Like any patchy but promising debut from a classic rock group, it's often easy to underrate Queen's eponymous 1973 debut, since it has no more than one well-known anthem and plays more like a collection of ideas than a cohesive album. But what ideas! Almost every one of Queen's signatures are already present, from Freddie Mercury's operatic harmonies to Brian May's rich, orchestral guitar overdubs and the suite-like structures of "Great King Rat." That rich, florid feel could be characterized as glam, but even in these early days that appellation didn't quite fit Queen, since they were at once too heavy and arty to be glam and – ironically enough, considering their legendary excess – they were hardly trashy enough to be glam.

Released in 1970, Van Morrison's Moondance was a hit commercially and critically. Encouraged by his manager, Morrison and a sextet – including three players from the Moondance sessions – hit the studio and delivered His Band & the Street Choir in time for that year's holiday season. Morrison responded to the pressure by relaxing into it. The feel here is loose, often celebratory. He digs deep into his long-held fascination with the New Orleans R&B tradition for inspiration. "Domino" is his highest charting single.

The story of this posthumous album is that the high-quality demo tape did not please their new label that had started promoting the group in a different manner than the band was heading in another. So the band could not record it and broke-up. These 5- tracks demo tapes reappeared in the 94 4-record box-set and they were later released under the ten-working title Avalon. Were added three tracks from their early stages and another three from a reunion concert in 99.
These demo tapes can actually show how much a great album this would've been had it been allowed to be properly recorded. Actually, the demos are fine enough to be released on their own as a full-fledged album (since RZ was always proud of its rough and raw sound)…

The British band Fantasy released two albums in the early '70s of predominantly pastoral progressive rock. Originally called FireQueen, the group was comprised of Paul Lawrence (vocals, guitar), David Metcalfe (keyboards), and Dave Read (bass). Their first album was Paint a Picture (1973), a mellow and imaginative collection of song-based material that featured a heavy use of acoustic guitars, Hammond organs, and pianos. In 1974, the band recorded Beyond the Beyond, which was not released until 1992. The album saw the group expanding their sound into more quintessential progressive material while remaining true to the pastoral sound of their debut.

The follow-up to 1975's Use Your Imagination, It's Better Than Working caught Mud continuing to pursue the twin directions laid out by their most recent hits – one eye on a distinctly Showaddywaddy-shaped brand of rock & roll revivalism, and the other firmly grasping the soft rock softball that had served former stablemates Smokey so well. Neither was it an altogether desultory decision – "Night on the Tiles" handed the band one more in the long sequence of hit singles that had sustained them since 1973, while a taste of Mud's eye for the unusual was delivered by an unlikely cover of Alex Harvey's "Vambo Rools." "Beating Round the Bush" and the amusingly titled "Blagging Boogie Blues," too, captured more than a soupçon of the quartet's early endearing goofiness, rendering It's Better Than Working a stronger album than might have been expected – even if it still can't hold a candle to a decent, career-length hits collection.

A sort of a sequel to Gatemouth's 1974 Cajun country & western cowboy album Down South in the Bayou Country, the originally issued Bogalusa Boogie Man consists of 12 tracks performed in more or less that same vein. "Bogalusa Boogie Man" was recorded in Bogalusa, LA, during March of 1975, almost exactly one year after Bayou Country. Material for this project was composed by Danny Morrison, Red Lane, Hoyt Garrick, David Craig, Jerry Hubbard, Pat Rush, Fred Martin, and Little Feat founder Lowell George, whose "Dixie Chicken" features "vocals by everyone around in the studio, including friends and neighbors and the one and only Woody Lee Lewis." George is said to have singled out this version as his all-time favorite.

Shamal is the sixth studio album by the progressive rock band Gong, released by Virgin Records in February 1976. The album was written and recorded without the group's founder member Daevid Allen, and consequently sounds different, with fewer of the hippie-flavoured eccentricities of the previous albums. Also, guitarist Steve Hillage and synth player/vocalist Miquette Giraudy left the band before recording began and only appeared on it as guests. The album was produced by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason.

Digitally remastered edition of this classic solo release from the Deep Purple member. The new artwork includes liner notes exclusively written by Roger Glover. The Gemini Suite was first performed in September 1970 at the Royal Festival Hall and was recorded the following year at the Abbey Road and de Lane Lea studios as the first solo project of Jon Lord. It is a six piece classic-rock fusion work inspired by the members of Deep Purple and was recorded with the London Symphonic Orchestra conducted by Oscar winner Malcolm Arnold and is featuring the guest musicians Albert Lee, Yvonne Elliman, Tony Ashton as well as the two other Deep Purple member Ian Paice and Roger Glover.

Fated never to rise to any heights at all, Hard Stuff – formed by guitarist John Du Cann following his unceremonious firing from Atomic Rooster – had already been through two names before they were signed to Deep Purple's Purple label; Daemon lasted a few rehearsals; Bullet survived a single; they became Hard Stuff after another Bullet fired a legal complaint at them, and Bulletproof was their riposte. It is heavy and it is loud. Period reviews mused on the Purple influence and they are not far from the mark, but only if organ were excised from the mix, to be replaced by guitars, guitars, and more guitars.