If Closing Time, Tom Waits' debut album, consisted of love songs set in a late-night world of bars and neon signs, its follow-up, The Heart of Saturday Night, largely dispenses with the romance in favor of poetic depictions of the same setting. On "Diamonds on My Windshield" and "The Ghosts of Saturday Night," Waits doesn't even sing, instead reciting his verse rhythmically against bass and drums like a Beat hipster. Musically, the album contains the same mixture of folk, blues, and jazz as its predecessor, with producer Bones Howe occasionally bringing in an orchestra to underscore the loping melodies. Waits' songs are sometimes sketchier in addition to being more impersonal, but "(Looking For) The Heart of Saturday Night" and "Semi Suite" are the equal of anything on Closing Time…

Mud's debut album is one of those records that truly sums up a time and a place – in this instance, England in 1974, as glam rock flirted increasingly gregariously with a similarly ongoing rock & roll revival. It was a period, after all, in which Bill Haley returned to the Top 20, Showaddywaddy was threatening to dominate it, and Mud itself had been launching some remarkably convincing Elvis impersonations into the upper echelons of the chart. Mud's producers and songwriters, Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, certainly encouraged their charges' retro pretensions, conceiving both Mud Rock and its successor, Mud Rock, Vol. 2, as all-out party albums, with the band the greatest jukebox in the land.

Tropea (1975). By the time guitarist John Tropea had recorded his solo debut on the tiny Marlin imprint in 1975, he had been a session guitarist for nearly a decade. His understated, decidedly non-show-off playing graced records by everyone from Laura Nyro to Deodato (including Prelude and Deodato 2), from Ashford & Simpson to Bo Diddley, from Billy Cobham to Peter Allen, from Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway to Paul Simon, Van Morrison, Luiz Bonfá, and Ray Bryant. After this he played with everyone from Alice Cooper to Lalo Schifrin and Kurtis Blow and way, way beyond. Tropea's cast of studio players is a who's who of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. The core band on this funky, squeaky clean, keyboard, horn, and guitar driven set are bassist Will Lee, keyboardist Don Grolnick, percussionist Rubens Bassini, and drummers Steve Gadd and Rick Marotta - one in each channel…