Though born in New Jersey, smooth soul diva Madeline Bell enjoyed her greatest success in the United Kingdom (where she began living in 1963), and her first album, 1967's Bell's a Poppin', is a thoroughly enjoyable example of British pop record-making at its most poised and professional. Bell had a world-class voice and sang supper-club soul in the manner of Dionne Warwick and Dusty Springfield (the latter of whom was a friend of Bell's and often used her as a backing vocalist); those looking for Southern soul grit will be disappointed, but Bell's a Poppin' is a marvelous example of the British equivalent of Brill Building pop. The arrangements are clever and sophisticated, the musicians are spot-on throughout, producer John Franz adds just the right amount of polish without rubbing away the personality of the music, and Bell's vocals tell a story just beautifully, boasting smarts and understated passion while maintaining a firm sense of control and balance throughout.

"Into the night" is the final part of a trilogy by Poland's own Satellite, the previous parts being "A Street Between Sunrise And Sunset" (2003, the band's first album) and "Evening Games" (2005). Originally intended as a solo project by Collage's Wojtek Szadkowski, the band have rapidly evolved into one of the finest protagonists of neo-prog currently recording. Jarek Michalski takes over on bass, but the line up is otherwise unchanged. Jarek's bass playing is notable throughout the album, adding an underlying depth to the sound. The music here will appeal not just to those who enjoy the melodic power of bands such as Arena and Porcupine Tree, but also to those who favour the classic prog bands such as Yes and Pink Floyd.

Growing out of the American underground of the late '80s, Liz Phair fused lo-fi indie rock production techniques with the sensibility and structure of classic singer/songwriters. Exile in Guyville, her gold-selling debut album, was enthusiastically praised upon its 1993 release, and spawned a rash of imitators during the following years, particularly American female singer/songwriters. For her part, Phair wasn't able to fully break into the mainstream, even with the support of the press and MTV. Whip-Smart, her second album, was heavily promoted upon its 1994 release, yet despite its relatively strong chart positions, it was viewed as a disappointment, and Phair's momentum declined steadily during the mid-'90s, as she took several years to record her third album. Collection includes: Exile in Guyville (1993); Whip-Smart (1994); Liz Phair (2003).

With Kempe at the helm we can be assured of elevated and noble performances. The BBC Legends issue captures him in two concerts given four months apart. The February 1976 concert was given at the Royal Festival Hall and gives us not unexpected fare – Berg – and decidedly unusual repertoire for Kempe in the form of Tippett’s Concerto for Double String Orchestra. This positively crackles with rhythmic energy and dynamism, the strings responding with admirable precision and unanimity of attack. The result is a performance of real standing and a precious surviving example of Kempe’s small repertoire of British works.

The seemingly bottomless record collection of Nick Saloman from the Bevis Frond has spawned the third in an ongoing series of albums collecting obscure instrumental tracks from the '60s and '70s, and while many of these songs support the popular notion that the hipper and more interesting rock artists of the day were fond of vocal numbers, there are some fun and exciting tunes to be found on this set. Roaring Blue draws its title from the lead-off track, a swinging dance tune by the Sound of Jimmy Nicol, featuring the drummer who briefly replaced an ailing Ringo Starr during a tour in 1964 (this may explain why Nicol's drums are so far up in the mix), while members of the long-running U.K. pop band Blue Mink appear on the track "Beat Party" under the pseudonym the Underground, and John McLaughlin adds guitar licks to "Trans-Love Airways" by Big Jim Sullivan.

Collection includes all studio albums by American rock duo: The White Stripes (1999); De Stijl (2000); White Blood Cells (2001); Elephant (2003); Get Behind Me Satan (2005); Icky Thump (2007).

The Essential Cheap Trick is the fourth compilation album by Cheap Trick, and part of Sony BMG's The Essential series. It contains at least one song from every album up to Special One (including Silver), except the commercial failure The Doctor. A reissue in 2010 described as version 3.0 added a 3rd disc with seven additional songs.

Drawing inspiration from late-'60s psychedelia and mid-'90s pop underground acts like Matthew Sweet, Australia's Lovetones formed in the early 2000s with Matthew J. Tow, Matthew Sigley, Serge Luca, and Chris Cobb.

"Bricolage," a French word meaning to assemble something from available materials, is such a perfect term for the art of the remix that it's surprising no one has ever used it before. It's less surprising that Ryuichi Sakamoto, whose work has always had a cool Continental flair despite the artist's Japanese roots, would choose such an elegant term for his swish remix collection. Focusing on reworks of material from 2005's back-to-the-roots electro-pop experiment Chasm, Bricolages features a cross-cultural and cross-generational batch of remixers including Cornelius, whose playful sense of pastiche is to current hipster Japanese pop what Sakamoto's Yellow Magic Orchestra was a quarter-century before; his take on the spoken word cut-up "War & Peace" is considerably lighter and groovier than Aoki Takamasa's tense, austere version. Former Japan drummer Steve Jansen, whose collaboration with Sakamoto goes back to the early '80s, contributes the skittering "Break With," bridging the gap between new wave disco and contemporary IDM.

Come On Die Young (also known as CODY), is the second full-length studio album by the Scottish post-rock band Mogwai, released on 29 March 1999 by Chemikal Underground. Songs for Come On Die Young were written by the band members at home or together in the rehearsal room. Wanting a sparser sound, Mogwai drew influences from Seventeen Seconds by The Cure and Spiderland by Slint as well as Low, Nick Drake and The For Carnation. The songs "Christmas Steps" and "Ex-Cowboy" had been played live by the band during the tour for Mogwai Young Team. The album was recorded in three weeks at Tarbox Road Studios in Cassadaga, New York with producer Dave Fridmann and was the first Mogwai recording to feature multi-instrumentalist Barry Burns.

Nick Saloman of the Bevis Frond once again invites us to join him in the obscure pleasures of little-known pop, R&B, and jazz instrumental sides of the '60s and '70s with this collection. A number of the selections featured on Return of the Instro-Hipsters are so obscure that even Saloman isn't sure just who is responsible for them (though he offers some educated guesses on the artists behind such names as Sharks, Oliver Bone, and the Masked Phantom), but there are a good share of solid grooves and kicky melodies to be found here from a number of gifted little-knowns. If you went to the movies in the '70s, "Soul Thing" by Tony Newman will sound familiar, while flautist Harold McNair solos over a Dave Brubeck-influenced piano groove on "The Hipster," Jerry Allen demonstrates new uses for game calls on "Fuzzy Duck," Thunder Road's synthesized version of "Peter Gunn" beats Art of Noise's variation on the theme by more than 15 years, "The Brooke Bond Beat" by Cliff Adams may be the most swingin' tea commercial ever, and the Outer Limits serve up some tough, moody rock, appropriately titled "Black Boots".

UK three CD collection. This release charts the birth of synthesized pop music in the 1980s and ultimately the roots of contemporary electronic dance music. The importance and continued popularity of '80s pop is not to be underestimated, and the emergence of serious synthesized music producers in Kraftwerk, The Human League, Heaven 17, OMD, Yazoo, Ultravox, Talk Talk, Japan, Devo, Sparks, Gary Numan, New Order and the Pet Shop Boys, all of whom massively pushed the boundaries in experimenting with (mainly) Roland synths in this era, ultimately showed the way for the House and Techno producers of the '90s to the present day. Within this more serious side there was also some brilliant, pure Synthpop from the Thompson Twins, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Thomas Dolby, Simple Minds, Propaganda, Erasure, China Crisis, Belouis Some, the Lotus Eaters, a Flock of Seagulls, Howard Jones, Blancmange and the Associates.

Tied to a significant new exhibition at Tate Britain, a killer collection surveying Black Soundsystem culture’s indelible influence on UK over successive generations from the ’70s to the ’00s.

If you wish to judge a man by the company he keeps, then look no further than the Hall of Fame that is the listing above, a roll call of the good and the great musicians that enrich Fame's music. If the The Whole World's Shaking collection of Columbia recordings captured Fame the young R&B Mod God, then Survival signposts the later material which found Fame calling on a classic line-up of Brit and American jazzers. The public profile may not have been so high, but the music has grown all the richer. Two of the six CDs here cover the years 1991 to 2015 and feature top bands, Brit (notably with Guy Barker) and US, in full flow. Likewise, Fame's voice, if not as elastic as before, finds him able to narrate a lyric as few can (check out what he does with Fran Landesman's lyrics to ‘Eros Hotel’). It also finds him as the carrier of the flame: where once he was a young tyro, now he is putting listeners in touch with Mose Allison, Ray Charles and Ben Sidran, keeping the heritage live with songs like ‘Mose Knows’ and ‘Flamingo All Nighter’. There's a wadge of unreleased material, with the most notable plums appearing on the fourth disc, a whole unreleased live at the Lyceum set featuring an incandescent Alan Skidmore. Throw in an intelligent interview with Paolo Hewitt and handsome packaging and your Fame collection should now be complete.

An apparently harmless phrase can hide something altogether darker. That quote neatly sums up Triosk’s second album The Headlight Serenade. Brilliantly recorded by the young Australian trio, the album’s crystal clarity makes it sound like it’s floating on air. Triosk’s inventiveness and enthusiasm to rethink musical boundaries makes The Headlight Serenade a striking, living work. Rarely is such cerebral music so engaging.