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Review: ***B-STOCK: Box slightly damaged, slight surface marks, otherwise in perfect working order***


The 1971 classic album by Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell, Blue is widely thought by many music lovers to be one of the best albums of all time. Already well into her career by the time of its release - it's her fourth album - it was certainly Mitchell's best yet, reflecting a period in her life where she took a break from touring and live performing to focus on creation. Its confessional and poetic lyrics, not to mention the distinctively groggy yet idyllic guitar and piano playing on songs like 'All I Want', 'River', 'A Case Of You', heard Mitchell encapsulate the various milestones, Renaissances and turning points of the contemporary rock landscape of the 1970s, into a singular LP.

Review: A new special edition of The Beatles' Revolver comes courtesy of Apple, the original label on which the fab four released some of their most seminal works. Featuring a new mix and master by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, this version contains yet another 100-page book with a foreword by Paul McCartney and an unlikely essay by Questlove of The Roots.

Review: This is real catnip for hardcore fans of The Beatles (is there any other kind)? It is a long awaited, much talked about, often delayed 50th anniversary edition of the Liverpool band's Let It Be album. It is a super special package on 180-gram, half-speed vinyl across four different slabs. There is also a a 45rpm 12-inch vinyl EP as well as a large 105-page book in its own tasty die-cut slipcase. There are 57 tracks in all, all of which are in new stern mix format thanks to some great work by Giles Martin and Sam Okell. What else is there to say other than make suer you cop this true collector's masterpiece?

Review: John Mellencamp's 1985 album Scarecrow gets a fearsome remixing, remastering and reissuing. It's the LP responsible for such hits as 'Rock In The USA', 'Small Town' and 'Lonely Ol' Night', and was widely plugged as one of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. With Mellencamp crooning away in a lamentatory fashion, he mourns the death of the American dream in the face of corporate greed, harkening back to a time hardly any of us new music listeners now know; when country and rock music weren't just consumable slices of entertainment.

Review: RECOMMENDED
Black Sabbath are one of those bands that, even if you think you've heard it all, will almost certainly have a vault of music sitting somewhere untouched. Their legacy is so significant, and covers so many decades, many of which preceded these un-inspiringly organised and archived music years, there's going to be forgotten recordings in half the UK's rock 'n' roll pubs that are still standing, and that's just for starters.

Here, ten of those overlooked, dust-covered, neglected and rejected dark metal adventures are collected into one bumper, super-collector's item. Even a quick play through proves that this record deserves to exist, whether the tracks are new to you or not these versions are nothing short of epic. More so, though, the collection shows Sabbath were not just prolific, but achingly talented and absolutely impossible to countenance. Ever. Riffs for days, energy for weeks, and innovation for all time, although we probably didn't need to point that out.

Review: Where do you start with Carole King? From her reign as the most successful female songwriter in the UK album charts from 1962 to 2005, a staggering achievement for any foreigner, to the New York-born artist's claim of charting 118 Billboard Hot 100 tracks in the US at the time of writing, some of which were written during her tenure as a scribe at the Big Apple's Brill Building, often cited as the centre of the American pop industry during the latter half of the 20th Century.

Focusing on her own work, though, and by 2022 we've had no less than 25 full length releases from King, with Tapestry her second, and without question one of her finest hours. Songs like '(You Make Me Feel) Like a Natural Woman', and 'You've Got A Friend' remain timeless examples of what timeless pop music sounded like in decades when tracks regularly had a shelf-life well beyond a year or two.

Review: Whatever your Motely Crue needs are, you will find them in this new box. The splattered vinyl fix disc box set takes in their smash hit and multi-platinum selling studio albums Dr Feelgood, Too Fast For Love, Girls, Girls, Girls, Shout At The Devil and Theatre of Pain and all the many standout tunes from those long players which were all recorded between 1981 and 1989 which is a rather spectacular feat, not just to record that much music but for it all to be so well received amongst fans and critics. A great reminder of a great band and an ultimate collector's piece.

Review: American singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen is about as big a music star as there could possible be. It all began in January 1973 when the legendary rocker dropped his debut album, Greetings from Asbury Park, NJ which is now back in print in several different formats as a "hybrid" remastered version that brings together both regular and "super audio" versions. It's a still superb album that laid out The Boss's sonic vision and was noted by Rolling Stone critic Lester Bangs for being dexterous and on point socially. Bluesy rockers, semi-acoustic treats, funky workouts and plenty more all feature on this limited edition 180 gram audiophile vinyl.

Review: British rock sensation U2 deliver 'Songs Of Surrender', which compiles the best of the band's most well-known songs, which were re-recorded and reinterpreted during the pandemic lockdowns of 2020. Hits include 'With Or Without You', 'Pride', 'Bad' and 'Stories For Boys', making this a deluxe retrospective for any U2 fan champing at the bit for new material.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Torn inner sleeve, otherwise in excellent working condition***


Amused To Death is the third studio album from Roger Waters outside of his work in Pink Floyd. As one of the fundamental creative forces in the prog behemoth, of course it's hard to separate his solo work from that most famous of bands, but this is indeed its own beast. At times it's an experimental space in which Waters uses space and minimalism to great effect, creating a foreboding sound peppered with speech samples and field recordings. There are of course plenty of more straightforward tracks too, like lead single 'What God Wants, Part 1'. This lavish issue of the 1992 album spreads the music out across four discs and comes in a box set format, a must-have for devoted Floyd and Waters collectors.

Review: If you type ELO into Google today the first suggestion is Elon Musk. Sure, he might have cracked, to some extent at least, the mass-marketed electric car, and all the best to him in the space race. Nevertheless, it's disputable whether or not he was ever quite the visionary Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood, and Bev Bevan were in the early-mid-1970s. The undisputed heyday of Electric Light Orchestra, fourth album Eldorado was arguably at the peak of their creative force. Already having firmly established their sound - a surreal hybrid of bar rock, soul, blues, and grand strings - this record really sees them explore the possibilities of that abstract brew. Better yet, ears were open enough at the time to ensure they didn't languish in obscurity, sole reserve of the obsessives or deliberately contrary listeners, and instead claimed a spot in the upper echelons of British pop at the time.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Record has light surface marks/scratches, otherwise in excellent working condition***


Amused To Death is the third studio album from Roger Waters outside of his work in Pink Floyd. As one of the fundamental creative forces in the prog behemoth, of course it's hard to separate his solo work from that most famous of bands, but this is indeed its own beast. At times it's an experimental space in which Waters uses space and minimalism to great effect, creating a foreboding sound peppered with speech samples and field recordings. There are of course plenty of more straightforward tracks too, like lead single 'What God Wants, Part 1'. This lavish issue of the 1992 album spreads the music out across four discs and comes in a box set format, a must-have for devoted Floyd and Waters collectors.

Review: Given anyone over the age of 35 grew up with copies of Queen: Greatest Hits Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 in the house, you could be forgiven for asking if we need another retrospective of the iconic English rock band. Not least as there's also a Greatest Hits Vol.3, which many don't realise due to the success of the preceding two and how long the third took to materialise after the tragic death of lead singer Freddie Mercury.

Perhaps riding on the shirttails of the Platinum Jubilee of another monarchical figure, The Platinum Collection arrives and, on the face of it, does little that's not been done before. Don't Stop Me Now, Bicycle Race, Bohemian Rhapsody, Under Pressure, Flash - all the usual suspects are here. Keep reading, though, and you realise just how much else is here. Pretty much every great Queen track, plus stacks of post-Mercury singles and cover versions with all ranging from George Michael to Wyclef Jean. What's not to like?

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight box damage, otherwise in perfect condition***


A new special edition of The Beatles' Revolver comes courtesy of Apple, the original label on which the fab four released some of their most seminal works. Featuring a new mix and master by Giles Martin and Sam Okell, this version contains yet another 100-page book with a foreword by Paul McCartney and an unlikely essay by Questlove of The Roots.