The Chicago Transit Authority recorded this double-barreled follow-up to their eponymously titled 1969 debut effort. The contents of Chicago II (1970) underscore the solid foundation of complex jazz changes with heavy electric rock & roll that the band so brazenly forged on the first set. The septet also continued its ability to blend the seemingly divergent musical styles into some of the best and most effective pop music of the era. One thing that had changed was the band's name, which was shortened to simply Chicago to avoid any potential litigious situations from the city of Chicago's transportation department – which claimed the name as proprietary property. Musically, James Pankow (trombone) was about to further cross-pollinate the band's sound with the multifaceted six-song "Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon." The classically inspired suite also garnered the band two of its most beloved hits – the upbeat pop opener "Make Me Smile" as well as the achingly poignant "Color My World" – both of which remained at the center of the group's live sets.

This CD was given away free with the British national newspaper, The Mail On Sunday. Companies/organisations mentioned on CD & sleeve: "Upfront", "Reprise Records", "Respect The Value Of Music". All tracks are taken from the Bee Gees live albums "One Night Only" & "Here At Last".

Bonnie Tyler returned in the mid-1990s after a long hiatus with Free Spirit, her first U.S. release in years, although foreign releases have kept her somewhat in the European spotlight. Her throaty voice sounded as raspy and smoky as ever, (reminiscent of Kim Carnes or a female Rod Stewart), which is what made Bonnie Tyler so unique. Several songs on this album rate about average, but there are several shining moments which should have brought this set, from such an engaging singer, much more attention than the minimal it received. To begin with, her rendition of "Making Love out of Nothing at All," the early-1980s Air Supply hit, is fantastic, clocking in at nearly eight minutes, and seems perfectly suited for her voice.

Richard Marx's Greatest Hits performs a valuable service for his fans, collecting all of his hit singles – "Don't Mean Nothing," "Should've Known Better," "Endless Summer Nights," "Hold on to the Nights," "Satisfied," "Right Here Waiting," "Angela," "Children of the Night," "Keep Coming Back," "Hazard," "Take This Heart," "Now and Forever" – on one disc. For both the casual and the longtime fan, this is a blessing, since Marx's albums were usually uneven, featuring a few strong cuts surrounded by filler. Greatest Hits cuts away the chaff, leaving behind on the best cuts, resulting in an ideal career summary of this popular MOR pop/rocker.

Fans of live material will thoroughly enjoy this handpicked hit-and-miss 18-track compilation of REO Speedwagon's hits recorded during the band's mid- to late-'80s tours. Most of the songs work well in a live environment, with songs like "Tough Guys," "I Do' Wanna Know," and "Keep the Fire Burning" coming out on top, harnessing the most energy while keeping with their original form. Only six of the tracks are from the studio, with "Shakin' It Loose" being the most spirited, as the others are mediocre REO efforts ("L.I.A.R," "Live Every Moment," "Love Is a Rock"). As a hits package, though, The Second Decade of Rock and Roll should be spared, especially since their best song, "Keep on Loving You," has been replaced by a poorly ventured reggae version that sounds silly and out of place. While the ballads are kept to a minimum, some of their less accomplished material could have been replaced with some of their '70s work from Tuna Fish or even REO. Tracks like "Live It Up" and "One Too Many Girlfriends" represent their late-'80s disappointments in The Earth, a Small Man, His Dog, and a Chicken and Life As We Know It, sounding a wee bit uninspired.

Despite being designed specifically for the US market, The Collector's Series, Volume One sells over 3 million copies worldwide. It includes several new or rare songs, such as Céline’s previously unreleased performance of The Power of the Dream at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. The album contains 16 songs in five different languages. Two of the songs are in Spanish: Amar Haciendo El Amor and Sola Otra Vez, the latter of which is a breathtaking interpretation of All By Myself. Two are French titles: Pour que tu m’aimes encore and Un garcon pas comme les autres (Ziggy). One is an Anglo-Italian duet: The Prayer with Andrea Bocelli. Another is a Japanese version of Be The Man. And finally the album includes some of Céline’s most beautiful English-language ballads, such as Where Does My Heart Beat Now, Tell Him, Only One Road and Falling Into You.

French pop star (and significant other of Johnny Depp) recorded her English-language debut record in 1991; the self-titled disc was a bit of a flop commercially, but, surprisingly, succeeds artistically. Producer Lenny Kravitz gives Vanessa Paradis some of his best songs and she really can carry a tune with her breathy little-girl vocals. The highlights of the record are many, but the songs that will have you smiling like a fool at the sheer poptasticness of it all are the gliding funk with orchestra of "Natural High;" the strutting girl group of "Be My Baby;" the sweet-as-sugar sunshine pop of "Sunday Mondays;" the psych-soul of "Your Love Has Got a Handle on My Mind" (which features Paradis' most assured vocal and a nice background assist from Kravitz); and the sweet soul of "Just as Long as You Are There."

Robbie Robertson was once asked why he waited 11 years after the breakup of the Band to release a solo project, and he replied, "I wasn't so sure I had something to say." One can hear a bit of this thinking in Robertson's self-titled solo debut; it's obvious that he didn't care to revisit the country- and blues-flavored roots rock that had been his bread and butter with the Band, and at the same time Robertson seemed determined to make an album that had something important to say, and could stand alongside his legendary earlier work…

The mellow soft rock magic and universal pop sensibilities of Bread's timeless sound have never sounded better than on Rhino's Definitive Collection, the most comprehensive 2-disc retrospective of their hugely popular work ever assembled. Elegantly crafted and effortlessly melodic, Bread's signature sound was powered by the songwriting finesse and soulful vocals of David Gates. This new compilation offers 30 delicious slices of musical artistry from one of the biggest acts of the 70's.

There is no doubt that as we approach the new millenium Rod Stewart is one of the most famous names in the pop firmament, and has been so for 30 years. What many forget is that Rod Stewart wasn't always a superstar, and that he had to pay his dues before archieving stardom. This album collects a number of those early recordings from the period during the early Seventies when Rod Stewart was not internationally know and takes us through to the time when he truly became a superstar.

…Famous Last Words… was the last album that Roger Hodgson made with Supertramp before seeking a solo career, and he made sure that radio would take kindly to his last hurrah with the band. Sporting an airy and overly bright pop sheen, …Famous Last Words… put two singles on the charts, with the poignant "My Kind of Lady" peaking at number 31 and the effervescent smile of "It's Raining Again" going to number 11. The album itself went Top Ten both in the U.S. and in the U.K., eventually going gold in America. The songs are purposely tailored for Top 40 radio, delicately textured and built around overly bland and urbane choruses. Hodgson's abundance of romantically inclined poetry and love song fluff replaces the lyrical keenness that Supertramp had produced in the past, and the instrumental proficiency that they once mastered has vanished.

It’s been a long 16 years since Bon Jovi was last compiled, when Cross Road arrived for the holiday season of 1994, two years after Keep the Faith capped off a near-decade long run of dominance for the Jersey rockers. As it turned out, it was the first act of Bon Jovi’s career. A subdued second act followed in the ‘90s, with Jon Bon Jovi flirting with a solo career once again before returning to the fold late in the decade, with the band setting out for a decade of professionalism, sometimes cresting into the charts – usually with the assist of a canny country crossover – sometimes not. Greatest Hits condenses the highlights of this journey in a mere 16 songs, just two longer than Cross Road – its simultaneously released cousin, Ultimate Greatest Hits, adds a disc with 12 additional songs – and two of those are new tunes that are unlikely to show up on any subsequent best of.

On his third album, Jackson Browne returned to the themes of his debut record (love, loss, identity, apocalypse) and, amazingly, delved even deeper into them. "For a Dancer," a meditation on death like the first album's "Song for Adam," is a more eloquent eulogy; "Farther On" extends the "moving on" point of "Looking Into You"; "Before the Deluge" is a glimpse beyond the apocalypse evoked on "My Opening Farewell" and the second album's "For Everyman." If Browne had seemed to question everything in his first records, here he even questioned himself. "For me some words come easy, but I know that they don't mean that much," he sang on the opening track, "Late for the Sky," and added in "Farther On," "I'm not sure what I'm trying to say." Yet his seeming uncertainty and self-doubt reflected the size and complexity of the problems he was addressing in these songs, and few had ever explored such territory, much less mapped it so well. "The Late Show," the album's thematic center, doubted but ultimately affirmed the nature of relationships, while by the end, "After the Deluge," if "only a few survived," the human race continued nonetheless. It was a lot to put into a pop music album, but Browne stretched the limits of what could be found in what he called "the beauty in songs," just as Bob Dylan had a decade before.