Gary Moore's tribute to Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green, Blues for Greeny, is more of a showcase for Moore's skills than Green's songwriting. After all, Green was more famous for his technique than his writing. Consequently, Moore uses Green's songs as a starting point, taking them into new territory with his own style. And Moore positively burns throughout Blues for Greeny, tearing off licks with ferocious intensity. If anything, the album proves that Moore is at his best when interpreting other people's material – it easily ranks as one of his finest albums.

Premiata Forneria Marconi (PFM) is an Italian progressive rock band founded in 1970 which continues to the present day. They were the first Italian group to have success internationally. The group recorded five albums with English lyrics between 1973 and 1977. During this period they entered both the British and American charts. They also had several successful European and American tours, playing at the popular Reading Festival in England and on a very popular national television program in the United States. PFM introduced new sounds, such as the synthesizer, to the Italian musical world. They were also among the first to combine symphonic classical and traditional Italian musical influences in a rock music context. Such innovations and their longevity have earned PFM a place among the most important bands in the Progressive rock genre.

Presenting radio with one of the best rock ballads ever, Cornerstone gave Chicago's Styx their big break with the number one single "Babe," which held that spot for two weeks in October of 1979. "Babe" is a smooth, keyboard-pampered love song that finally credited Dennis De Young's textured vocals. While this single helped the album climb all the way to the number two spot on the charts, the rest of the tracks from Cornerstone weren't nearly half as strong. "Why Me" made it to number 26, and both "Lights" and "Boat on the River" implement silky harmonies and welcoming choruses, yet failed to get off the ground.

Magellan's Impending Ascension is a truly great progressive rock work. Following the same formula as the previous Hour of Restoration, Impending Ascension features better, more consistent songwriting and a harder-edged sound. "Estadium Nacional" and "Waterfront Weirdos," both 11-minutes long, get the album off to a great start. They both feature timing and melody changes that have to be heard to be appreciated. Combined with the new, harder-edged sound, it's clear that Magellan has found its niche with this album.

On Buddy Guy's second Silvertone release, he continues the practice of guest appearances begun on Damn Right, I've Got the Blues. In this case, the notables include Paul Rodgers, Travis Tritt, and John Mayall. The finest combination comes when Bonnie Raitt joins Guy on John Hiatt's "Feels Like Rain." Raitt's gritty vocals and sweet slide guitar add a pleasing nuance to the bittersweet track, and it is ultimately the high point of the record. Certain critics and blues purists have derided Guy's search for mainstream success as evidenced by his penchant for guest appearances and non-traditional blues forms, but Guy sounds fantastic in these unconventional situations (witness his burning version of the Moody Blues' "I Go Crazy").

Stay on These Roads is the third studio album by Norwegian band A-ha. It was released on 3 May 1988 by Warner Bros. Records. Six singles were released from the album. A Synclavier, Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, Yamaha DX-7, Roland D-50, and Roland Juno-60 or Roland Juno-106 synthesizers were used in the recording of this album, as was a Yamaha RX-5 drum machine. Stay on These Roads was the band's third studio album. The album's peak on the Billboard 200 was 148. The album was another big hit by A-ha internationally, selling over 4 million copies worldwide. Stay on These Roads achieved Platinum status in Brazil and Gold in the UK, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Germany and Double Platinum status in France.The album reached #2 in the European top-100 albums sales chart.

Roger Waters may not have made an album of new material between 1992 and 2017, but he was very active during that quarter-century. He toured regularly, wrote an opera, reunited Pink Floyd for the 2005 charity concert Live 8, and revived The Wall several times, turning the self-absorbed rock opera into a political piece. Is This the Life We Really Want?, his fourth song cycle, picks up on this thread, functioning as barbed protest music for the age of Brexit and Trump. Waters doesn't disguise his bile – there's a lament for "The Last Refugee" and he spits out "picture a leader with no f****** brains," a clear broadside against Trump – but the album doesn't seethe with rage. With its deliberate tempos, wide soundscapes, operatic guitar solos, and swelling crescendos, it is recognizably a Waters album or, perhaps more accurately, a Floydian one.

Ever since ZZ Top signed with RCA, they fitfully tried to break free of the synthesized blues that once was their savior but quickly became a straitjacket. Like any addict, it was hard for them to quit that processed, sequenced sound cold turkey, so they weaned themselves off the robo-boogie, sometimes relapsing and adding too many synths to mix, other times breaking loose with some credible boogie. Apart from the dreadful misstep of 1999's XXX, they showed signs of life on all their RCA albums, and their fourth, 2003's long-delayed Mescalero, is no exception to the rule. Billy Gibbons' fat guitar tone really has some presence here, at least on some of the album, and there are enough rhythm tracks not performed to a didactic click track to provide some real swing.

King Crimson opened 1970 scarcely in existence as a band, having lost two key members (Ian McDonald and Michael Giles), with a third (Greg Lake) about to leave. Their second album – largely composed of Robert Fripp's songwriting and material salvaged from their stage repertory ("Pictures of a City" and "The Devil's Triangle") – is actually better produced and better sounding than their first. Surprisingly, Fripp's guitar is not the dominant instrument here: The Mellotron, taken over by Fripp after McDonald's departure – and played even better than before – still remains the band's signature. The record doesn't tread enough new ground to precisely rival In the Court of the Crimson King.

Sticky Fingers is the ninth British and eleventh American studio album by the English rock band the Rolling Stones, released 23 April 1971 on their new, and own, label Rolling Stones Records. Sticky Fingers is considered one of the Rolling Stones' best albums. It was the band's first album to reach number one on both the UK albums and US albums charts, and has since achieved triple platinum certification in the US. Songs such as "Brown Sugar," the country ballad "Dead Flowers," "Wild Horses," "Can't You Hear Me Knocking," and "Moonlight Mile" were chart-toppers. The album is inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame and included in Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time list.

Memorial Beach is the fifth album by the Norwegian band A-ha, released in 1993. The album was recorded primarily at Prince's Paisley Park studios outside Minneapolis in the U.S. Memorial Beach featured three UK Top 50 singles for the band, "Move to Memphis" (released as a single in 1991, almost two years before the album), "Dark is the Night" and "Angel in the Snow". While the album did not chart on the U.S. Billboard 200 and would be the band's last to be released there, the single "Dark Is the Night" peaked at #11 on the Billboard Bubbling Under Hot 100 Singles chart, their last U.S. charting to date. Q magazine listed the album as one of the 50 best albums of 1993: "If ever a band deserved reappraisal on the back of an album then it was a-ha!"

Just Testing is the tenth studio album by the British rock band Wishbone Ash, released on 18 January 1980 by MCA Records. Recorded primarily at Surrey Sound Studios in England, it was the last to feature the original lead vocalist and bass guitarist Martin Turner until the release of Nouveau Calls (1987). The track "Helpless" is only the second cover version released by the band on a studio album, the previous one being "Vas Dis" on Pilgrimage.

Red Sea is the second album by English hard rock band Warhorse. The CD reissue has six previously unreleased bonus tracks, including a live version of "Ritual" (a song from the first Warhorse album) and five demos of Nick Simper compositions that do not appear on the two Warhorse LPs. Warhorse were a band formed by former Deep Purple bassist Nick Simper. He had left Deep Purple in 1969 and joined Marsha Hunt's backup band. Not long after, Nick Simper replaced her backing band with Ged Peck on guitar and Mac Poole on drums. While this was going on, Simper would play in an extracurricular band along with Ged and Mac, with singer Ashley Holt.