Yuri Temirkanov's Royal Philharmonic recording has been around for a long time; it was recorded in 1986 and has been in the catalog ever since – for good reason. Temirkanov is always sensitive to the exotic nature of these scores, particularly Spartacus, and he brings excitement to the varied colorful dances of both ballets. His recording is more full-bodied than the Bolshoi CD; no under-staffed orchestra here, and their rich sounds have been superbly captured by EMI's engineers.

The title Horse Rotorvator is explained in the liner notes as a device large enough to "plough up the waiting world," created from the bones of the horses of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The Bay City Rollers this isn't. On the group's second full album, Coil continue the refinement of brute noise and creepily serene arrangements into a truly modern psychedelia, from tribal drumming and death march guitars to disturbing samples and marching band samples and back. Balance shares the same haggard, mystic vocal delivery common to fellow explorers of the edge like David Tibet and Edward Ka-Spel, but he has his own blasted and burnt touch to it all. His lyrical subjects range from emotional extremism of many kinds to blunt, often homoerotic imagery (matched at points in the artwork and packaging) and meditations on death…

Press to Play is the sixth solo studio album by English musician Paul McCartney, released in August 1986. It was McCartney's first album of entirely new music since Pipes of Peace in 1983, and his first solo album to be issued internationally by EMI following a six-year alliance with Columbia Records in the United States and Canada. Keen to re-establish himself after his poorly received 1984 musical film Give My Regards to Broad Street, McCartney enlisted producer Hugh Padgham to give the album a contemporary sound. On release, Press to Play received a mixed critical reception and was McCartney's poorest-selling studio album up to that point. Although it failed to make the top 20 in America, the album peaked at number 8 on the UK Albums Chart and achieved gold status from the BPI in September 1986.

This is the first compilation sampling the blues roster of Alligator Records as it existed in its earliest incarnation. These 11 tunes capture several Chicago blues and modern soul-blues artists, including Lonnie Brooks, Koko Taylor, James Cotton, Jimmy Johnson, Hound Dog Taylor, Son Seals, Fenton Robinson, Albert Collins, as well as Johnny Winter, Lonnie Mack, and Roy Buchanan.

Vigilante is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Magnum, released in 1986 on Polydor. Capitalising on the success of On a Storyteller's Night, Magnum changed to a more commercial direction with Vigilante. Produced by David Richards and Queen drummer Roger Taylor, the band's sound stepped towards that of 1980s Queen, with keyboards much higher in the mix than guitar. The album was recorded at Queen's famous Mountain Studios in Montreux.

The debut from ex-Kiss guitar slinger Vinnie Vincent, is, well…hair metal through and through. It's got all the calling cards of a band that spent way too much gig money on Aqua-Net. You get the rockin' riff "I wanna party" tunes, the sleazy song or two ("Shoot You Full of Love"), screams, shreds, and drums galore. The nice thing about this record is that it lacks the obligatory ballad, which may have attracted a larger audience (i.e., girls) and pushed up the sales, but you gotta admire them for stickin' to the rock.

Released in 1978 after London Town gave McCartney another huge hit, Wings Greatest rounds up McCartney's greatest hits from 1971 to 1978 – which means it skips "Maybe I'm Amazed" but touches on Ram. The main strength of this collection is that it contains many hits that never appeared on any album, and these are among McCartney's very best non-Beatle singles: the eccentric domesticity of "Another Day," the choogling rocker "Junior's Farm," the Bond anthem "Live and Let Die," the piledriving "Hi Hi Hi," and "Mull of Kintyre," a Scottish-styled folk ballad that was his biggest hit in England. And yes, it's fair to peg these as McCartney successes, since some of them were billed as McCartney, not Wings, and as such, this record is a great overview of McCartney's first decade of solo recording, containing many of his very best solo tunes.

Billy Ocean was riding atop the charts when he issued this album in '86. The title track contained both a fine arrangement and Ocean's emphatic lead vocal, and was a huge hit. He topped the R&B charts twice that year with both "Love Zone" and "There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)," each of which was also a huge pop smash, the latter topping the pop chart. This was arguably his finest album, and was certainly his most successful.

While not quite as strong as the band's debut, Scoundrel Days is still a-ha succeeding as a marketed "pretty boy" band which can connect musically and lyrically as much as any musical sacred cow. The opening two songs alone make for one of the best one-two opening punches around: the tense edge of the title track, featuring one of Morten Harket's soaring vocals during the chorus and a crisp, pristine punch in the music, and "The Swing of Things," a moody, elegant number with a beautiful synth/guitar arrangement (plus some fine drumming courtesy of studio pro Michael Sturgis) and utterly lovelorn lyrical sentiments that balance on the edge of being overheated without quite going over. Although the rest of the disc never quite hits as high as the opening, it comes close more often than not…

Reduced to a quartet for the most part, with Barry Adamson joining Nick Cave, Blixa Bargeld, Mick Harvey and Thomas Wydler on only a couple of tracks, the Bad Seeds turn from the interpretive triumph of Kicking Against the Pricks to another strong high, the mostly-original Your Funeral…My Trial. The one cover is a sharp, unsurprisingly dramatic version of Tim Rose's "Long Time Man." As for the rest of the album, Trial shows the Seeds working as, again, a remarkably accomplished and varied act, ever available and ready to explore a wide range of musics distilled into Cave's often dark, always passionate vision. Arguably Cave and company have by now so clearly established their overall style that Your Funeral…My Trial is much more a refinement of the past than anything else, but so good is their work that resistance is near impossible. If anything, the brooding power of the Seeds is more restrained than ever, suggesting destructive endings and overwhelming love without directly playing it.

1986's Notorious has Andy Taylor contributing on only four songs before leaving to start his solo career, but on the strength of the title track's number two placing and "Skin Trade"'s number 39 mark, the album itself peaked at number 12 in the U.S. and number 16 in the U.K. On the whole, only "Notorious" showed any real livelihood, thanks to its modern gleam and the catchy stutter of its chorus. "Skin Trade" is almost as worthy, thanks to its sultry, seductive air and enchanting but complex rhythmic allure. While the writing is somewhat stable on Notorious, Duran Duran's efforts at sounding enigmatic and covert end up being hot and cold. Tracks like "American Science" and "Vertigo" try too hard, while only "Meet el Presidente," a number 24 hit in Britain, sports a rather appealing flow. Beneath Duran Duran's attempts at trying to sound musically devious, mysterious, and slightly seductive, the tracks fail to bear enough weight in order to be effective all the way through. It's easy to see why the band would choose such a route at this point in their career, but moderate doses of pop enthusiasm would have made Notorious a fuller and more enjoyable package. The provocative, nightclub brand of martini-sipping pop that does surface is meritorious to a certain extent, felt mostly in the album's two biggest tracks.

The Beaux Arts, late 1980s-style, is recognizably the same creature as it was at the start of the decade, or even two decades ago. The fingers of Menahem Pressler still twinkle away, the violin and cello exchange angst for mischief in volatile and ebullient alternation. The most obvious comparison for their latest release is the identical Dvorak/Mendelssohn coupling of 1980 on Pearl. Then Daniel Guilet was the violinist, and his comparatively small voice and old-style sweetness make their mark: this Dvorak is a small-scale, kid-glove performance, with the gentle acoustic recessing the violin even further and softening the high-spirited Dumka episodes.

The Works is the eleventh studio album by the British rock band Queen, released on 27 February 1984 by EMI Records in the United Kingdom and by Capitol Records in the United States. After the synth-heavy Hot Space (1982), the album saw the re-emergence of Brian May and Roger Taylor's rock sound, while still incorporating the early 80s retro futuristic electronic music (Freddie Mercury) and New York funk scenes (John Deacon). Recorded at the Record Plant Studios in Los Angeles, California and Musicland Studios in Munich, Germany from August 1983 to January 1984, the album's title comes from a comment Taylor made as recording began – "Let's give them the works!"

Stereotomy is the ninth studio album by The Alan Parsons Project, released in 1985. Although sometimes considered better musically than its predecessor, Vulture Culture, it was not as successful commercially, perhaps due to many fewer vocals from Eric Woolfson (he only appears on a small section of the title track). The album is structured differently from earlier Project albums, containing three lengthy tracks - ""Stereotomy" at well over seven minutes, "Light of the World" at well over six minutes, and the instrumental "Where's the Walrus?" running just over seven and a half minutes (making it the longest instrumental the Project ever made) and two minute-long songs at the end.

To hear tenor saxist A.C. Reed bemoan his fate on-stage, one might glean the impression that he truly detests his job. But it's a tongue-in-cheek complaint - Reed's raspy, gutbucket blowing and laid-back vocals belie any sense of boredom. Sax-blowing blues bandleaders are scarce as hen's teeth in Chicago; other than Eddie Shaw, Reed's about all there is. Born in Missouri, young Aaron Corthen (whether he's related to blues legend Jimmy Reed remains hazy, but his laconic vocal drawl certainly mirrors his namesake) grew up in downstate Illinois. A big-band fan, he loved the sound of Paul Bascomb's horn on an obscure Erskine Hawkins 78 he heard tracking on a tavern jukebox so much that he was inspired to pick up a sax himself…