Return to the Centre of the Earth is a studio album by the English keyboardist Rick Wakeman, released on 15 March 1999 on EMI Classics. The album is a sequel to his 1974 concept album Journey to the Centre of the Earth, itself based on the same-titled science fiction novel by Jules Verne. Wakeman wrote a new story of three unnamed travellers who attempt to follow the original journey two hundred years later, including the music which features guest performances from Ozzy Osbourne, Bonnie Tyler, Tony Mitchell, Trevor Rabin, Justin Hayward, and Katrina Leskanich. The story is narrated by Patrick Stewart. Upon release, the album reached number 34 on the UK Albums Chart.

There's a certain relief that this 2009 Rhino reissue of 2002's double-disc set The Very Best of Fleetwood Mac doesn't even attempt to dabble in the early blues work of the Peter Green band, and treats the addition of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks as ground zero. The two eras of the band don't sit well together, and it's best to isolate them, since those who want the hits don't need to hear the blues. Here, it's the prime of the platinum years, with almost all of the big songs in their original hit versions (the one real exception is a live version of "Big Love" from 1997, but most listeners aren't going to be too upset with the substitution).

Not to be confused with the platinum-selling glam metal miscreants active in the late 1980s, the original Skid Row blazed a much overlooked trail some 20 years prior, as one of Ireland's earliest contributors to the hard rock field. Skid Row began to coalesce in Dublin, Ireland in October 1967, around vocalist Philip Lynott, bassist Brendan "Brush" Shiels, drummer Noel Bridgeman, and guitarist Bernard Cheevers, who would be replaced the following January by a 16-year-old prodigy hailing from Belfast, north of the border, named Gary Moore. The quartet threw itself into playing pubs and working men's clubs so as to develop their chops and repertoire, eventually recording a 1969 single for Irish label Songs Records entitled "New Places, Old Faces."

In a sense, Belinda Carlisle's A Woman & a Man is a companion record to her first solo album. It arrived in 1996, ten years after Belinda, and it also functioned as something of a break from the Go-Go's, as it was her first album after the group's mid-'90s reunion. That's not where the similarities end: the title track has some Motown propulsion, Charlotte Caffey comes in to co-write "Kneel at Your Feet," and instead of Tim, Carlisle covers Neil Finn. All these echoes are somewhat buried underneath the studio gloss created by producer David Tickle, a veneer that can get too thick on the ballads but nevertheless is often pleasingly expensive.

Competing nicely with the earlier Time After Time: The Best of Cyndi Lauper, Columbia/Legacy's The Essential Cyndi Lauper features most of the '80s icon's big hits as well as lesser-known album tracks. Considering the inconsistent nature of Lauper's albums, it is nice to find tracks like "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and "True Colors" packaged alongside "Sisters of Avalon" and "Who Let in the Rain." Most Lauper fans will already own these songs, but for casual fans, The Essential Cyndi Lauper will do the trick.

Aside from being legendary multiple Grammy-winning jazzmen on very different instruments, Chick Corea (piano) and Béla Fleck (the world's premier jazz banjo master) have a shared love for collaboration and the infinite improvisational possibilities their chosen idiom offers them. In some ways, the two have been preparing for this masterful, musical dialogue-driven masterpiece for over ten years. Fleck, who has always credited Corea as being one of his chief influences, invited the pianist to play on the Flecktones' Tales from the Acoustic Planet, as well as the group's live CD Live Art.

Having proved his writing credentials with his debut album, Bill Wyman mixed his own compositions with outside material second time around. Issued in February 1976, Stone Alone was Bill Wyman's second solo album. As per usual Bill had worked with a star-studded session band, the contributions this time around including Van Morrison, Joe Walsh, Dr John, Ron Wood, Al Kooper, Nicky Hopkins, and Jim Keltner. Van Morrison added sax to a revival of Gary Bonds' A Quarter To Three, Ron Wood and Joe Walsh played guitar, and Bill Wyman steered his superstar band through a righteous set of bluesy rock'n'roll.

Psychedelic-folk debut from one of the most erudite, literate minds in rock, Thomas D. Rapp (and the first of his ever-changing Swine). Although the songs here lack some cohesion, this is still a stunning piece of work, from the nightmarish sleeve art – the "Hell Panel" from Hieronymus Bosch's 15th century painting "Garden of Delights" – to the strange yet powerful songs. "Another Time," the most memorable selection, is an understated acoustic song, the first that Rapp ever penned, based on his experience in a horrific car crash where he walked away unscathed.

The British group the Parlour Band sounded slightly like a much more mainstream, less art-rock-inclined Yes on their sole LP, 1972's little-known Is a Friend. Several members later played in A Band Called O, also sometimes referred to as O Band. Parlour Band's only LP is progressive rock-tinged mainstream early-'70s British album-oriented rock, competent but no more than that. Both keyboard and guitar parts take a strong role, and there's a bit of the multiple tempo changes and classical-tinged organ burble of bands like Yes in songs like "Forgotten Dreams." Some other songs steer well clear of art rock, though, "Pretty Haired Girl" coming across like prototypical early-'70s mellow California harmony rock.

Although released in 1971, the debut self-titled album by Spirit of John Morgan was actually recorded two years earlier, before the spirit of the '60s dissipated into the excesses of the '70s. But even back in 1969, the British quartet were already fish out of water, gasping for R&B in a Technicolor age of psychedelia. So they created their own, an entire album's worth of strong, shadowed, R&B numbers underlit by magnificent musicianship and powerful rhythms. The set opener, a menacing cover of Graham Bond's "I Want You," is a case in point, stalker-like in its intensity, with John Morgan's organ conjuring up a phantom of the opera from which there is no escape.

This album is Don Airey's debut solo album, released in 1989 and paying tribute to the dramatic 1986 K2 expedition that took the lives of 13 extraordinarily experienced climbers. Featuring beautifully orchestrated keyboard, guitar and drum parts all of which are played by friends from bands from Airey's past: Gary Moore, Cozy Powell and Colin Blunstone on vocals complete this Prog-Rock anthem of an album. 'K2 - Tales of Triumph and Tragedy' is a story told by music; intriguing and breathtaking.

This is the album where Jeff Lynne finally found the sound he'd wanted since co-founding Electric Light Orchestra three years earlier. Up to this point, most of the group's music had been self-contained – Lynne, Richard Tandy, et al., providing whatever was needed, vocally or instrumentally, even if it meant overdubbing their work layer upon layer. Lynne saw the limitations of this process, however, and opted for the presence of an orchestra – it was only 30 pieces, but the result was a much richer musical palette than the group had ever had to work with, and their most ambitious and successful record up to that time. Indeed, Eldorado was strongly reminiscent in some ways of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

A concept album loosely based on man's fascination and allure for war throughout the ages, Daughter of Time contains all the elements required to create a pure progressive rock album. Joining David Greenslade and Chris Farlowe is Louis Cennamo from Renaissance, who plucks away at the bass guitar with a heavy hand. A multitude of instruments combine to create a brilliant melange of music on every one of the eight songs. Vibrant spurts of trombone, trumpet, and flute are driven to the height of each song, which gives way to some implements of jazz fusion.

Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is the seventh studio album by Elton John, released in 1973. It is regarded as one of his best and most popular, in addition to being his first double album. It was recorded at the Château d'Hérouville after problems recording at the intended location of Jamaica. Among the 17 tracks, the album contains the hits "Candle in the Wind", "Bennie and the Jets", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" plus "Funeral for a Friend" and "Harmony". In 2003, the album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. The album was ranked number 91 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time, and number 59 in Channel 4's 2009 list of 100 Greatest Albums. The album has sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.