Islands is the seventh studio album by the Canadian-American rock group the Band. Released in 1977 to mixed reviews, it is the final studio album from the group's original lineup. Primarily composed of previously unreleased songs from the Band's career (including their 1976 cover of "Georgia on My Mind", which was recorded to aid Jimmy Carter in his presidential bid), Islands was released to fulfill the group's contract with Capitol Records, so that the soundtrack to their film The Last Waltz could be released on Warner Bros. Records. In the CD liner notes, Robbie Robertson compares the album to the Who's Odds & Sods.

Recorded in New York with Tommy Tucker, Lowdown Back Porch Blues is Louisiana Red's first album and, in many ways, it's his best. Supported by a bare-bones rhythm section, Red plays a number or traditional tunes and originals. His guitar is nearly as powerful and overwhelming as his vocals, making this a truly compelling listen.

Swan Lake was the first of Tchaikovsky's three great ballets– works which added a new level of depth and sophistication to what had been a purely superficial art form. Today the music is so well-known and popular that it's impossible to comprehend the difficulties the composer experienced at early performances. Audiences found the music "too symphonic," and the dancers were put off by the prominence given to the orchestra which, they felt, distracted ballet fans from the action on stage. Of course, all of these supposed "defects" are precisely what we admire about the music today, and this elegant but exciting performance reveals the music in all of its glory.

The title Redemption carries a bit of weight, suggesting Joe Bonamassa is seeking salvation in something – either he's grappling with an inner torment or finding refuge in his music, but these two things aren't mutually exclusive. Certainly, Redemption teems with images of loss and regret, with Bonamassa admitting he suffered "Self-Inflicted Wounds" that left him to "Pick Up the Pieces" before he finally realizes "I've Got Some Mind Over What Matters" and discovers he's "Stronger Now in Broken Places." All those songs arrive in that chronological order, suggesting Redemption is something of a song cycle, but Bonamassa's thematic control isn't what's impressive about the album.

Tina Live in Europe is the first live album by Tina Turner, released on Capitol Records in 1988. The album is compiled of live performances made between 1985 and 1987, the majority of which are from Turner's Break Every Rule World Tour but also from the 1985 Private Dancer Tour, as well as the 1986 Tina Turner: Break Every Rule HBO special recorded in London at the Camden Palace (now Koko), masquerading as Le Club Zero in Paris, also released on video. The double album reached #8 in the UK Albums Chart. In 1989 the album won a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. The double CD version of Tina Live in Europe includes four bonus songs not featured on the original double vinyl album.

Doom legends Paradise Lost continue to churn out albums of high quality and The Plague Within delivers the goods. They meld their signature Doom Metal with their more angry, Death Metal stylings. They open the album with the very melodic "No Hope In Sight" and follow it up with a much more aggressive cut "Terminal". The album definitely gets more and more old school as it goes along integrating guttural vocals to the aggression. Other highlights include "Punishment Through Time", the blistering "Flesh From Bone" and "Cry Out". Another solid album from the prolific Paradise Lost.

Emboldened by the enthusiastic response to the muted Nothing Like the Sun and reeling from the loss of his parents, Sting constructed The Soul Cages as a hushed mediation on mortality, loss, grief, and father/son relationships (the album is dedicated, in part, to his father; its predecessor was dedicated to his mother). Using the same basic band as Nothing Like the Sun, the album has the same supple, luxurious tone, stretching out leisurely over nine tracks, almost all of them layered mid-tempo tunes (the exception being grinding guitars of the title track). Within this setting, Sting hits a few remarkable peaks, such as the elegant waltz "Mad About You" and "All This Time," a deceptively skipping pop tune that hides a moving tribute to his father.

Though it was considered a disappointment upon its release (indeed, its production was much too sleek at times, and it lacked the creative daring of Perfect Strangers), 1987's House of Blue Light has actually stood the test of time just as well, if not better, than its predecessor. The second effort from the re-formed Mark II lineup, this album showed Deep Purple searching for an '80s-flavored hit single, and by doing so, sounding uncomfortably similar to guitarist Ritchie Blackmore's other band, Rainbow. Virtually all of the record's first half suffers from this (especially "Unwritten Law" and "Bad Attitude"), but things improve with the Eastern-flavored melodies of "The Spanish Archer" and "Strange Ways."

The second album by Jefferson Airplane, Surrealistic Pillow was a groundbreaking piece of folk-rock-based psychedelia, and it hit like a shot heard round the world; where the later efforts from bands like the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and especially, the Charlatans, were initially not too much more than cult successes, Surrealistic Pillow rode the pop charts for most of 1967, soaring into that rarefied Top Five region occupied by the likes of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and so on, to which few American rock acts apart from the Byrds had been able to lay claim since 1964. And decades later the album still comes off as strong as any of those artists' best work.

Eddie Condon's second LP for Columbia (and his first not to be shared with another band) is a side of Columbia's jazz output that's appreciated too little today - the label may not always have recorded enough, or enough of its artists the right way doing the right repertory, but with Condon they got it right. The goal here was to capture Condon and his band jamming as they might at his club, with various friends joining in, working in the optimized setting of Columbia's 30th Street Studio in Manhattan. Peanuts Hucko (clarinet), Lou McGarity (trombone), Bud Freeman (tenor sax), Dick Cary (alto horn), and Billy Butterfield (trumpet) were the guests on the two sets of sessions held one week apart. Of the five resulting numbers, the 13-minute "How Come You Do Me Like You Do" is the highlight, with a killer horn solo by Cary and beautiful solos by Cutty Cutshall, McGarity, and Freeman as well…

Riding on the success of their hit single "Hocus Pocus" from the revolutionary Moving Waves album, Focus got to work on this, their third LP in four years. While the debut album featured a style not too dissimilar to the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Focus' second LP, Moving Waves, was purely instrumental and wholly serious-minded. Focus III kept this same sound, but approached it with a jollier, more accessible tone. As with its predecessor, Focus III featured only one tune that would have a chance of being a hit single. The enjoyable rhythm of "Sylvia," partnered with Jan Akkerman's victorious guitar solo, some of Van Leer's finest organ work, Bert Ruiter's tight basslines, and Pierre Van Der Linden's mellow drumming, assured the track classic status…

B.T.O. Live – Japan Tour is a live album containing live recordings from a 1976 Bachman–Turner Overdrive Japan tour concert. This album was only issued in Japan and Canada. It was officially released on CD by Lemon Recordings in the UK in 2012. Bachman–Turner Overdrive, often abbreviated as BTO, is a Canadian rock group from Winnipeg, Manitoba, that had a series of hit albums and singles in the 1970s, selling over 7 million albums in that decade alone. Their 1970s catalogue included five Top 40 albums and six US Top 40 singles (eleven in Canada).