This 1981 recording was the first period-instrument version of Purcell's most famous "semi-opera." This Restoration-era hybrid was a play with a complete (spoken) script plus numerous musical numbers for soloists, chorus, and pit orchestra. The Fairy Queen is based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, although you'd never know it from the music, which has (typically for the genre) no real connection to the plot. (Most of the songs and dances are masques performed for the entertainment of Titania, Oberon, or Hippolytus.) The advantage to this is that Purcell's score can be performed fairly well on its own. The Fairy Queen includes some of Purcell's best-loved comic scenes ("The Drunken Poet" and "Coridon and Mopsa") and songs ("Hark the echoing Air," "Ye gentle spirits," and "Hark how all things in one sound rejoice"–the last sung here by Jennifer Smith, sounding more beautiful than on any recording she's made since).

Lionel Richie's solo career began while he was still in the Commodores, as he wrote and sang (as a duet with Diana Ross) the theme to the Brooke Shields romance Endless Love, which became a bigger hit than any of the group's singles, thereby setting the stage for his departure and his 1982 self-titled solo debut. He wasn't working in unfamiliar territory, or with new musicians. The Commodores decided to work as their own band, so their producer, James Anthony Carmichael, was able to devote his energy to working on Richie's album. Using the pop-crossover ballad style of "Endless Love," "Three Times a Lady," and "Easy" as their template, the duo turned Lionel Richie into a sleek, state-of-the-art record that, at its best, provides some irresistible pop pleasures.

The Broadsword and the Beast is the 14th studio album by Jethro Tull, released on 10 April 1982 and according to Ian Anderson in the liner notes of the remastered CD, contains some of Jethro Tull's best music. It mixes electronic sound, provided by Peter-John Vettese (a characteristic that would be explored further on the next album Under Wraps), with acoustic instruments. The album is a cross between the synthesiser sound of the 1980s and the folk-influenced style that Tull had in the previous decade. The Broadsword and the Beast is one of Steve Hackett's favorite albums.

Tom Petersson left Cheap Trick following the George Martin-produced All Shook Up, and the band was somewhat left in a lurch, recording 1982’s One on One largely without a bassist; eventual replacement Jon Brant is on record and on the cover, but he’s obscured by a picture of Rick Nielsen, possibly because the guitarist handled the bulk of the basslines on the LP. In any case, One on One finds Cheap Trick rebounding from Martin with a slick, punchy, AOR record, hemmed in a bit by stiff sequenced rhythms – you can almost feel Bun E. Carlos straining against the metronome – but sparkling in its analog synths and pumped-up guitars.

Twin Barrels Burning is the twelfth studio album by British rock band Wishbone Ash. It was recorded at Sol Studios and released in 1982. It was the highest charting Wishbone Ash album in years, reaching No. 22 in the UK Albums Chart. Conversely, it was the final album to appear in that listing to date. It is the only Wishbone Ash album to feature Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder, who was a member of the band for three years (1981–83).

Dvořák's two splendidly tuneful serenades are so attractive that you will find the tunes stuck in your head for days afterwards. If this makes you crazy, then you might want to exercise caution before playing them! Each is written for different forces: one for strings, the other for winds (with a single double bass to reinforce the bottom end). The Serenade for Winds is particularly special, being the ultimate example of a form that Czech composers really did better than anyone else. The wind writing has that essential "outdoors" quality, but it's also completely smooth and euphonious. Sir Neville Marriner's band does the music proud. This is one of their best recordings.

Enigmatic, surreal, futuristic and deeply mysterious are the keywords to best describe Zanov’s 3rd album “In Course Of Time”. Legendary French synthesist Zanov, aka Pierre Salkazanov, already started work on this landmark album before his last concert in Villebon (near Paris) in June 1978, followed by some significant changes in 1979.
The tracks of the classic recording ended up on different tapes, the first composition being “Sky Energy”, followed by “Lost message” “Phantasm”, “Infinitude”, and the title track “In course of time”. In the creative process, Zanov made extensive use of the VCS3, ARP2600 & RMI Harmonic Synthesizer (at that time he didn’t yet have the Korg PS3300) and recorded the outcome on the TEAC3340S…

Cream were a 1960s British rock supergroup power trio consisting of bassist/singer Jack Bruce, drummer Ginger Baker, and guitarist/singer Eric Clapton. The band is widely regarded as the world's first successful supergroup. In their career, they sold more than 15 million copies of their albums worldwide. The band made a significant impact on the popular music of the time, and, along with Jimi Hendrix and other notable guitarists and bands, popularised the use of the wah-wah pedal. They provided a heavy yet technically proficient musical theme that foreshadowed and influenced the emergence of British bands such as Led Zeppelin, The Jeff Beck Group, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the late 1960s and the early 1970s.

Returning to his form of several releases ago, John Martyn found good things to convey to the listener here. The classic love song "Never Let Me Go" is worth the price of admission here alone, but the rest of the cuts have something to recommend them also. Too bad Well Kept Secret turned out to be only a lost, rough-cut gem.

Cold Chisel opened the '80s with their most widely accepted and artfully constructed album, East. Following it up was a tall order for the Aussie quintet, but they did the trick admirably with Circus Animals. (A live album, Swingshift, was released in the period between the two studio discs.) A ten-song stew of the band's signature guitar-and-piano-driven ballads and rockers, it further confirmed Chisel's depth and breadth as a creative unit. From the outset of Circus Animals, the boys come crashing in through the window like a bunch of rowdies with hell-raising on their minds, cranking out the guitar rock rottweiler "You Got Nothing I Want." Singer Jimmy Barnes' wrote the song about the frustration of a recently completed U.S. tour that had imploded ingloriously. As he belts out the number, Barnes' voice sounds like a buzz saw blade that's flown loose and ripped through a bunch of parked cars.

Synthesizer-playing composer Didier Marouani is the founding member of the French synth-pop band Space. He was classically trained as a pianist at the Paris Conservatoire, but recorded his first album as a singer in 1975. Space was formed by Marouani in 1977, after he decided to focus more on composition. The group's biggest international success came later that year with the singles "Magic Fly," which hit the U.K.'s Top Ten and, to a lesser extent, "Carry on Turn Me On," both of which appeared on charts in a number of countries. Space toured and recorded for the next few years and continued to make well-received records, although no singles duplicated the success of "Magic Fly." After several albums, a rift occurred in the band; 1980's Deeper Zone, recorded under the name of Space, was actually an album by band members Roland Romanelli and Jannick Top, who took over and kept the band name, but went relatively unnoticed…

Buddy Guy's music has changed a great deal since this album was recorded in Chicago in 1981. It is possible that Guy has never sounded better than this, tearing into some deep indigo blues, letting his guitar wail loud on every cut, and playing with inspiration, especially on the title cut and "Dedication to the Late T-Bone Walker," a track that seems to spring from some place deep within himself. Nor was he the only one on fire at the sessions. Brother Phil Guy shares the guitar work and contributes vocals to both "Garbage Man Blues" and "Mellow Down." The recording makes no attempt to capture a wide audience. This is Buddy Guy playing and feeling the blues, pure and simple, without any sense of compromise - and it's all the better for it, putting much of the rest of his catalog into perspective. Rarely is the blues this heartfelt - and rarer still is it so well played. If this were his only recorded legacy, he'd still warrant the stature he's achieved.

Cliff Dawson was the lead singer for a band called Pleasure House of Detention which then went on to change it’s name to Zenith. They did one Album for CBS. This album Was Cliffs only solo release, it contains the fantastic duet with Renee Diggs of Starpoint - Never Say Do, The song ”I can love you better” that Boardwalk removed to make way for another track “Never Say I Love You” w become Cliff's signature song in Europe, Reissuing this title gave us the chance to coorect what we feel was a mistake, we added back in both the duet with Renee diggs and I Can Love you better, we also took it to another level by getting John Morales to do a reedit of I can love you better and added it as a bonus track.

This album has a good R&B edge to it on the first 4 tracks and then some solid fusion efforts in the vein of other Valentin albums. Worth it purely for the version of Clove and Cinnamon alone as a jazz funk classic!!