UMC Vinilo y CD

Review: The Black Crowes put out their immediately classic debut album Shake Your Money Maker back in 1981. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary it gets a special deluxe reissue treatment with audio taken from the original sessions. The new collection features no fewer than five unreleased songs including 'Charming Mess' and some special studio recording covers of Humble Pie's '30 Days In The Hole' and John Lennon's 'Jealous Guy.' Two further, never-before-heard demos also make the cut, all with liner notes by David Fricke.

Review: The brilliantly ironically titled Money For Nothing album from Dire Straits was their great hits album from back in 1998. It came off the back of their hugely success 1985 long player Brotehrs in Arms and featured plenty of tracks from that record as well as the four others before that. 'Sultans of Swing', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Private Investigations' and three of the five singles from 'Brothers in Arms' all feature and this special vinyl edition also has 'Telegraph Road (Live Remix)' which in the past was only issued on CD. 'Portobello Belle (Live)' is here too as a brand new mix.

Review: Kiss' groundbreaking Creatures Of The Night was something of a shocker, as the band had taken a rather bold step in returning to a more heavyweight sound. The risk paid off, with the album becoming an instant classic and spawning no end of deluxe editions, one of which saw over 100 tracks pressed to a single box set. The kind souls over at UMC clearly saw it fit to release the original album as it was; simply nine tracks, from the massive femme fatale that is 'Killer' to the decadent judgment of 'Rock N' Roll Hell'.

Review: You'd be hard pushed to find anyone with a set of ears who doesn't like at least one of The Police's many hits. Sure, Sting is a pretty divisive figure these days but back in his pomp with this crew he was untouchable. The band was known for bring their love of dub and reggae to their catchy indie-pop sounds and it resulted in global tours, a number of chart topping hits and adoration from fans across the planet. All the best tune are here from the squealing 'Roxanne' to the freaky 'Walking on the Moon' via the funky 'Message In A Bottle.' This 30th Anniversary edition is a real bumper across four sides of vinyl.

Review: Recorded at home in Ringo Starr's Roccobella West studio, the former Beatles drummer has drafted a number of long-term partners in crime for his latest release. Those names include Steve Lukather, Linda Perry, Fave Coz, Jose Antonio Rodriguez, and Bruce Sugar, among others. But, ingredients aside, what's the end result actually like?

Well, for one thing, it feels like a record made with camaraderie. The appropriately-titled 'Everyone & Everything' has a definite Fab Four vibe to its outro, requesting that all in earshot get involved in a chorus designed to get everyone and everything singing along. 'Let's Be Friends' takes that atmosphere to the after party, "Ya, ya, ya, ya" vocal hook making the whole thing sound slightly madcap. Meanwhile, closer 'Free Your Soul' invites us into smoother and sexier surrounds via sax and tropical beats.

Review: Stranded is the third album for Roxy Music, and most notably it was the first after Brian Eno had departed. It was also the first album on which Ferry shared songwriting duties with Andy Mackay and Phil Mazanera, and so it captures the band in that moment of transition away from synthesiser sparkle towards a fuller, more rockist sound. The pianos and guitars pile on, creating a more driving sound even on the softer tracks like 'Just Like You', but there's still a thread of the unusual tucked away in every track - that curious magic which made Roxy Music such a vital force in 70s music.

Review: Rather than endlessly reinterpreting what the best of Roxy Music's catalogue truly is, why not just reissue this classic best-of collection from Virgin? Made available on wax for the first time ever, 'The Best Of Roxy Music' contains every hit from 'Love Is The Drug' to 'Angel Eyes', alongside lesser known bits such as 'Over You'. And of course, the band's aristocratic version of John Lennon's 'Jealous Guy' is on there too. Just in time for an anniversary tour, too.

Review: For Your Pleasure was Roxy Music's second album, and the last to feature Brian Eno before he sprang off into his illustrious career in ambient and experimental electronic music. Released in 1973, it found the band able to spend more time in the studio experimenting with their sound, which results in some unique ingredients not found elsewhere in Bryan Ferry's band's legacy. From the surrealist phasing treatment on the end of 'In Every Dream Home A Heartache' to tape loop effects applied elsewhere, it's an adventurous peak of early 70s rock, now lovingly remastered at half-speed for your audiophile pleasure.

Review: The 1982 glam-rock swan song for British rock group Roxy Music sees another limited reissue, a departure from the more edgy and abrasive sounds the group went for prior. The word that people constantly use to describe 'Avalon' is mature, in multiple senses of the word. At its core, the record is sensual and seductive make-out material, a 10 track package pining on romance named after the fantastical romantic gesture of King Arthur's body being sent to the titular island. It's plain to see why 'Avalon' is the band's most acclaimed and influential project, spawning off other New Wave acts like Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and Tears for Fears. 'More Than This', the title track, has stood the test of time and is still playlisted and cited as one of the greatest British New Wave tracks of all time. 'Avalon' is accessible, seductive and, without doubt, a classic.

Review: Roxy Music's fourth and most phase-heavy album 'Country Life' now gets a half-speed reissue by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios, as part of a brand new effort to have every one of their albums repressed in their utmost quality, and repackaged in glossy new covers. Career highlight songs like 'Out Of The Blue', 'Prairie Rose' and 'All I Want Is You' sound better than ever here, doing justice to its comparatively pessimistic sound. It's still got that Bryan Ferry-ish, romantic aristocratic vibe, though!

Review: Every Steely Dan album is a world within itself - part of a broader galaxy of planets that share the same energy source, but ultimately unique and never interchangeable. Can't Buy A Thrill was the very beginning of Donald Fagen and Walter Becker's revered project, fabled for its exacting studio prowess and ruthless commitment to perfection. There's immediacy to the likes of stone-cold pop classics 'Do It Again' and 'Reelin' In The Years', but this is still sublime and subversive music from a band who flew out of the gate fully realised. Now the album has been given a shiny fresh pressing so if you don't own it already, this is the time.

Review: Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, John Cale, Doug Yule, Maureen Tucker and - a little later - Nico broke the mould with their efforts as The Velvet Underground. The Andy Warhol-managed and produced cult rock icons helped lay the foundations for New Wave and punk about a decade before either sound really started to make inroads in any circles, let alone commercial ones. And, listening back to any of their records now, the music itself isn't just a significant bookmark theoretically: it all still sounds incredible today.

Todd Haynes' highly recommendable documentary charts at least some of that story in a commendable way, more so when you consider it arrived around 50 years after the original lineup disbanded. Using interviews with surviving members Cale and Tucker, alongside archive footage, music and other material, it paints a vivid portrait of an equally vivid band. With tracks by them in question, Bo Diddley, The Primitives and The Diablos, this OST helps colour that picture, and era, properly.