The pressure was on Kiss for their fifth release, and the band knew it. Their breakthrough, Alive!, was going to be hard to top, so instead of trying to recreate a concert setting in the studio, they went the opposite route. Destroyer is one of Kiss' most experimental studio albums, but also one of their strongest and most interesting. Alice Cooper/Pink Floyd producer Bob Ezrin was on hand, and he strongly encouraged the band to experiment – there's extensive use of sound effects (the album's untitled closing track), the appearance of a boy's choir ("Great Expectations"), and an orchestra-laden, heartfelt ballad ("Beth").

Peter Hammill has always had an abiding interest, it seems, in the blurred boundary between the mystical and the scientific, and between the rational and magical mind; this is certainly evident on the debut Van Der Graaf Generator album, even though Hammill had yet to really begin focusing himself on what it was that was driving him (despite the fact that the band's very name referenced a device that resembles a bastard mix of scientific apparatus and shamanic totem)…

"I'm not Bob Dylan, but I never miss a beat" sings Nils Lofgren on 1977's I Came to Dance, a very polished collection of nine songs produced by the guitar virtuoso and drummer Andy Newmark…

After the breakup, Beatles fans expected major statements from the three chief songwriters in the Fab Four. John and George fulfilled those expectations – Lennon with his lacerating, confessional John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Harrison with his triple-LP All Things Must Pass – but Paul McCartney certainly didn't, turning toward the modest charms of McCartney, and then crediting his wife Linda as a full-fledged collaborator on its 1971 follow-up, Ram…

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Band of Gypsys was the only live recording authorized by Jimi Hendrix before his death. It was recorded and released in order to get Hendrix out from under a contractual obligation that had been hanging over his head for a couple years…

Word Salad is a 1979 debut album by Fischer-Z. John Watts and Steve Skolnik formed the band in 1976 whilst at Brunel University. John Watts had been travelling up and down the country playing the club circuit. Fischer-Z was playing a crossover of the new wave, punk and reggae genres. In 1978, the band secured a record deal with United Artists, alongside the Buzzcocks, The Stranglers and Dr. Feelgood. Fischer-Z are a British rock group and main creative project of singer, guitarist and poet John Watts. In 1982 Watts temporarily dissolved Fischer-Z and started a solo career under his own name. John Watts has gone on to release both solo and Fischer-Z projects.

At one level, one would have to be a collector, an Anglophile, or a 1960s pop culture enthusiast to consider this 14-CD set a good deal. In the U.K., the EP ("extended play" single), which contains more tracks than an ordinary single and fewer than an album, has always been a far more popular format than it is in the U.S. During their heyday, the Beatles regularly released EPs in Great Britain, a total of 13 of them, in fact, between June 1963 and December of 1967, and they're all assembled in this box, complete with original art and sleeves in miniature…

On their first two albums, Led Zeppelin unleashed a relentless barrage of heavy blues and rockabilly riffs, but Led Zeppelin III provided the band with the necessary room to grow musically. While there are still a handful of metallic rockers, III is built on a folky, acoustic foundation that gives the music extra depth…

"Quo Live" (2CD) - 27th - 29th October 1976 Apollo Theatre, Glasgow + "Tokyo Quo" - 17th November 1976 Sunplaza Hall, Tokyo, Japan + "Ausrtalia `74" - 29th November 1974 Hordern Pavilion Sydney.

Iron Duke is a Danish 1970's symphonic rock band. The 1974 debut album First Salvo line up was: Tommy Hansen, Jens Olesen, Hans Resen and Claus Sarup. The music of Iron Duke is keyboard oriented from the 70's and like ELP, they re-arrange classical songs with their first album in 1974. The second album was released in 1977 and contains rock versions of Danish songs. The song "Rockin Edward" adapted from "Per Gynt suite" and from the first album is probably the best one. They recorded a song for the benefit EP Greenpeace Sange Med in 1983.

The incandescent talent of David Ruffin was too big for even the Temptations to hold. As Smokey Robinson observed, The only way David could survive at Motown was as a solo artist. And so Ruffin left the Temptations in 1969 to strike out on his own with a series of releases that further established him as one of Motown s great voices. These two records, released in 1973 and 1974, respectively, did not spawn any hit singles but instead reflected Ruffin s growth as an artist away from the Motown formula and towards a life spent in the fast lane. David Ruffin, produced by Bobby Miller, whose writing credit appears on eight out of the 10 tracks, is a psychedelic soul masterpiece, and features the definitive version of Gamble and Huff s I Miss You (Part 1). Me N Rock N Roll Are Here to Stay, meanwhile, marked the fiery collision of Ruffin with the brilliant producer Norman Whitfield, with the creative sparks to prove it. Both records appear here on CD for the first time outside of a long out of print, limited edition set, with notes by Gene Sculatti.

Gazeuse! was the first in a successful line of strictly jazz-rock sessions for percussionist Pierre Moerlen and company – compositions that stressed jazz more than rock and which generally strayed away from lyrical content. This 1976 recording, also released under the title Expresso, was the band's first completely instrumental album, a companion piece to the later, somewhat warmer Expresso II, which is quite similar in sound and structure…

Ian Gillan was one of the foremost vocalists of the heavy metal style of rock that emerged in the 1970s, earning his greatest renown as a member of Deep Purple, though he also led bands named after himself…

Punk rock's poet laureate Patti Smith ranks among the most influential female rock & rollers of all time. Ambitious, unconventional, and challenging, Smith's music was hailed as the most exciting fusion of rock and poetry since Bob Dylan's heyday…