This is an excellent 2-CD compilation, totaling 26 tracks, of Gil Scott-Heron's "Glory Years", covering the period from 1974 to 1982. One could nitpick about favorite songs that were left off, but looking over the selection included, it's hard to fault these fine choices. This is prime-time Gil Scott-Heron, one of the music world's true legends.

In 1998, it would have been a cheap joke to say that Mariah Carey had no other kind of hits than ballads, but in the ensuing decade she steadily remade herself into an R&B diva, obscuring if not quite erasing the well-mannered adult contemporary singer of the '90s. The 2009 compilation The Ballads – released just before Valentines Day 2009 – attempts to turn back the clock by focusing just on those AC tunes – 18 of them, in fact, including such mammoth hits as "Hero," "One Sweet Day," "Vision of Love," "I'll Be There," "I Still Believe," "Dreamlover," and "Always Be My Baby."

Is Candy Dulfer a jazz saxophonist with a feel for funk or a funk player with a jazz side to her musical personality? On FUNKED UP, she leans toward the latter. While there is some smooth melodious jazz here, most of this set is geared to paying tribute to old-school funk–Parliament, Funkadelic, James Brown, and the earliest efforts by Kool & the Gang and Rick James. There’s some rapping along with overtones of reggae rhymes and Latin rhythms, but for the most part FUNKED lives up to its title, with Dulfer’s heated sax shining throughout. This special edition of FUNKED UP! also includes a second disc of Candy Dulfer "chill-out" instrumentals.

Under the leadership of vocalist Mick Hucknall – the only member to play in all the many incarnations of the band – Simply Red turned from New Wave soul upstarts into British pop institutions, specializing in immaculately tailored, impeccably polished adult contemporary pop with a soulful accent. While Simply Red were hardly unknown entities in the United States – they reached the top of the Billboard charts twice in the '80s, once with the slow-burning original "Holding Back the Years" and again with a cover of Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes' "If You Don't Know My by Now" – the group dominated adult-oriented music in Britain and Europe from the late '80s into the early 2000s, racking up such blockbuster albums as 1991's Stars, 1995's Life, and 1998's Blue.