Joni Mitchell reached her commercial high point with Court and Spark, a remarkably deft fusion of folk, pop, and jazz which stands as her best-selling work to date. While as unified and insightful as Blue, the album – a concept record exploring the roles of honesty and trust in relationships, romantic and otherwise – moves away from confessional songwriting into evocative character studies: the hit "Free Man in Paris," written about David Geffen, is a not-so-subtle dig at the machinations of the music industry, while "Raised on Robbery" offers an acutely funny look at the predatory environment of the singles bar scene. Much of Court and Spark is devoted to wary love songs: both the title cut and "Help Me," the record's most successful single, carefully measure the risks of romance, while "People's Parties" and "The Same Situation" are fraught with worry and self-doubt (standing in direct opposition to the music, which is smart, smooth, and assured from the first note to the last).

Leon Russell's accolades are monumental in a number of categories, from songwriting (he wrote Joe Cocker's "Delta Lady") to session playing (with the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan, just to name a few) to his solo work. Unfortunately, it's the last category that never really attracted as much attention as it should have, despite a multitude of blues-based gospel recordings and piano-led, Southern-styled rock albums released throughout the 1970s. Leon Russell and the Shelter People is a prime example of Russell's instrumental dexterity and ability to produce some energetic rock & roll. Poignant and expressive tracks such as "Of Thee I Sing," "Home Sweet Oklahoma," and "She Smiles Like a River" all lay claim to Russell's soulful style and are clear-cut examples of the power that he musters through his spirited piano playing and his voice. His Dylan covers are just as strong, especially "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" and "It Takes a Lot to Laugh," while "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" and "It's a Hard Rain Gonna Fall" have him sounding so forceful, they could have been Russell's own.

'Rage Against the Machine' is the debut studio album by Rage Against the Machine. The album was released on November 3, 1992. It went to #1 on the Billboard Heatseekers chart, and #45 on the Billboard 200 chart. In 2001, Q named Rage Against the Machine as one of the 50 Heaviest Albums Of All Time. The album is included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2012, the album was ranked number 365 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

This 1973 recording is a great collection of music from Bread, the popular 1970's band best known for their mellow, smooth, melodic and often mournful tunes. Many of the classic Bread tunes included in this set live on through soft rock stations everywhere. Lead singer David Gates crooned his way into America's heart, and starting with "Make It With You" quickly spun off hits like "Everything I Own," "Diary," "Baby I'm A Want You," "It Don't Matter To Me" and "If." At times, their songs had a more upbeat feel as with "Mother Freedom," but they always retain that same soothing blend of soulful lyrics and gentle music. This album covers all the early hits and more delivered with a deceptively breezy tone by one of pop's purest vocalists. Audio Fidelity reassembled all the original masters of the tracks that appeared on the album release rather than work from the compiled "Best of…" master thus giving the recording a completely fresh, updated sound.

Recorded in Japan in July 1973, this massive, three-LP live album was available outside the United States in 1974 but held back from domestic release in the U.S. It features the same "New Santana Band" that recorded Welcome, and combines that group's jazz and spiritual influences with performances of earlier Latin rock favorites like "Oye Como Va."

Musicmagic is Return to Forever's seventh and final studio album and one of the best jazz recordings released in the fusion genre. The album contains the final line-up of the band with only founders Chick Corea and Stanley Clarke returning from the previous recordings. This 1977 release was the first Return to Forever album in five years to contain vocals, performed here by Corea's future wife Gayle Moran and the surprisingly enjoyable Stanley Clarke. This album also marked the return of original member Joe Farrell on saxophone and flute, along with several new members making up a killer five-piece horn section.

Whether in its original serial form in the 1940s, in the low-budget films of the 1950s, in the television series of the 1960s, or even in the overgrown re-imaginings for blockbuster movies in the 1970s and beyond, the science-fiction genre on film (and videotape) has always had something cheesy about it, and that is part of its appeal. Even when the technical wizards at director George Lucas' Industrial Light and Magic are dreaming up the next Star Wars movie, there is, at heart, a sense of the earliest, silliest versions of the genre still present. In that spirit come Neil Norman's souped-up and synthesized treatments of the various scores for sci-fi films and TV series.

Sometimes, a greatest-hits set is timed perfectly to gather together a group's most successful and familiar performances just at the point when that group has passed the point of their maximum exposure to the public, but before the public memory has had a chance to fade. That was the case when Columbia Records assembled this compilation for release in early 1972. At that point, Blood, Sweat & Tears had released four albums and scored six Top 40 hits, each of which is heard here. But lead singer David Clayton-Thomas had just quit the group, so that the unit that recorded songs like "You've Made Me So Very Happy" was not working together anymore. And even when Clayton-Thomas returned, the band would continue to decline commercially. As such, BS&T's Greatest Hits captures the band's peak in 11 selections–seven singles chart entries, plus two album tracks from the celebrated debut album when Al Kooper helmed the group, and two more from the Grammy-winning multi-platinum second album.

Gorilla served notice to anyone expecting James Taylor to continue on in the personal, confessional vein of his first few albums that he did not intend to do so…

Recorded in early 1975, Tale Spinnin', Weather Report's fifth studio album is filled with sunny textures of Latin and African flavors. During the '60s and early '70s Weather Report began to move towards a more cosmopolitan groove, and a melding of song with jazz in new and refreshing ways. The recording stands with anything recorded during the so-called "jazz-rock fusion" era, if only on the basis of the range of fresh, intriguing originals by the band's co-founders and principle composers, the keyboardist Joe Zawinul and the saxophonist Wayne Shorter. Zawinul's pioneering interest in what we now call world music is more in evidence with the exotic percussion, wordless vocals, and sandy sound effects of "Badia," and his synthesizer sophistication is growing along with the available technology. Wayne Shorter's work on soprano sax is more animated than on their previous albums and Alphonso Johnson puts his melodic bass more to the fore.

Recorded under the auspices of revolutionary reggae producer Lee Perry around 1971-72, this compilation includes early versions of many of the songs that were later to make Bob Marley and the Wailers internationally famous…

Evil Empire is the second studio album by Rage Against the Machine, released on April 16, 1996 by Epic Records, only four years after the band's debut album. The album's title is taken from the phrase "evil empire", which was used by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan and many conservatives in describing the former Soviet Union. Evil Empire debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 chart. The song "Tire Me" won a 1996 Grammy Award for Best Metal Performance. The tracks "Bulls on Parade" and "People of the Sun" were also both nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Hard Rock Performance.

Eddie and the Cruisers is a 1983 American film directed by Martin Davidson based on the novel by P.F. Kluge. The story concerns the mysterious death of a fictional '60s rock star. Though the film received mixed reviews when it first opened in theaters it was rereleased nine months later on cable TV with great success. After screenings on HBO in 1984, the album suddenly climbed the charts, going quadruple platinum. The main song in the film, "On the Dark Side," was the number one song in the country on Billboard's Mainstream, Rock, and Heatseeker charts; and #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Another single from the film, "Tender Years," peaked at #31 on the Billboard Hot 100. John Cafferty was hired to write a few songs for the film based on Davidson’s description of his fictitious band and their music. Initially, he said that the Cruisers sounded like Dion and The Belmonts, but with elements of Jim Morrison and The Doors. The Cruisers were essentially a Jersey bar band, and he thought of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The film needed music that contained elements of these three bands. Cafferty did such a good job of capturing the feeling of the 1960s and 1980s that Davidson asked him to score the entire film. Only Michael "Tunes" Antunes, the tenor saxophone player for the Beaver Brown Band, and Helen Schneider were professional musicians in the cast.

As phenomenally popular as Earth, Wind & Fire was from the mid-'70s to the early '80s, it's easy to forget that the band was hardly an overnight success. With Head to the Sky – EWF's fourth album overall, second with Philip Bailey, and second for Columbia – Maurice White's very spiritual and ambitious brand of soul and funk was starting to pay off commercially. The Latin-influenced "Evil" became the soulsters' biggest hit up to that point, and material ranging from the hauntingly pretty title song (which boasts one of Bailey's finest performances ever) to the jazz fusion gem "Zanzibar" is just as rewarding. The lineup White unveiled with Last Days and Time was working out beautifully; Bailey was clearly proving to be a major asset. Also worth noting is the presence of singer Jessica Cleaves, who left after this album and, several years later, resurfaced in George Clinton's eccentric female group the Brides of Funkenstein.

Nat King Cole's flawless vocals combined with ever so sweet orchestrations and choral backings, provide a collection of standard Christmas carols, hymns and songs that gloriously captures the spirit of the season. Without fireworks, improvisations, catchy rhythms, or unusual variations, Cole sings songs full of love in his relaxed and unpretentious style. The orchestra and chorus under the direction of Ralph Carmichael are used to highlight Cole's vocal interpretations, instead of making their own statements, and the use of bells, bell lyre, flutes, and harp add depth to the background while adding emphasis to the lyrics. The title track, beautifully sung to an accompaniment of piano and strings, has always been Cole's biggest Christmas hit, it has remained a perinnial and is possibly his most widely heard record.