; A Moment of Forever (1995); The Austin Sessions (1999); The Essential Kris Kristofferson (2004) 2CD; This Old Road (2006); Closer To The Bone (2009); Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends: The Publishing Demos 1968-72 (2010); Feeling Mortal (2012).

Eddi Reader has proven her worth as a sublime singer of pop and folk material (and beyond), but this returns her full-bore to her Scottish roots. Born from the concerts she did at the 2002 Celtic Connections festival, it's a decidedly lush performance that hauls in several well-known Celtic names like Phil Cunningham, John McCusker, and Ian Carr to help her along. But it's Reader's rendition of Robert Burns' classics that's the key here. She picked familiar material, songs that have become part of the folk continuum that can be both a blessing and a curse. But she reinvents something like "My Love Is Like a Red Red Rose," investing it with rich emotion. She positively flies on the more romantic songs, such as "Ae Fond Kiss," but she brings a surprising depth to "Charlie Is My Darling" and the chestnut "Auld Lang Syne," and "Ye Jacobites" sizzles with tension. The arrangements go for the cinematic rather than the intimate, putting them on the dangerous edge of new age. But such is the quality of everyone involved that there's no danger of teetering over and it becomes a tour de force. It is one of the highlights of Reader's splendid career, and even "Wild Mountainside," decidedly not a Burns song, fits in perfectly.

Rock group that was started in Seattle, in 1967, as "The Army" by bassist Steve Fossen, along with Roger Fisher on guitar, Don Wilhelm on guitar, keyboards and lead vocals, and Ray Schaefer on drums…

Footsteps 2 is Chris de Burgh's nineteenth original album. Footsteps 2 follows the concept that captured the public’s imagination with Footsteps. The album has a couple of new songs, as well as his interpretations of some classic tunes, which include Steve Winwood’s "While You See a Chance", Roy Orbison’s "Blue Bayou", Mike & The Mechanics "The Living Years", Abba’s "SOS", and East German band Karat's "Über sieben Brücken", as "Seven Bridges" with English lyrics by de Burgh. As de Burgh said upon releasing Footsteps, “Listening to the great songwriters was the inspiration for me to try and become a good songwriter myself,” he says. “I’m talking about the likes of Lennon & McCartney and Bob Dylan; people as good as that just don’t seem to exist any more. I learned my trade, my craft, almost at the feet of the Great Masters. And that is my musical journey. Those songs are my footsteps.”

Roxette were a Swedish pop rock duo, consisting of Marie Fredriksson (vocals and keyboards) and Per Gessle (vocals and guitar). Formed in 1986, the duo became an international act in the late 1980s, when they released their breakthrough second album Look Sharp!