Thin Lizzy found their trademark twin-guitar sound on 1975's Fighting, but it was on its 1976 successor, Jailbreak, where the band truly took flight. Unlike the leap between Night Life and Fighting, there is not a great distance between Jailbreak and its predecessor. If anything, the album was more of a culmination of everything that came before, as Phil Lynott hit a peak as a songwriter just as guitarists Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson pioneered an intertwined, dual-lead guitar interplay that was one of the most distinctive sounds of '70s rock, and one of the most influential. Lynott no longer let Gorham and Robertson contribute individual songs -- they co-wrote, but had no individual credits -- which helps tighten up the album, giving it a cohesive personality, namely Lynott's rough rebel with a heart of a poet. Lynott loves turning the commonplace into legend -- or bringing myth into the modern world, as he does on "Cowboy Song" or, to a lesser extent, "Romeo and the Lonely Girl" -- and this myth-making is married to an exceptional eye for details; when the boys are back in town, they don't just come back to a local bar, they're down at Dino's, picking up girls and driving the old men crazy. This gives his lovingly florid songs, crammed with specifics and overflowing with life, a universality that's hammered home by the vicious, primal, and precise attack of the band. Thin Lizzy is tough as rhino skin and as brutal as bandits, but it's leavened by Lynott's light touch as a singer, which is almost seductive in its croon. This gives Jailbreak a dimension of richness that sustains, but there's such kinetic energy to the band that it still sounds immediate no matter how many times it's played. Either one would make it a classic, but both qualities in one record makes it a truly exceptional album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Bon Jovi had perfected a formula for hard pop/rock by the time of New Jersey, concentrating on singalong choruses sung over and over again, frequently by a rough, extensively overdubbed chorus, producing an effect not unlike what these songs sounded like in the arenas and stadiums where they were most often heard. The lyrics had that typical pop twist -- although they nominally expressed romantic commitment, sentiments such as "Lay Your Hands on Me" and "I'll Be There for You" worked equally well as a means for the band and its audience to reaffirm their affection for each other. The only thing that marred the perfection of this communion was Jon Bon Jovi's continuing obsession with a certain predecessor from his home state; at times, he seemed to be trying to re-create Born to Run using cheaper materials.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Though it remains the only Rolling Stones outtakes collection album ever to be officially released, Metamorphosis is one of those albums that has been slighted by almost everyone who has touched it, a problem that lies in its genesis. While both the Stones and former manager Allen Klein agreed that some form of archive release was necessary, if only to stem the then-ongoing flow of bootlegs, they could not agree how to present it. Of the two, the band's own version of the album, compiled by Bill Wyman, probably came closest to the fan's ideal, cherrypicking the vaults for some of the more legendary outtakes and oddities for a bird's-eye view of the entire band's creative brilliance. Klein, on the other hand, chose to approach the issue from the songwriting point-of-view, focusing on the wealth of demos for songs that Jagger/Richards gave away (usually to artists being produced by Andrew Oldham) and which, therefore, frequently featured more session men than Rolling Stones. Both approaches had their virtues, but when Klein's version of the album became the one that got the green light, of course fans and collectors bemoaned the non-availability of the other. The fact is, if Wyman's selection had been released, then everyone would have been crying out for Klein's. Sometimes, you just can't win. So, rather than wring your hands over what you don't receive, you should celebrate what you do. A heavily orchestrated version of "Out of Time," with Jagger accompanying the backing track that would later give Chris Farlowe a U.K. number one hit, opens the show; a loose-limbed "Memo From Turner," recorded with Al Kooper, closes it. No complaints there, then. The real meat, however, lies in between times. During 1964-1965, Mick Jagger and Andrew Oldham headed a session team that also included the likes of arrangers Art Greenslade and Mike Leander, guitarist Jimmy Page, pianist Nicky Hopkins, bassist John Paul Jones, and many more, convened to cut demos for the plethora of songs then being churned out by Jagger and Keith Richards. Some would subsequently be redone by the Stones themselves; others, however, would be used as backing tracks for other artist's versions of the songs. Metamorphosis pulls a number of tracks from this latter grouping, and while "Each and Every Day of the Year" (covered by Bobby Jameson), "I'd Much Rather Be With the Boys" (the Toggery Five), "Some Things Just Stick in Your Mind" (Vashti), "Sleepy City" (the Mighty Avengers), and "We're Wasting Time" (Jimmy Tarbuck) may not be Stones performances per se, they are certainly Stones songs and, for the most part, as strong as any of the band originals included on the group's first four or five LPs. Elsewhere, the 1964 Chess studio outtake "Don't Lie to Me" is as fine a Chuck Berry cover as the Stones ever mustered, while "Family," the rocking "Jiving Sister Fanny," Bill Wyman's "Downtown Suzie," and a delightfully lackadaisical version of Stevie Wonder's "I Don't Know Why" are outtakes from two of the Stones' finest-ever albums, Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed. All of which adds up to an impressive pedigree, whatever the circumstances behind the album, and whatever else could have been included on it. Indeed, if there are any criticisms to be made, it is that the album sleeve itself is singularly uninformative, and the contents are seriously jumbled. But those are its only sins. Everything else you've heard about it is simply wishful (or otherwise) thinking. © Dave Thompson /TiVo

Since officially calling it quits in 1996, the Pogues have periodically resurfaced for the occasional tour, but with zero chatter about ever entering the recording studio again. Recorded in 2012 at the legendary Olympia theater in France, The Pogues in Paris may be as close as fans will ever get to hearing anything new from the group (as in current renditions of old favorites), and it's surprisingly sound, considering the group's unholy reputation. What's even more remarkable than arriving on time to their 30th anniversary show is the fact that they did it with Shane MacGowan in tow, who sounds fiery, feisty, and half sober, especially on the venerable folk-punk rockers' older material like "Streams of Whiskey," "Star of the County Down," "Sally MacLennane," and "Boys from the County Hell," spitting out each lyric with cocksure tenacity, despite his obvious lack of teeth. Featuring the classic, full band lineup of MacGowan, Spider Stacy, Jem Finer, James Fearnley, Andrew Ranken, Phillip Chevron, Terry Woods, and Darryl Hunt, along with a brass section and Finer's daughter Ella, who elegantly assumes the late Kirsty MacColl's role in "Fairytale of New York," the 21st century Pogues sound a lot like the 20th century version, albeit a little heavier on the piss than the vinegar. They sound genuinely happy to be playing together and you can tell by the rowdy crowd's near constant singing along that the feeling is mutual.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

Academy Award winning composer Jerry Goldsmith is in peak form with this 2001 Telarc release. The Film Music of Jerry Goldsmith, with Goldsmith conducting the London Symphony Orchestra runs the gamut of his 250 scores for film and television. This recording features works that span over almost five decades. The highlights of this recording are the two separate medleys, one from Goldsmith's motion picture work and one of from his television work; the "Motion Picture Medley", which is blended craftily together as a sort of trip through the forty years of film music. The "Medley for Television Themes" is equally diverse as it features works from his television program work. The high point of this recording is Goldsmith's breathy reading of his "Theme from Rudy, with the London Symphony Orchestra performing it excellently. The "Theme from Rudy is superbly done and comes off sounding more like a work of John Barry or one of Ralph Vaughn-Williams works for string orchestra, with it's plush strings and atmospheric consonance. This disc was expertly recorded using the Direct Digital Stream or DSD technology, whereby the music never leaves the digital domain adding quality and clarity to the over-all performance and the dynamic of the performance. Goldsmith, with the help of the finely tuned London Symphony Orchestra has created a resume of career highlights, and a recording that is spontaneously alive without being sentimental or overly self-indulgent. The Film Music of Jerry Goldsmith is a finely tuned recording, but many of these pieces are much more enjoyable in their respective films and television programs. Film music serves a bit of utilitarian purpose, guiding the plot and the script through, with this in mind the "Theme from Rudy" is really the only stand-alone masterpiece on this disc, but the other works are excellent.© TiVo

A film placing Midler in The Andrews Sisters' milieu of WWII was an inspired choice, and the soundtrack shows her abilities on period material as well as giving her a chance to sing a touching version of The Beatles' "In My Life."© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

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