Recordings
Best Classic Bands offers smart, informed and unbiased assessments of the latest rock album releases and reissues to offer readers guidance on what sounds they might enjoy.
Ramones’ ‘It’s Alive’ Deluxe Reviewed: Back to Basics
Nobody took rock back to basics more than the Ramones, whose concise, beat-driven tunes hit you over the head with elemental bursts of sound.
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Grateful Dead’s ‘Aoxomoxoa’ @50: Review
Like its predecessors, the 1969 psychedelic classic didn’t sell all that well—it took nearly two decades to go gold—but it has aged nicely.
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Glen Campbell ‘The Legacy’ Box Set Review
He scored no fewer than 20 pop hits in a 10-year period that began in 1967, and, in 1969, he actually outsold the Beatles.
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Van Morrison ‘The Healing Game’ Deluxe: Review
This deluxe edition of ‘The Healing Game’ may lead fans to re-examine what Morrison was up to in the late ’90s. They’re bound to like what they hear.
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Rolling Stones’ ‘Beggars Banquet’ Reissue: Review
The album saw them moving back to basics for an album that relied largely on acoustic blues. There’s not a rotten apple in the bunch.
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Jimi Hendrix ‘Electric Ladyland’ 50th Deluxe: Review
Half a century after its arrival, the last album Hendrix released before his death is the subject of a fittingly major anniversary limited edition.
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The Ramones’ ‘Road to Ruin’ Deluxe Edition: Review
Today, all four of the group’s original members are dead but the music lives on, and it’s a good deal better than many listeners realized in 1978.
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Sam Cooke’s Early Years Collected in 5-CD Set: Review
Cooke’s years at Keen found him taking his first steps away from gospel, including the session that would yield his first smash hit, “You Send Me.”
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Paul Young Live CD/DVD: Exhilarating and Exuberant
His light shone much brighter in Europe than in the U.S., but most of the performances on this set hold up well, and Young’s vocals remain exhilarating.
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NRBQ’s ‘Turn On, Tune In’ Review: Virtually Unclassifiable
Although it’s not their most diverse set, you can tell they are having a lot of fun with this music. You probably would, too.
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