Falco was the most internationally successful pop artist ever to come out of Austria, best known for his 1986 chart-topping hit "Rock Me Amadeus." Born Johann Holzel in Vienna on February 19, 1957, he was a classically trained child prodigy, but after graduating from the Vienna Conservatoire, he relocated to West Berlin and began fronting a jazz-rock band…

Passport To Romance (1956). Come aboard the S.S. Percy Faith for a simulated cruise to the romantic and exotic sites of Europe via Passport to Romance and its 12 orchestral pop instrumentals. Faith, our musical tour guide, leads us through the bright, enticing scenery of the Old World, pointing out tourist attractions with one hand while conducting his orchestra with the other. You'll see the "Heart of Paris," see "The Portuguese Washerwomen" at work, and enjoy a fine "Madeira." Passport to Romance was Faith's first charting album, and made use of the extended format to create a theme of travel in music, which later became a hallmark of 101 Strings albums. Faith's orchestrations are cheerful and varied, evoking sunny days and happy times; the music conjures film images of cafés, gondola rides, and tango dancers…

Lindsey Buckingham hadn't recorded a studio album with Fleetwood Mac in 16 years when Say You Will was released in April 2003. His partner, Stevie Nicks, had been missing in action from the group since 1990, and while both joined the reunited group in 1997 for a tour and live album (The Dance), not to mention Bill Clinton's 1993 inauguration, it had been a long, long time since the two made new music for the Mac…

In 1970 members Linda Rothwell (vocals), Malcolm Grundy (guitar), Joseph Rosbotham (woodwinds), John Williamson (bass), Eric Eastman (drums, percussion) released their debut and only album self titled. Scouring the web is nigh impossible for finding information on this band, suffice to say if you like Traffic, Gravy Train or even early Greenslade then Goliath's lighter jazz infected crossover progressive sounds may well work for you. From the UK.

This rather memorable Pablo recording, his only album as a leader for Norman Granz's label (although he made several notable appearances as a sideman), features the great jazz harmonica player Toots Thielemans in a sparse trio with guitarist Joe Pass and bassist Niels Pedersen. The four main numbers ("Blues in the Closet," "Thriving on a Riff," "Autumn Leaves," and "Someday My Prince Will Come") are pure bebop, and Thielemans' solo guitar rendition of "The Mooche" is also a highlight.

The Hamburg-based electronic act are best remembered for their huge international hit, ‘Das Boot’, a techno treatment of Klaus Doldinger’s 1981 film theme, which crept into the UK Top 20 in the summer of 1992.
Originally released in 1991, ‘Das Boot’ single was number one in Germany (and other European countries) for several weeks. Their follow-up single, ‘I Wanna Be A Kennedy’, which borrowed heavily from Visage’s ‘Fade To Grey’, was another huge European hit.
U96’s debut album was largely built around the success of ‘Das Boot’, bookended with two versions of the hit track, as well as an attendant third single, ‘Der Kommandant’. The follow-up album, Replugged, released in 1993, was a far more diverse collection, featuring a wider range of electronic and ambient sounds.

The great writer Stendhal wrote of Il viaggio a Reims that “this opera is a feast”. The plot is a contemporary farce tailor-made for a particular occasion—the coronation festivities of Charles X—though Rossini valued the music so highly that he reused at great part of the score three years later in the opera Le Comte Ory. With a cast of ten principal and eight smaller rôles, this sparkling work is heard complete for the first time and in accordance with the critical edition prepared by the Fondazione Rossini and Casa Ricordi.

On 1978: The Year The UK Turned Day-Glo, we investigate the sounds of 1978 as the original punk template fractured into a dazzling day-glo riot of sub-genres: new wave, post-punk, proto-Oi, power-pop, punk poets, the mod revival, ska-punk, synth-oriented electronic/industrial music and a whole load of additional noises that, over forty years later, have still to be classified by the fifth estate, the fourth column or even the Third Reich. We document various regional scenes, paying close attention to the likes of Manchester, Scotland and, in particular, Northern Ireland, where the arrival of punk was a life-affirming relief from the horrors of everyday life. From household names (The Jam, The Stranglers, The Cure, Public Image Ltd) to groups who barely progressed beyond their own bedrooms, major label careerists to DIY enthusiasts, one-off mavericks (led by the blessed Jilted John) to songs specifically crafted as hit singles, every aspect of a vibrant, multi-faceted scene is represented on our marathon four-hour, 79-track anthology.

On Paint This Town, Old Crow Medicine Show offer a riveting glimpse into American mythology and the wildly colourful characters who populate it. Co-produced by Old Crow Medicine Show and Matt Ross-Spang the album pays homage to everyone from Elvis Presley to Eudora Welty while shedding a bright light on the darker aspects of the country’s legacy. Fueled by Old Crow's freewheeling collision of Americana, old-time music, folk, and rock & roll, Paint This Town turns razor-sharp commentary into rapturous sing-alongs.

In 2011, Mavis Staples stepped into Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock, New York (better known as The Barn) for a Midnight Ramble performance that would end up being her last with Helm, who died the following year. That performance will become public with the release of ‘Carry Me Home,’ a recording of that performance that represents some of Helm’s final recordings before his death.

In this imaginatively shaped and sensitively played album – her third for ECM - Russian pianist Anna Gourari explores musical connections and influences extending across the arts. Three suites of contemporary music are heard here. Alfred Schnittke’s Five Aphorisms (1990) draw impulses from the poetry of his friend Joseph Brodsky. Rodion Shchedrin’s Diary - Seven Pieces (2002) dedicated to Gourari and inspired by her playing, reflects the life of a pianist and composer. Wolfgang Rihm’s sequence of tombeaux, Zwiesprache (1999) pays tribute to musicologists Alfred Schlee and Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, conductor Paul Sacher, and art sociologist Hermann Wiesler. Threaded between the cycles are two Giya Kancheli miniatures drawn from theatre and movie music, as well as Arvo Pärt’s early tintinnabuli-style Variations for the Healing of Arinuschka (1977). Gourari’s investigation of artistic affinities is framed with Bach’s transcriptions of Venetian composers Antonio Vivaldi and Alessandro Marcello: “Anna Gourari makes these Bach slow movements, too, ours,” Paul Griffiths writes in the liner notes. “And the newer music is cherished and invigorated.”

The set that made Cray a pop star, despite its enduring blues base. Cray's smoldering stance on "Smoking Gun" and "Right Next Door" rendered him the first sex symbol to emerge from the blues field in decades, but it was his innovative expansion of the genre itself that makes this album a genuine 1980s classic. "Nothing but a Woman" boasts an irresistible groove pushed by the Memphis Horns and some metaphorically inspired lyrics, while "I Wonder" and "Guess I Showed Her" sizzle with sensuality.