They came from the mountains of British Columbia with ideas to fill ears with sounds so strange as to entrance the imagination into vivid lucidity. "Moon Phase Compendium" is the compilation of Melodic Energy Commission's first two albums: "Stranger in Mystery", released in 1979 and now a cult classic due to the two Hawkwind alumni that played with the group, and "Migration of the Snails", released in 1980 with the same great response. The original vinyl was selling for $1000 a copy so in 1997 they were re-released in this one classic recording. The band uses rather "Gong-ish" equipment such as "Gas and steam" bass and "hydro-electric" guitar, and bubble synths are featured to create unique spacey trip music with an experimental edge. Less common instruments such as several types of flutes, theremin, tablas, and glockenspiel among others, provide additional musical coloration.

Tibbetts makes metallic folk music for disenfranchised folks. He's an elegant and multifaceted player, his compositions making use of exotic jungle rhythms (courtesy of longtime foil Marc Anderson), jazz-rock signatures, and regal European atmospheres. Tibbetts is one of the more idiosyncratic guitarists of the jazz/rock interface, with an uncanny ability to softly fondle his instrument yet rearrange its vocabulary to resemble nothing less than a sitar or tabla.

Although Eagles Live includes four tracks recorded in the fall of 1976 (thus allowing for the inclusion of departed singer Randy Meisner on "Take It to the Limit"), the bulk of the album comes from the end of the Eagles' 1980 tour, just before they broke up, and it reflects their late concert repertoire, largely drawn from Hotel California and The Long Run. The occasional early song such as "Desperado" and "Take It Easy" turn up, but many of the major hits from the middle of the band's career – "The Best of My Love," "One of These Nights," "Lyin' Eyes" – are missing, replaced by such curiosities as two extended selections from Joe Walsh's solo career, "Life's Been Good" and "All Night Long."

The second Giorgio Moroder collaboration of Sparks' career doesn't have quite the emphasis on Moroder trademarks compared to its predecessor; he has only two songwriting credits here, while the Mael brothers take most of them alone. Still, the breakout single "When I'm with You" and "Just Because You Love Me" have an ineffable disco stomp and the requisite cymbal slaps on the offbeat, while "Noisy Boys" and "Stereo" have an experimental, laddish feel that looks past disco into '80s synth-pop and new romantic. Though disco fans can feel safe with No. 1 in Heaven, those more interested in new wave would be well served to pick up Terminal Jive first.

This is a surprising release from Kenny Burrell, for the veteran guitarist plays half of the selections on acoustic guitar and does a very effective job giving a bossa nova rhythm (à la Laurindo Almeida and Charlie Byrd) to some of the tunes. The set, which also features bassist John Heard, drummer Roy McCurdy, and percussionist Kenneth Nash, is mostly laid-back, although the renditions of Billy Strayhorn's "U.M.M.G." and "Stolen Moments" swing. Best are the more lyrical pieces (such as "My Ship" and an unaccompanied "Lost in the Stars"), which allow Burrell to show off his pretty tone.

The Pacific Northwest-based blues savior's first album in 1980 boded well for his immediate future. Unfurling a sterling vocal delivery equally conversant with blues and soul, Cray offers fine remakes of the Willie Dixon-penned title tune, O.V. Wright's deep soul romp "I'm Gonna Forget About You," and Freddy King's "The Welfare (Turns Its Back on You)," along with his own "Nice as a Fool Can Be" and "That's What I'll Do."

Although glam had long slipped off the radar by 1981, that year found Suzi Quatro releasing one of her finest albums. With Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (the producers behind her biggest hits) at the controls, Quatro and her band craft a series of songs that blend the hard rock power that fueled her glam rock era hits with a new soundscape that tarts up the songs with some ear attracting new wave hooks. The tone is set by the title track, which starts the album with a blast thanks to its effective combination chugging guitar riffs, a stomping beat, and a shout-along chorus that praises the song's tough female heroine. Other hard rocking highlights include "Glad All Over," a cover of the Dave Clark Five classic that uses a backbeat reminiscent of a squad of rolling tanks on its chorus, and "Lipstick," a kiss-off to a cheating lover that pits power chords against bubblegum-styled handclaps to create a beguiling fusion of pop hooks and rock & roll muscle…

G-Force is a 1980 album by the namesake UK-American band led by Gary Moore. Moore was on an American tour with Thin Lizzy and left the band mid-tour. He went to Los Angeles in an attempt to make a solo rock presence. With the opportunity to tour America in support of Van Halen, Moore recruited bassist Tony Newton, vocalist Willie Dee and percussionist Mark Nauseef and the band was formed as G-Force. The tour was a success, and the band supported Whitesnake on their 1980 Ready & Willing trek. However, the band was short lived, only producing the one eponymous album. The album consisted of more conventional hard rock radio oriented music than Moore's previous efforts. Soon after its release, G-Force disbanded and Moore joined with Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake & Palmer fame, on a new venture.

Kenneth Ray "Kenny" Rogers is an American singer-songwriter, actor, record producer, and entrepreneur. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame. Though he has been most successful with country audiences, Rogers has charted more than 120 hit singles across various music genres, topped the country and pop album charts for more than 200 individual weeks in the United States alone and has sold over 100 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He was voted the "Favorite Singer of All-Time" in a 1986 joint poll by readers of both USA Today and People. He has received numerous such awards as the AMAs, Grammys, ACMs and CMAs, as well as a lifetime achievement award for a career spanning six decades in 2003.

This is a piece of musical history. Buddy Guy, simply one of the greatest blues performers there has ever been performing in front of his home audience, his neighbours, friends and fellow musicians in his own club which was very much situated in the Chicago ghetto. It was 1979. The blues had been pronounced dead by the music industry but in the hands of musicians like Buddy and people running little labels, booking clubs and tours under difficult financial situations there was a pretty healthy heartbeat - it's just that no one was paying much attention! It took a few more years but how things changed! These days things seemed to have slipped back somewhat but nowhere near how things were back then. But why did a revival happen' Because stuff like this was happening - Buddy was cooking that night…

This two-fer from the Australian Raven label is a part of a series of Delbert McClinton reissues. All of them come with new liner notes, session photos, and bonus tracks. These two albums, from 1980 and 1981, respectively, represent a renaissance for McClinton of sorts. While he never had a fallow period creatively, The Jealous Kind allowed him a renewed commercial viability even if it was short-lived. Both records were issued by the Muscle Shoals Sound imprint of Capitol Records and were produced by Barry Beckett with the Muscle Shoals rhythm section and horns. While the first disc is centered around diversity in its song choices – by everyone from Larry Henley to Bobby Charles to Van Morrison to Al Green to Jerry Williams – and took radical approaches to reinterpreting the material through soul, blues, funk, rock, and country, the latter chose hard-driving Southern-fried funk and R&B and a relatively close-to-the-vest approach in terms of material – most notably covers of "In the Midnight Hour" and Naomi Neville's "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)".