The Veronica Top 1000 is a well-known music chart in the Netherlands, featuring the most popular songs as determined by listeners and music experts.

Chris Isaak's debut album, Silvertone, named after his three-piece backup group, sets the pattern for his subsequent albums in its meticulously constructed retro sound. Isaak enters a time machine and emerges around 1960, when Roy Orbison is ruling the charts with his melodramatic ballads and Elvis Presley has just returned from the Army. Of course, what passed for a style 25 years before is in Isaak's hands stylization, and when he wails in an Orbison falsetto of romantic desperation, then does a flat, Presley-like recitation in the album-closing "Western Stars," it all seems over the top. But he is just about sincere enough to pull it off, and James Calvin Wilsey is a strong enough guitarist to keep the arrangements on track. So, to the extent that you can resist the "Is this guy kidding?" impression, the music is appealing.

"… the SACDs definitely offer a clearer view into the music. You also get a better sense of the group harmonies, with a clearer sense of the other three members of the group’s vocal contributions … To my ears, this is the best these albums have ever sounded, so if you are an early Frampton fan, these will really make you smile. "

The Iconic Swan records label is covered by this comprehensive collection of 100 tracks highlight the importance of this much loved label ,.artists included are Dicky Doo and the Don ts , Billy and Lillie , Freddy Cannon , The Tams , Danny and the Juniors and many more .

Pop, rock, and R&B hits are given a 60s makeover on this collection. Throwbackthursday 60s features popular tunes.

"OZ Days Live was originally released in 1973 as a private press two-disc set, packaged in a brown paper bag with its album title hand-stamped in rainbow-colored ink. The self-distributed record was made to commemorate the closure of OZ, the now-legendary venue located in the Kichijoji neighborhood of Tokyo. Operating out of a small upstairs space just around the corner from the train station, OZ was a scruffy, DIY affair that lasted not much more than a year. Over the course of its short existence from June 1972 to September 1973, the cafe and performance space became the nerve center for the city’s burgeoning underground and counterculture set. Now, 50 years after OZ first opened its doors, OZ Days Live ‘72-’73 Kichijoji: The 50th Anniversary Collection, is a reconfigured special edition of the original LP. Available as a 3CD set, the new collection includes all the tracks from Les Rallizes Dénudés’ The OZ Tapes, plus bonus tracks from the same sessions that were first released in 2022 on a limited edition 12”. The set also includes newly remastered versions of the Masato Minami and Miyako Ochi tracks from the original release, plus over 40 minutes of previously unreleased OZ recordings from Acid Seven, newly unearthed from reel-to-reel tapes that had been stored away for half a century by OZ manager Minoru Tezuka. A newly written 100-page oral history, compiled from hours of interviews, provides first-hand accounts of what made the OZ scene so special."

Three CD set. Four-hour compilation of the pioneering 60s/early 70s Australian independent Clarion label. A smorgasbord of driving R&B, sunshine pop, studio psychedelia and progressive rock recorded in Perth, Western Australia. Based in the Western Australian city of Perth, teenager Martin Clarke was working at a local radio station when he converted a spare bedroom into a makeshift recording studio. That modest early venture evolved into Martin Clarke Recording Studios, which opened in 1962 to become Perth's first professional recording facility. By the time the studio purchased a four-track in 1966, Clarke had launched the Clarion label, working with a constant stream of solo singers and beat/R&B groups.

Although he shared the same rockabilly roots as Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison went on to pioneer an entirely different brand of country/pop-based rock & roll in the early '60s. What he lacked in charisma and photogenic looks, Orbison made up for in spades with his quavering operatic voice and melodramatic narratives of unrequited love and yearning. In the process, he established rock & roll archetypes of the underdog and the hopelessly romantic loser. These were not only amplified by peers such as Del Shannon and Gene Pitney, but also influenced future generations of roots rockers such as Bruce Springsteen and Chris Isaak, as well as modern country stars the Mavericks.

John Fogerty pulled himself out of the game sometime after his 1976 album Hoodoo failed to materialize and he sat on the bench for a full decade, returning in the thick of the Reagan era with Centerfield in 1985. For as knowingly nostalgic as Centerfield is, deliberately mining from Fogerty’s childhood memories and consciously referencing his older tunes, the album is steeped in the mid-‘80s, propelled too often by electronic drums – the title track has a particularly egregious use of synthesized handclaps – occasionally colored by synths and always relying on the wide-open production that characterized the ‘80s…plus, there’s no denying that this is the work of a middle-aged baby boomer, romanticizing TV, rockabilly, baseball, and rock & roll girls. Since Fogerty always romanticized a past he never lived, these sepia tones suit him but it also helps that he’s written a clutch of terrific songs…

This one-man extravaganza finds John Fogerty plowing the same ground he worked with Creedence Clearwater Revival. This mix of originals and rock & roll classics finds him in fine voice, with the familiar vocal scream and hot guitars augmented in places by saxophones reminiscent of CCR's "Travelin' Band." Several of these songs rank with the top tier of Fogerty's Creedence material, particularly "The Wall," "Almost Saturday Night," and the anthemic "Rockin' All Over the World." He also delivers satisfying versions of Jackie Wilson's "Lonely Teardrops" and Frankie Ford's "Sea Cruise" (written by Huey "Piano" Smith). The closer, "Flyin' Away," could have come off the Doobie Brothers' Toulouse Street. This underappreciated album is worth checking out.

The Essential Bruce Springsteen is a compilation album by Bruce Springsteen, released on 11 November 2003. Per liner notes comments by Springsteen, the collection was intended as an introduction to his music for new fans who attended shows on The Rising Tour; hence, it includes songs from every Springsteen album since his debut. The album was available as a 2-disc set and, later, as a limited edition 3-disc set; for the latter, the third disc contained a selection of rarities and previously unreleased recordings.

Import only two-disc collection for the instrumental quartet from the 60's, originally Cliff Richard's backing band, features 36 tracks. It is time now to come down to earth after considering the discs masterminded by Rob Bradford (Shadsfax 46). Here we have 17 A-singles, 6 B-singles, a solitary EP track, 12 from albums (three in mono, for no good reason I can think of): a haphazard selection reminiscent of the kind of compilations marketed with tiresome regularity by Disky in particular.
On the plus side though you get a 10-page booklet with five pages of group history (which peters out midway through the 1970s, even though some of the tracks on offer here were later) courtesy of Martin Hutchinson; and this Theme For Young Lovers has the lead guitar in the right channel (located left on its first stereo release) but does not have a mismastered double note at the beginning (see previous review): the first time that EMI UK has got this one right since 1990. The set is presumably targeted at those attending the concerts (or who have been put in mind of the group again by all the publicity) who don’t want a big box set, or hit albums they have seen in various guises before.

Albums are all fine and well, but if you really want to know what made a band tick during the first half of the 1960s, you need to listen to the singles. It was singles, after all, that consumed the lion's share of the market - singles by which a band's fame and acclaim were judged, and singles by which their star rose and fell.

Released in 2004. Featuring: Queen, Elton John, Abba, Bee Gees and Many More! EMI. 2004.

Sun Records Originals: 52 Rare Roots of Rock & Roll" is a new album released by Sun Records in 2024. This compilation features a collection of 52 tracks that highlight the foundational sounds of rock & roll, showcasing a variety of rare and influential songs from the early days of the genre. The album includes contributions from several pioneering artists who helped shape rock & roll's early sound.